The 9 Commandments Of Influencer Marketing

Today, I talk about this engaging trend which is growing in scope, ability, and scale with a snowball effect.

In spirit, the deliberation of an influencer campaign, is creating engaging and interactive content for the consumers on behalf of a brand. Indian audiences are watching more online videos than ever before. Nielsen studies show that home-bound consumers have led to a 60% increase in the amount of video content watched globally. Moreover, since COVID hit us, it changed a lot of dynamics on this front.

Simply put, an influencer is someone who can gradually change the purchase decisions or behaviours of buyers in a specific context. On Social Media, these influencers constantly endeavour to build an engaged audience base with the help of content on particular topic.

When the term ‘marketing’ is added as a suffix,  Influencer Marketing becomes a force which has risen from peer influence and customer recommendations vis-a vis other forms of marketing. Social media being à la mode , consumers are vocal about their views regarding brands and products. This is where brands leverage with the realisation that people have been heavily influenced by second-hand information from opinion leaders. The concept essentially is engaging the customers so that they can get much ‘more involved’ with the brand.

If an activity is short form, trust inducing and relevant, it makes customer acquisition much easier. The influencers work on engaging stories so that their followers can relate themselves to the brand and gets drawn towards it.

One gravitating trend that is undeniably is gaining celerity, is the content consumption pattern. The gradual inclination from jpgs and animated gifs towards consumption of more videos than ever, people seem to be liking being updated with influencers’ lives, which creates space for product integrations that can be leveraged by brands. Well established platforms like Reels, YouTube, Facebook coupled with new-age ones like Moj & Triller, are captivating avid video lovers to create and share short-format videos. In fact, live sessions have been engulfed all the more, due to the content relatability and authenticity. Furthermore, audio content such as podcasts are already gaining momentum and we may see it becoming as magnetic as videos, in 2021.

Though in the overall spectrum, there is an improvement area that I see, considering that influencer marketing is a strategy that needs to be included in a larger marketing mix, in order to see success, the concept needs more time and patience. It is mainly the influencers who would drive the whole process and enable an activity with their own respective styles. And, talking about micro or nano influencers, it needs more effort than usual to manage.

So as to sum up, sharing my 9 focal points -

1. Focus on Interesting campaign ideas, rather than just a list of influencers and expected reach.
2. Doing such campaigns in a rush may not make sense without thinking through, hence making time to studying all aspects (be it even for an experiment) is required
3. Quick experiments are important hence before doing a high impact activity, try a smaller one. However, this will also depend on what part of the funnel we are addressing at that point.
4. Driving brand advocacy through genuine users and exploring varied types of influencers from different walks of life is also expected to see good engagement and growth. 
5. Also, partnering with creators on equity deals, incentivising creators to build much deeper, valuable relationships with the brands may be kept in mind.
6. Purely a high follower count may not suffice. Though a high follower count is a subset of an activity, as an enabler, Engagement rate must be a KPI.
7. Keeping one step ahead for being ‘In the Moment’ and breaking through the clutter of burgeoning content by best possible targeting while also identifying the ‘right timing’ for an activity.
8. It has been observed that influencer marketing may even help in boosting the SEO ranking of a website. This is because when influencers talk about your brand, more of their followers would also talk about it resulting in an overall increase in the brand visibility which in turn may boost the SEO rankings.
9. The one trend that I believe will see growth in leaps and bounds in 2021 will be the rise of Micro & Nano influencers. This is mainly due to high engagement, authenticity, low-costs and also because usually, micro and nano influencers have a niche. Many companies used to search for the influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers, however, is changing. Now, one needs to discover an influencer who fits with the brand’s message and policies. If their core values fit with the brand’s target audience, micro and nano influencers become a good tactic for brands.

Ankoor Dasguupta

Guest Author Ankoor Dasguupta is a thought leader, marketer and executive Coach, who has worked across functions in marketing and advertising with a pedigree of 24 years and ongoing exciting journey, with a rare combination experience across the spectrum of media - print, digital, mobile, event productions & successful pilot projects. Worked across functions to spearhead P&Ls. Ankoor has regular columns for active writing on various reputed national and international portals and has close to thirty published interviews, multiple podcasts already published in national, international publications and platforms. He is on multiple national and International Advisory Boards, an extensive speaker at top Business Schools & academia. He has also done his PCC from ICF and is a certified Executive Leadership Coach. Ankoor is a Six Sigma Green Belt, POSH Certified & trained from Dale Carnegie in Mentoring to Develop Talent. Extending beyond academia; Ankoor Dasguupta has been honoured with the "CIRCLE OF EXCELLENCE 2024" award by Passion Vista with magazine Cover Story also and recognized as the "MAN OF EXCELLENCE, 2024" by the prestigious Indian Achievers' Award which is a national level award.