74% of customers trust social networks to guide purchasing decisions. In 2021, when trust is at peak importance, is your influencer marketing strategy delivering the results you need?

Yet again social media is shaking up your marketing mix for 2021. The latest research shows 86% of marketers used influencer marketing in the last 12 months. But with the changing habits and ever-evolving platform diversification we've seen this year in particular, it's more important than ever to consider your influencer marketing strategy.

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Want to plan your influencer marketing strategy for more customer conversions? Segmenting influencers into different types will help you prioritize types of influencers to monitor and interact with. It should be a core approach to support your content marketing, SEO and social media marketing. [si_learning_path_module_shortcode_block id=144502] If you're new to influencer segmentation, take a look at the below practical infographic from Traackr: The Many Faces of Influence -…

PR may seem like a throwback but it can still deliver if combined with new digital tactics

We’re in the midst of a digital revolution, a golden age for tech innovation and disruption in virtually every industry. It's perhaps nowhere near as pronounced as it is in the marketing and advertising spheres. Outbound is out while inbound is in. Direct mail has been replaced by email. Social media has, in many ways, replaced socializing itself. It’s easy to think that 'old' means ineffective and outdated. But that’s a massive oversimplification. [si_guide_block id="44461" title="Download our Free Resource – Email marketing trends 2019" description="In 2019, email marketing remains one the most effective techniques for digital marketers, so keeping up-to-date with the latest trends, best practice techniques, and technologies for email marketing remains extremely important."/] Take public relations, for example. It might seem like a throwback to a different time, but that doesn’t make…

Chart of the Day: A summary of trends in managing influencer marketing activities

2018 has been dubbed the year of Influencer Marketing by many including MarketingLand  and AdWeek who report on research that:

"67 percent of marketers think influencer marketing campaigns helped them reach a more targeted audience, thus leading to more impactful results".

Of course, Influencer marketing isn't new, indeed we first published our Influencer Marketing guide 5 years ago and continue to update it in line with changing practices and increased regulation. We're sharing this research from Linqia since it is a detailed report covering use of influencer marketing which will help marketers compare their approach for managing influencers. This chart features some of the latest trends according to Linqia. It provides a good checklist of tactics you could be considering. Source: State of Influencer marketing 2018 Sample:…

Employee advocacy can give your brand a social media boost

When it comes to brand awareness and audience acquisition, managing a coordinated posse of advocates is essential. You need a viable base of people loyal to your brand who are willing to share your content and post about how awesome your products are. There’s simply no better way, other than advertising, to maximize your brand’s reach on social media.

Sure, niche-relevant influencers and your community of customers are the obvious answers, but your own workforce is a great resource too. Employees are often untapped for advocacy purposes, because without a sound strategy in place, it can feel like you’re asking too much of them, which can cause morale to plummet. However, by developing a company culture that celebrates and rewards ongoing advocacy performance, it’s possible to use content sharing as a potent employee engagement tool…

Chart of the Day: Is your use of influencer marketing mainly campaign-based or continuous or always-on?

Our Managing digital marketing 2017 research report showed that integrating marketing campaign activities remains a major challenge, so it was interesting to see a new report from Traackr reviewing integration of influencer marketing. Their new report specifically considers influencer marketing in one sector, B2B technology, but references this research from a wider sample on the maturity of influencer marketing integration. Similar to our research, it shows that integrated 'always' on programmes are rare, instead it's more common to have campaign-based programmes. It's understandable that much influencer marketing is campaign-based since that makes it easier to manage as part of campaign activities. The report from Mark Schaefer and Evy Wilkins also considers the role of 'micro-influencers' which I'm a strong believer in. The report interviews several tech marketers including Nicole…

Which are the most popular channels for journalists today

For Marketers and PR Professionals, it's important to reach the right media influencers using the right media. Given the huge choice of communication channels available to us across social media, it's useful to know the preferences for channels amongst media professionals. Cision's Social PR Study, using data from the Social Journalism Study 2015 reveals some interesting insight. So should you contact Journalists via phone, email or social media and are your current methods currently effective for contacting the right PR Professionals? The survey reveals that '49% of PR Professionals prefer the phone, compared to 23% of Journalists'

How should you contact Journalists?

PR Professionals are reaching out to Journalists via email and phone, and social media is the third choice for pitching stories (amongst almost half of respondents). So how do Journalists wish to be contacted? More contact via email, phone, social media and 8% would prefer more postal information. …

How to avoid those typical PR blunders

PR, like many parts of digital marketing, can be a numbers game. You try different pitches to different publications and hope that something works. Along the way, you make mistakes and you learn from them. Below, we’ve spelled-out five of the most standard mistakes of PR outreach so you can avoid making them.  Mistake #1: Thinking news will come to you It can be exhausting, but in order to get coverage, you need to seek it out. And today, there are more tools available than ever for low-budget, reduced-effort PR outreach campaigns. 'Info' and 'tip' lines are freely available online and more effective than you probably think, too and social platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn or software-as-service like MuckRack provide an opportunity to get in touch directly with people you might otherwise never have had access…

A process and tools to find influencers in international social media

The rise of social media was supposed to democratise the way we share information and in a way it has. Anyone can post information or express their opinion, but in reality some individuals and groups have more influence than others. Identifying and interacting with these key influencers or Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) can really boost your search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts, content marketing or social media campaigns.

Define your topics and research keywords

You will of course want to narrow your efforts to those influencers writing, blogging or otherwise involved in your own sector or area. You'll also want to focus relatively tightly on specific keywords as too broad an approach will be more likely to throw up a whole ocean of irrelevant leads you'll have to wade through in order to get to the good stuff. When looking to engage with influencers…

How to win friends and engage your brand circle

Digital marketers understand that there’s strength in numbers better than anyone. After all, in a world where a campaign’s success depends on 'buzz,' numbers are something brands live by, whether they’re spreading the word or planning new ways to engage fans and customers. But strength in numbers is essential for building a reputation, too. Just look at Governor Chris Christie’s recent press disaster, 'Bridgegate.' At the first hint of scandal, his band of supporters, the Republican Party vanished. But what if Bridgegate had happened just before the 2016 presidential election? Chances are, Christie would have been getting support left and right. (Well, maybe just from the right.) At that point, his 'brand circle' (the Republicans) would have tried to win swing voters. And a group is more powerful than an individual, especially when…

4 steps to encouraging influencers for your Twitter campaigns

Influencers are vital to the success of your Twitter campaign. But exactly who are they, why do they matter and how can they be identified? Whether you’re a retail outlet or a business professional, a school or a mail order business, being on Twitter presents a challenge. It’s a conversational platform where you’re supposed to talk to your customers. But how are conversations going to drive sales? And who has the time to have online conversations with hundreds or thousands of individual customers? And that’s where Twitter is misunderstood. You don’t actually need to talk to a lot of people, you simply need to talk to the right people: People your target audience follow People your target audience engage with and respond to. These people are known as influencers. When you talk to an influencer on Twitter, it’s like sitting on stage and having a public conversation…