When influencer marketing and branded content work together, both sides benefit in the end

Influencer marketing and branded content: They’re useful tools on their own, but they are far more effective within a strategy that treats them as complementary pieces of a stronger whole. Unfortunately, advocates for influencer marketing and branded content tend to see one another as adversaries. The first group champions influencer marketing’s ability to give a brand street cred with third-party associations. As little as people sometimes trust brands, an endorsement from an influencer can go a long way toward building audience trust, and for niche audiences and micro-influencers, the effect is even more pronounced. [si_guide_block id="27934" title="Download our Individual Member Resource – Influencer outreach guide for marketing professionals" description="This practical guide shows you how to use tools to find and interact with influencers on the best social media platforms for outreach, that’s Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and more."/] Lovers of branded content, however, believe that…

Chart of the Week: The majority of marketers find influencer marketing to be an effective strategy, but it doesn’t come without its challenges

Influencer marketing has become a popular tactic for a number of brands, whether they’re using well-known names or micro-influencers. In fact, according to new research from Mediakix, 80% of marketers find influencer marketing to be an effective strategy. Almost half of marketers (45%) said they find influencer marketing effective, with a further 35% saying they find it very effective. In comparison, only 5% said influencer marketing was an ineffective tactic, while15% were neutral on the topic. This suggests that getting your influencer marketing campaign right - finding the right people to work with, promoting the best products or services and having them share content across channels that suit your audience – can help you…

Digital PR techniques that will increase your organic rankings and ROI

The rise of PR-fuelled marketing in the face of diminishing returns on advertising has seen 66% of marketers rank quality content as their top marketing priority. With so much riding on the reputation of a brand, the value of content marketing, earned media, link building and brand reputation management will only continue growing in the race to drive profitable customer action. Yet there seems to be pressure for PR professionals to not only place stories that boost brand awareness on the most relevant websites but also attain search KPIs such as links, traffic and domain rankings too. The simple fact is - content campaigns with hundreds of links are completely irrelevant unless the exact ROI of those campaigns are clearly measured. [si_guide_block id="5605" title="Download our Premium Resource – Digital marketing strategy guide" description="Our guide is packed with practical, actionable, step-by-step guidance so…

Influencers are considered experts in a particular field. Their thoughts and reviews about products are the holy grail

Consumers are no longer paying attention to billboards when they want to know more about brands. Advertising has moved far away from that. In today’s digital world, everyone is looking for recommendations and reviews on the internet. This is why influencer marketing is creating such a buzz. Influencers are considered experts in a particular field. Their thoughts and reviews about products are the holy grail. So, it’s only natural that advertisers are lining up to collaborate with influencers. But what is the return on investment (ROI) that you can expect from influencer marketing? There are lots of factors you need to take into consideration. To give you a better idea about the ROI of influencer marketing, let’s take a look at the numbers. A study…

‘A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message’ - Mark Zuckerberg

Influencer marketing has heavily been under the spotlight in the past couple of years, with the rise of social media usage by millennials trying to promote brand and products that they seem to believe it.

Since influencer marketing is a fairly new domain of digital marketing, questions around its regulation, monitoring and revenue stream always come up as topics of debate. Perhaps, it's not immediately as clear as the other areas of digital marketing, in terms of how influencers make money or whether they should be making money at all.

[si_guide_block id="27934" title="Influencer Outreach Guide" description="Engaging influencers is now a key marketing tactic to expand your reach and awareness through integrating with your content marketing, social media and SEO activities.This practical guide shows you how to use tools to…

Between 2015 and now, Google searches for "influencer marketing" have increased by more than 80%

2018 has definitely been the year of the influencer. In a world where consumers turn a blind eye to traditional marketing content, influencer marketing helps to break the ice. Organic influencer content helps to get brand messages across to consumers better than ever. Consider product reviews from influencers, for instance. 67% of marketers have found such content to be very effective in influencing the purchase decisions of consumers. Quite frankly, that impressive number shouldn’t come as a surprise. 60% of consumers have found blog reviews and social media posts useful when shopping in a store. So, it makes sense to invest in influencer marketing and reap its benefits for the growth of…

It doesn’t matter if your product is tangible or not. You’ve got to protect your brand or wave goodbye to your good reputation

One minute you’re loved by consumers, the next… a social pariah. What happened? Failing to listen to consumer feedback Stolen brand identity Business data lost due to poor security Counterfeit goods undermining your reputation One of your team has a meltdown on social

Brand vulnerability

In this age of social media, you can’t avoid having your brand online; but it opens it up to attack. You need to secure your brand’s future potential as a revenue hero and remember… it’s not just about protecting your brand, it’s about promoting it. Having worked in several different industries, I’ve collected valuable tips on protecting your brand’s reputation. From trademarks and copyright issues to domain name registration and employee advocacy. Regardless of your industry, whether your product is tangible or not, this guide will…

In the past couple of years, the popularity of influencer marketing has seen a meteoric rise

You can expect this trend to continue. In fact, in a study by Tomoson, influencer marketing was rated as the fastest-growing online customer-acquisition channel, beating organic search, paid search, and email marketing. 59% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budgets over the next 12 months. But even as influencer marketing enters the mainstream, and more businesses see it as an essential part of their marketing strategy, marketers now have a new challenge ahead of them. Like any other marketing activity, significant money and resources go into the execution of an influencer program. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that marketers are now closely looking at the performance of their influencer marketing campaigns to make sure…

Which creators to use to raise brand awareness and maximise your ROI

In recent years, and even months, the influencer marketing industry has grown exponentially and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. In 2017, 86% of marketers reported using influencer marketing and 39% of those reported plans to increase influencer marketing spend in 2018 (Linqia, 2017). The industry is booming. As a relatively recent marketing trend, those who are new to influencer marketing may find the lingo may be a little confusing, and it may be hard to know who to use and when. [si_guide_block id="81741" title="Retail E-commerce Marketing Trends 2018" description="Get insight into 16 ecommerce trends for 2018, structured through our RACE Framework"/] The first phrase that must be defined is 'creator', versus the more commonly used, 'influencer'. Despite its name, those in influencer marketing generally tend to work more with creators than with influencers. Influencers are those social…

Advantages and drawbacks of different influencer marketing solutions.

Did you know that searches for the term “influencer marketing” increased almost by 200% between 2016 and 2017? And, by just the fifth month of 2018, the average monthly searches have already increased by another 60% compared to 2017. This clearly indicates how influencer marketing has been growing over the past couple of years. And it definitely doesn’t show any signs of stopping. By 2020, the global spend on influencer marketing is expected to be anywhere between $5 and $10 billion. The growing popularity and success of influencer marketing have encouraged many marketers to focus more on it. 85% of marketers are using it, and 90% of them have…