Social media influencers have become a valuable source for millions of brands trying to reach a new audience. Businesses can utilise influential users on social media to promote their product, service or brand. With research showing that 72% of people made a fashion or beauty purchase after seeing something on Instagram, it’s easy to understand why brands are embracing the world of influencers.
With thousands of users across social media claiming themselves to be influencers, how do you know who is the right person for your brand? You need to take into account more than just their number of followers. Make sure to look a little wider:
- Does their content match your brand messaging?
- Are they driving engagement from their audience (large or small)?
- Will they resonate with your audience?
Once you’ve found the right person to represent your brand, you have the opportunity to reach a whole new audience. When an influencer posts about your brand or product they can drive new users to your brand, website or social channels. This activity can be focused to drive acquisition, brand awareness, sales or any direction that supports your overall marketing objective.
New Look uses influencers to directly drive potential customers to purchase clothes. Influencers style the clothes and provide the product codes so that they can easily be purchased, all within an Instagram post like the one below.
View this post on Instagram
And the teddy fur is out 🐻 link in bio (top: 596029113 skirt: 601758529) #ThisIsNewLook @NewLook #AD
A post shared by S I N E A D C R O W E ✌🏻️ (@sineadcrowe) on
But what else can you do with this content? How can you drive further results from this activity to maximise the value?
Social Media
You may be paying users to share content related to your brand on their own channels, but it doesn’t have to just end there. You can bring that content to your own channel and reshare it, with permission of course. You’ll be getting more for your money, exposure across their channel and free content for your own.
View this post on Instagram
‘And the teddy fur is out!’ @sineadcrowe confirms our autumn uniform: checks and borg 🐻
A post shared by New Look (@newlook) on
When selecting your influencers its worth considering whether their aesthetic and style will enhance your own channel. Will the content show your product in the best possible light and represent your brand in the right way?
Paid Social Media
You can take things one step further by using their content to round out your paid campaigns. You can leverage their images or testimonials to promote what other users think of your product. If you’re using a well-known influencer then the use of their recognisable face or username could potentially drive further conversions.
Newsletter
After the content has appeared on social media, where can it go next? Bring their content into your other marketing messages. Use the content to tell a story throughout your email marketing campaigns. Add personality to your content by bringing users into your branded messaging, trigger your audiences’ emotions. Let your influencers tell users how your brand or product improved their lives, that message can resonate whether it’s on social or in email newsletters.
Again, make sure you’ve got permission to use the content and always give credit. You could even link the content through to the original post so that users can see it for themselves. Those trust signals can help a user decide whether to part with their money.
Website
What’s next? How about using the influencer content to demonstrate your products at the point of sale. You’ve got the perfect opportunity to demonstrate to users what your products look like ‘in real life’. A picture is worth a thousand words and you might be about to answer questions that your customer didn’t even know they had. For example, how will a piece of clothing look on different body shapes? Brands such as New Look have dedicated web pages that allow you to ‘shop their Instagram‘. They feature images from their Instagram with all of the items tagged so that you can easily click and shop, picking the exact outfit an influencer is wearing.
Think about other areas of your website too. If you only have access to your standard product imagery then consider featuring this additional content in your blog. It’s a simple way for you to add personality to your content and demonstrate your products in action.
What Next?
Now that you’ve dug out all your high-quality UGC, what do you do next? The first thing you need to do is make sure you have the permission to use it. You can do this really simply by direct messaging the user via the channel they used to post their content.
Simply outline where you’re going to be using their data and make they know you’ll be giving full credit. You can even ask them to email you a higher quality version of the image if you’re hoping to feature them in your emails or on your website. Don’t forget, they’re fully within their right to say no or to request further compensation for the use of their content.
How else have you taken your UGC further? Tweet us at @aniccadigital to tell us what’s worked for you.