By Alice Oh
Influencer marketing has emerged as one of the more effective ways for brands to spark engagement, drive brand awareness and reach audiences via digital platforms. And with the option growing in popularity, social media giants like Facebook are now looking to better facilitate such connection, enabling improved, transparent brand campaigns which deliver better advertiser results.
Facebook’s latest initiative to foster influencer marketing is its new Brand Collabs Manager tool, which helps to connect brands with relevant content creators for such purpose.
Through the platform, brands have the option of finding influencers who have similar audiences based on various factors (age, gender, interests). These influencers – who have follower counts ranging from 25,000 to 8 million people – also have access to insights and data, making it easier for brands to assess their actual reach and capacity, helping to find the right match.
So how will this impact the world of influencer marketing? In this post, we’ll take a look at how brands can leverage the new platform to fuel up their influencer marketing strategies, and get the most out of their efforts.
Identify the Right Influencer
Brand Collabs Manager enables businesses to establish improved connection with influencers who align with their brand values, vision, and purpose.
Influencers can set up a portfolio that’s connected to their Facebook Page, and present campaigns where they’ve collaborated with brands and incorporated messages and products into their content.
The top relevant creators will also have a percentage match on their profile thumbnail, depending on your listed requirements, while you can also be able to see their audience reach, and set an audience match to see how it compares to yours. From there, you can choose any influencer or group of influencers.
Identifying the right person to represent your brand is vital – influencers with a massive following aren’t always the right fit for your audience. Always remember that quality trumps quantity when determining the right creators to partner with.
Great Content Wins Over All
The pillar of any effective marketing strategy is exceptional content – and that’s no different for influencer marketing.
Influencers are content creators who have become exceptionally successful with their craft – brands should not only focus on the influencers they’re looking to partner with, but even more so, the content they publish, and how that might work in representing their brand. Effective content is authentic, resonates with the target audience and represents both sides well.
With the influx of brands and influencers, you need to get creative to break through the noise and stand out. Think of compelling ways to reach your audience by leveraging various channels and formats.
Authenticity Is Key
Facebook is constantly working to filter out fake content and accounts, in order to ensure users only see transparent and authentic content. This is because consumers want authenticity from brands more than ever.
If you think of influencer marketing as a quick way to amp up sales, you’ll quickly fail. Every influencer should be a true brand ambassador, not just a paid spokesperson.
Instead of partnering with big-name influencers for temporary projects, invest in establishing genuine, long-term relationships with those who truly align with your brand’s vision. Create an authentic relationship with your creator – they’ll feel that you’re more invested in the partnership, and in return, they may also become more invested and be more loyal to your brand.
This kind of relationship will help both sides create content that genuinely resonates with your target audience and which doesn’t come off super salesy.
Personalized Messaging
Personalized marketing efforts have never been more important, and with Facebook’s access to a wealth of data on individual consumers, brands have the opportunity to ramp up their personalization efforts.
Brand Collabs Manager opens up the door for even better-targeted experiences – by serving more engaging ads and individualized content, the audience you’re reaching through influencers will likely be impressed and intrigued to discover more about your brand.
Track Your Performance
In order to gauge your success with influencer marketing and Brand Collabs Manager, you need to consistently measure your data and analytics in order to evaluate how users are reacting to your campaigns.
By using Facebook to track your performance, you’ll be able to better understand the type of content that works, which doesn’t, and what CTAs drive conversion. This will, in turn, help you focus on driving measurable results which boost ROI.
Conclusion
The launch of Facebook’s Brand Collabs Manager emphasizes just how significant influencer marketing has become – and really, the option is growing to form a crucial part of any successful digital marketing strategy.
Brand Collabs Manager is only open to a few brands creators at this stage, but it will soon be available to all. We predict that it will become a major disruption to the state of influencer marketing – and if used properly, it’ll maximize the quality of partnerships between the two parties and drive better ROI.
