Digital Marketing: A Recap and an Overview
Questions and concerns are plenty when treading new ground. And that’s what we’re walking on. The digital marketing landscape is rife with ideas and tactics, some good and some bad; there are best practices and some to be avoided. One thing is for certain: Digital marketing is experiencing a meteoric rise, due in no small part to influencer-based marketing, which is fast becoming the best bang for your buck. As you forge ahead and explore the digital space (social media apps, platforms such as REP, etc.) let’s review the more salient points:
1) Identifying The Right Influencer — Let’s use Instagram as a starting point. You’ve found an influencer who checks your boxes. You represent a beauty brand; they are a beauty enthusiast—and they have a handsome sum of followers, who ostensibly care about beauty products, as well. What do you do next? First, make sure they’re active. You don’t want someone whose last post was a month ago. If they’re inactive, what’s the point? You need someone whose followers depend on said influencer’s content. How can you tell if they have these disciples? Check their engagement. If this person with a handsome sum of followers has a sum of “likes” that is less than 10%—chances are they bought their followers. Move on to the next.
2) When Should The Influencer Post? — Assuming you’re representing a brand, and you’re fairly busy, you’re likely too busy to keep up with Instagram; too busy to post every day, too busy to scroll through the entirety of your feed, and especially too busy to keep track of the best times to post. Fret not: The influencer you hired does this for a living. Clear communication is key, here. Tell them what you’re looking for; they won’t post at an unideal time—they don’t want to tarnish their otherwise attractive engagement rate, which is what got you there in the first place.
3) About That Engagement Rate — First a definition: An engagement rate is a metric that measures the level of engagement a piece of created content receives from an audience. How many likes did said post get? How many comments did it yield? Etc. As we mentioned above, there is a mathematical formula to which you can adhere, but for best results, it’s important to run a fine comb through it—dig a little deeper. Why? Because as followers can be bought, so too can likes and comments. All of these can be automated to create the illusion of engagement. Found an influencer you like? Read through the comments. If they’re generic or, worse, don’t correspond to the image at all—move on.
4) What’s a Micro Influencer? — All of the above should not scare you off from influencer marketing. Like everything in life, there are potential pitfalls. If you gleaned anything from the above bullet points, we hope it’s the importance of micro-influencers. Let’s take a step back (maybe we got ahead of ourselves). What’s a Micro Influencer? A Micro Influencer is an influencer with a modest sized following. They can have a sum of 1k or 10k—there’s no definitive minimum. What they do have in common, however, is a loyal and fervent following. Something the major influencers might have—but with those influencers, you have bots and spam to contend with as well, so the engagement rate isn’t exactly accurate. With Micro Influencers, it’s a pure, unadulterated following (and corresponding engagement rate). We here at REP recognized this early on and built a platform to highlight the exposure of these Micro Influencers. Why hire someone with 100k followers, whose engagement rate is not as good as it should be (for the reasons stipulated above) when you can hire 10 influencers with 10,000 followers each and reach the same number? One of those methods will yield a wider, more accepting/engaged demographic than the other.
Questions? Concerns? We’re here to help! support@repped.io
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