Influencer Marketing on Instagram for shopify

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Instagram Influencer Marketing: 3 Steps to Harnessing the Power of Social Influencers in Ecommerce

by a Special Contributor

Jonathan Chan of Foundr Magazine is a special guest contributor.

The way we define “celebrities” has shifted as a result of social media.

Instagram influencers now hold power traditionally reserved for Hollywood stars… at least when it comes to reaching new audiences, motivating followers to take action, and selling.

Simply ask Crayola Canada. Last Christmas, the firm collaborated with Viral Nation on 22 influencer posts, which resulted in 4 million interactions and enough referral traffic to bring their ecommerce site down. Or Lyfe Tea, which teamed with Shopify Plus client Kylie Jenner in 2016 and generated $280,000 in revenue from a $100,000 influencer campaign… in only two days.

It’s not what you know, but who you know, as the old adage goes.

But what if you have no idea who your “who” should be? How can you get in touch with the appropriate influencers? Which campaigns should you run? Above all, how can you go beyond vanity metrics to secure ecommerce ROI?

Step 1: Know Your Influencers (And Don’t Be Duped)

Influencers come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Sizes are highlighted.

According to Forbes Councils member Joel Contartese, who has managed more than $10 million in influencer spending over the previous two years:

“The one thing you must understand about influencer marketing is that stats do not always convey the entire picture.” After spending millions on ‘celebrities,’ I’ve seen greater results from influencers with a smaller but much more niched following than from those with a larger but more general following.”

Focus your search on three metrics:

Your brand’s relevance
Interaction with their target audience
Total Number of Followers First and foremost, relevancy.

The most important aspect of any influencer campaign is picking people who embody the values and ethos of your company.

“It all comes down to finding a fit: connecting your product to their brand.” There are just a few influencers who are perfect for your clients and your goods. Long-term partnership provides the most benefit. A campaign is a narrative, not a one-time event.”

Examining the top Instagram hashtags in your field will provide you with a broad perspective on potential influencers to investigate:

A plethora of influencer marketing tools are also available to identify and collaborate with the Internet’s prominent artists. The three most noteworthy are probably Neoreach (pictured below), Revfluence, and Whalar.

As explained by Braveen Kumar in 6 Influencer Marketing Platforms for Collaborating with Internet Famous Creators:

“Because a social media following is something that anybody can fake, influencer marketing necessitates carefully selecting real producers and structuring your campaign so that you get the most bang for your buck without jeopardizing the creator’s integrity.”

The idea is to conduct your own research and locate overlapping accounts that your target personas are currently following.

How?

Select a sample of ten to twenty Instagram profiles that fit your persona criteria using Instagram’s native analytics or a paid solution like Iconosquare.

Click on each example profile to see who they’re “Following,” then scroll down to the bottom of the list to see it fully enlarged in the overlay window.
Ctrl + A to select all and copy the full list
Paste everything as plain text into a document. All material above the first “Following” account name should be highlighted and deleted.
Copy and paste the rest of the content into a Google Sheet.
Rep for the remaining example personas, adding each additional “Following” list to the same column. Eventually, you’ll compile a list of all the accounts that your personas are “Following.”
Find and “Replace all” — Ctrl +F — “follow” and then “verified” with blank cells to clean up your Sheet.
Sort column A from A-Z to eliminate blank cells.
Add a new row at the top, labeled “Accounts” (cell A1)
Select column A, then go to “Data” > “Pivot table…”
Uncheck “Show totals” and then select “Add Field” in Rows.
Select “Summarize by: COUNTA” under Values.
Return to “Rows Group by: Accounts” and choose “Sort by: COUNTA of Accounts,” then “Order: Descending.”

The resultant Sheet will now rank all of the accounts your sample personas are “Following” and tell you how many of them are:

(Please keep in mind that this sample only includes data from three accounts; your real list will be considerably longer and indicate more overlapping accounts that your personas are following.)

Nicole Mintiens prepared a short movie for this post that shows the Google Sheet procedure in action (with some color coding at the end for style):

1:48

Nicole Mintiens made the video and photographs.

Digging this deep might be exhausting, but after you’ve eliminated competition, you’ll know exactly which influencers to focus and contact.

Second, there is involvement.

What makes influencers influential is their relationship with their audience.

Choose three promotional posts to serve as a baseline. You may need to do some digging because certain promotional postings aren’t evident and are frequently removed after a campaign. Look for branded hashtags or URLs as you browse.

Rachel Brathen provided the image.

To calculate the engagement rate, add the number of likes and comments received by each promotional post and divide that total by the number of followers. (This figure will differ from the actual engagement rate, which is computed by dividing the total number of likes, comments, and saves by the “Reach” of each post.) Unfortunately, “Reach” is not a public phone number.)

To be more specific, gauging engagement for a variety of “content typologies” is part of Call The Tunes’ selection process. For fashion photography, this might imply:

Face in the foreground
Product in the foreground
Product Worn: Half Body Product Worn: Full Body Product Worn: Seated Third, total followers

Even with all of that evidence… it’s easy to be duped by statistics.

Under the Influence investigated “more than 500 top Instagram influencers to establish their average profits per post” earlier this year. What they discovered was unexpected: “generic engagement rates declined as popularity increased.”

Image courtesy of Under the Influence

In other words, greater does not always imply better.

Again, the arithmetic is on your side: a 2% engagement rate from an influencer with 500,000 followers would still reach 7,750 more people than a 15% engagement rate from someone with 5,000 followers.

However, larger does not always imply better in terms of engagement rates. TravisHawley, Viral Nation’s VP of Business Development and Partnerships, explains:

“Fans frequently ‘like’ posts because the creativity is appealing or because it comes from someone they like.” Some influencers can easily convince people to like or remark. Some are unable to.

“Some can persuade individuals to take social action, such as following, screenshotting, or reposting. Some are unable to. Some can even persuade people to click and buy. There are several types of influence and levels of participation.”

What is the takeaway? After you’ve done your homework… Make careful to obtain past marketing data from the influencers you choose, particularly:

Engagement rate in actual reach
The cost of each engagement
Types of Engagement

It might take some time to compile an appropriate list of influences. However, getting to know your influencer before reaching out is crucial for long-term ROI.

Step 2: Pitch Your Influencers (And Be Creative)

It’s time to contact out now that you’ve built a list of influencers.

Most, if not all, influencers are eager to collaborate with businesses and promote their products. But, like with any other commercial partnership, you’re unlikely to gain something for nothing.

Money is the most obvious remedy.

Prices may range from a few hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars each post, depending on what you want them to accomplish, the size of their audience, and their degree of participation.

Long-term collaborations, such as the one Kristina Kazan landed with L’Oreal last year, can be worth $1 million or more.

According to a recent Mediakix analysis, influencer marketing on Instagram is estimated to reach $1.07 billion this year alone, with a projected rise of $2.38 billion in 2019.

There are lots of additional innovative leverage points for individuals on a reduced budget.

A popular alternative to paying is to provide your influencer free content or items in exchange for a shoutout.

How?

“Begin with a direct Instagram message,” says Assistagram founder Zach Benson. “Just let them know you’re interested in collaborating.” Keep your direct message brief, straightforward, and conversational. Include the accounts in question, a straight request, and your trade.”

Here’s one of Benson’s previous messages:

That brief DM sparked a flurry of micro-influencer posts:

Send an email for more complicated marketing. You may not be able to keep it brief, but make certain that your demands and directions are clear. Another Benson example, this one for the Dubai Department of Tourism:

Pura Vida Bracelets follows a similar strategy. Griffin Thall, co-founder, explains:

“Our staff scours Instagram for creators and influencers that reflect our brand’s tone.” We interact through email and gauge their interest in a “trade for product” or compensated partnership in exchange for images, posts, IG stories, IG lives, account takeovers, and giveaways.”

When dealing with influencers, bear in mind that everybody has their own distinctive style. To ensure consistency, it’s ideal to send a creative brief or perhaps a moodboard of what you’re looking for in a promotional post.

In addition to monetary compensation, online shop Lo & Sons provides free items to influencers with over 100,000 followers in return for promotional postings.

Finally, creating recurrent rivalry is another possible source of leverage.

While you may not be able to recruit multi-million dollar influencers, you may attract “micro-influencers”: anybody with less than ten thousand followers.

According to studies, 82% of customers are extremely inclined to heed the advice of micro-influencers. These micro-influencers will not only be encouraged to participate in order to win the reward, but they will also profit from the visibility provided by an official brand.

Another low-friction option is S4S (share-for-share) postings.

S4S articles, as the name suggests, seek influencers or companies in your industry to share your content in return for them promoting theirs. Matching follower numbers and engagement rates ensures an equitable exchange of value.

Even competitors are frequently persuaded. Examine how Frank Body and Mecca Maxima use their accounts to promote each other’s products.

Finally, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to launch an effective Instagram influencer marketing campaign. Take a moment to reflect on what you already have to give. You’ll be astonished how much you can do.

Step 3: Create Your Influencer Marketing Campaign (And Make It Loud)

Brand exposure is the simplest straightforward influencer marketing.

If you’re planning a product launch and want to build buzz and interest, this is a great strategy to use. One of our Instagram Domination students used Instagram to generate interest in their Kickstarter campaign.

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls went on to achieve nearly $675,000 in fundraising in four weeks, becoming the most supported campaign in Kickstarter history in the Publishing division.

The most straightforward technique for an influencer to increase brand awareness is to offer you shout-outs by prominently promoting your product or brand in a post.

Alternatively, you could be more discreet and simply request that they tag your account in the photo and give you a shout-out in the capton.

This is an efficient method for increasing Instagram followers and driving qualified leads to your Instagram sales funnel. However, tracking and measuring the actual consequences of these sorts of articles can be tricky.

Structure your campaign to involve influencers temporarily shifting their Instagram bio link to your product page in order to promote direct purchases to your brand.

This strategy decreases the amount of steps to purchase and shortens your Instagram sales funnel. Give each influencer a unique promo code or use a UTM parameter reduced by a custom bit.ly for tracking.

Finally, the “thunderclap” technique involves numerous influencers simultaneously giving you a shout-out or promoting your goods.

Daniel Wellington appears to have enlisted the help of hundreds of influencers to advertise their new Daniel Wellington Classic Petite Watch, each with their unique discount code.

Your thunderclap method does not need you to contact hundreds of influencers. It is more than enough to enlist a couple dozen micro-influencers by handing out free items.

Learn more about O2O commerce.

Instagram Influencer Marketing is all about knowing who your target audience knows.

We started with the adage: it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. For influencer marketing on Instagram, that’s true.

Sort of.

It’s not who you know … it’s getting to know the people your audience already knows. Even better, it’s leveraging the “celebrities” they know, like, and trust.

That’s the core of the three steps we’ve just walked through:

Whether you’re launching a full-scale product deal, leveraging micro-influencers, harnessing the power of a thunderclap, or just negotiating S4S, influencer marketing should be one of your Instagram cornerstones.

Unleashing these modern-day celebrities adds social proof, builds brand awareness, and drives sales.

So, who are you going to get to know?