What Is An Influencer Marketing Agency
In recent years, consumers have begun turning to social media channels for entertainment, news and information—especially regarding advice on purchasing decisions. Influencer marketing presents brands with a new way to target consumers by leveraging the loyal, large and engaged audiences these influencers have. Businesses that are considering venturing into the influencer marketing world should consult with an influencer marketing agency. Influencer marketing agencies are experts in ideating, strategizing, executing, managing and measuring the success of influencer marketing campaigns.
Influencer marketing is a type of paid advertising using social media influencers. It is an effective strategy for branding-based and direct-response initiatives and can take the form of paid sponsorships, sponsored content or product placements. Influencer marketing is available on any social media platform including Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat and LinkedIn to name a few.
What do influencer marketing agencies do?
Influencer marketing agencies work to maintain relationships with key social media influencers across all platforms. They are highly experienced in developing and implementing various types of influencer marketing campaigns, and possess valuable advice and insight tools that can guarantee the use of relevant influencers and platforms to distribute content.
While many digital, creative, social media marketing and PR agencies offer influencer marketing services, only dedicated influencer marketing agencies that solely focus on influencer marketing can provide truly expert advice. Influencer agencies have access to different influencer marketing platforms, types of software and tools to help brands connect with relevant and engaging social stars. They can assist brands in understanding the subtleties of influencer marketing, which is where non-specific influencer agencies may struggle.
When it comes to influencer marketing campaigns, there are five main strategies influencer marketing agencies can assist in developing, implementing and tracking. These are: product placements, competitions and giveaways, hashtag campaigns, creating influencer campaigns and audience building campaigns.
Product placement campaigns integrate a brand’s product or service in an influencer’s content. This can be a video, photo, blog post or Snapchat story. It is typically led by an influencer and sent to an agency or brand for approval rounds.
Competitions and giveaways encourage user engagement by using an influencer to promote a competition or giveaway. Social media users are urged to follow and engage with the influencer and brand to win.
Hashtag campaigns require the influencer to develop content using a specific hashtag, and usually accompanying theme. This type of campaign generally results in a large amount of user generated content.
Creative influencer campaigns are similar to a hashtag campaign. Creators are given freedom to create content that reflects a brand’s theme or key message.
Audience building campaigns are designed to increase the number of followers a brand has on social media. These can look different depending on the brand, but a common type is an influencer or brand-takeover.
Why work with an influencer marketing agency?
Influencer marketing agencies can help find your brand the perfect influencer partnerships that will target and resonate with your desired audience. There are many influencers out there and influencer marketing agencies have the expertise and key insight tools to ensure your brand partners with influencers that have real followers and an engaged audience.
Influencer agencies are heavily involved in the influencer world and know how to create lasting relationships with influencers. They are accustomed to doing the legwork to find and contact suitable influencers. Agencies can use pre-existing relationships to cut through the noise and offer influencers receive on a daily basis.
For influencer agencies, the most important aspect of an influencer marketing campaign is the metrics they measure to ensure the campaign is successful. Influencer agencies are well-versed in tracking and analysing engagement rates, sales numbers, click through rates and more in order to find the most effective and impactful influencer strategy for your brand. This analysis makes it easier for agencies to plan and implement follow-up campaigns and ensure all future content is optimised.