If you had to choose between an autograph from your idol or a selfie with them, which would you take?
The pandemic has created an uptick in social media activity, with 32% of polled social users in the United States reporting an increase in their social media activity. This added activity and attention have put pressure on brands to deliver value to followers. With the need for brand authenticity and the rise in socially conscious spending, brands are trusting the guidance of influencers for their products. In fact, 63% of consumers trust influencer opinions more than testimony from the brand itself and 58% of consumers have purchased products because of an influencer's recommendation.
Influencer marketing is not a trend; rather, a sign of a greater shift in the priorities of consumers and the direction of marketing campaigns. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, this market is expected to grow in size from $9.7 billion in 2020 to $13.8 billion in 2021.
Ideally, the use of an influencer should be symbiotic for companies and consumers. The companies create brand awareness and extend their reach while consumers gain trustworthy and knowledgeable information about a service or product. Utilizing an influencer research tool like Upfluence can identify the saturation of influencers (i.e., how many other brands are actively linked with that individual), as well as other factors like message/imagery engagement.
When assessing successful marketing, the strategies associated with influencer relations and activations cannot be ignored. Recently, Hart Copywriter, Social Media & Content, Caeli Barnes moderated a sit-down with Associate Creative Director Jeff Payden, Senior Account Executive JoAnna Sorosiak and Senior Strategist Sam Williams to discuss and gain perspective into the world of influencers and their role in advertising.
Recently, we addressed the importance of social listening – specifically, monitoring what people are saying about your brand beyond your owned social media channels – in our blog, Social Listening Part 1: Insider Tips to Get the Most Out of an Evolving World. Social listening can provide data-driven insights on your brand, competitors and industry trends. But more important, it can also alert you to a negative review, politically charged tweet or complaint about your product in a Reddit thread.
In Part 2 of this series, we continue our discussion with Digimind Senior Customer Success Manager, Strategic Accounts, Tony Calega, about the importance of adding social listening to your 2021 strategy. Hart partners with Digimind, a leader in social listening software, to provide clients with the full picture of how their brand is being discussed in the social landscape.
See a Potential Crisis Before it Hits
One of the most important uses of social listening is for crisis management. In an ideal world, brands would have ample time to prepare before a crisis hit. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case. But with social listening in place, it is possible to track negative sentiment toward your brand and envisage where a potential crisis could arise.
“Reddit, for example, is seen as a safe space by many groups, so people feel freer to share their thoughts about brands. These threads can go viral and be shared to other social channels and eventually become a news story,” said Calega. “Digimind monitors Reddit, meaning any negative mentions of a brand will be pulled into the dashboard. This can help stop or at the least better prepare you for an upcoming crisis.”
Research Your Industry and Competitors
Social listening can also provide valuable data on what’s trending with consumers, sentiment toward competitors and conversations within a specific industry.
“Social listening gives a full picture of not just your brand, but everything that is happening around that industry,” Calega noted. “With Digimind, through the historical search option, we can pull data on various keywords and see how sentiment and interest has changed over three months, six months, or a year ago.”
Identifying Influencers
Influencer marketing continues to be a focus for many brands in 2021. Given the amount of time and money that goes into building these relationships, brands want to know they’ve selected the right influencers who speak not only to the brand’s audience, but align with the brand’s personality, as well. There are plenty of examples of businesses having to end partnerships when negative news comes out about an influencer. Digimind can help mitigate some of this by tracking influencer content during the consideration stage.
“You can vet influencers before they’re selected to make sure they’re a good fit for the brand. You can look back on their past content to see if there are any negative mentions or concerning news items that could come to light and create a crisis moment,” said Calega.
Unfortunately, there is no step-by-step guide for going viral on social media. If there were, everyone would be doing it. There is however, one constant among the posts that take off on the internet: authenticity. Regardless of the size of your brand’s platform, keeping your tone real and honest is the key to reaching beyond your audience.
This is a story about a script we threw away.
As I mentioned at the start of this pandemic, "Together in uncertain times, we know one thing is true – partnerships and trust matter. We are blessed to have great clients, and we thank all of our partners for being there with us through good times and challenging times."
As I reflect on the year since those remarks and look forward to the next, one thing overwhelms me. It's gratitude.