Are Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns Truly Brand Safe?

Influencer marketing is no longer a novel concept for businesses and advertising agencies.

Many businesses and agencies now have conducted at least one campaign, if not several, and most simply follow the path trodden by their predecessors. While this method could work, it doesn't always result in the most effective campaigns. This article aims to help marketing teams and influencer marketing agencies plan their influencer marketing campaigns more effectively, and bring attention to a typically overlooked but vital step - vetting. Remember, “Failing to plan is planning to fail”!

Steps for a Successful Influencer Marketing Campaign

1. Define your goals: What is the desired outcome of your campaign? Are you seeking increased brand awareness, a boost in sales, or something else? Clearly defining your goals will be the first step to building a successful campaign.
2. Identify and define your audience: Understanding your target audience is crucial. Who are you trying to reach with your campaign? What are their interests, habits, and preferences?
3. Define your budget: How much are you willing to invest in your campaign? Your budget will influence many aspects of your campaign, from the influencers you collaborate with to the platforms you use.
4. Choose a type of campaign: Different types of campaigns resonate differently with audiences. Do you want to run giveaways, tutorials, or product reviews? Choose a campaign type that will resonate most with your audience.
5. Decide on the social media platform: Different audiences are active on different platforms. Where does your target audience spend most of their time online?
6. Create content for your campaign: What type of content will be most effective for achieving your goals? The content should not only be engaging but also align with your brand and campaign goals.
7. Find your brand influencers: The right influencer can significantly boost your campaign's success. Who can best help you reach and engage your target audience?
8. Promote your campaign: Promotion is key to campaign success. How will you get the word out about your campaign to reach a broader audience?
9. Track your success: Monitoring and evaluating campaign performance is crucial. How will you measure the effectiveness of your campaign? What Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will you track?

Choosing the Right Influencers

Choosing the right influencers for your brand is a vital step. You should consider various factors, such as the influencer's audience, reputation, and content style. Consider how to align the types of influencers, their platforms, short or long-form content to match the target audience requirements and interests.

Remunerating the Creator

There are different methods to remunerate creators, such as sponsorship, product collaborations, or affiliate commissions. The method might differ if you recruit them as a brand ambassador. It's important to choose a compensation model that is fair and appealing to the influencer while staying within your budget.

Influencer Selection and Outreach

Once you know your platforms, brand, topic, and budget, you will need to find, outreach, shortlist, and importantly vet potential influencers. This process requires careful planning and execution to ensure you find influencers that align with your brand and can help you accomplish your campaign goals.

Traditional Vetting

Vetting can include checking out their previous influencer campaigns, ensuring their core values reflect yours, seeking target audience alignment, checking their follower engagement, and ensuring brand and cultural fit.

Proper vetting can save your brand from potential controversies and ensure a more successful campaign. But what is vetting and how do you do it at scale?

Case Study:

Here is an example from the RippleXn team.

The team were asked to review 18-months of content for two sporting influencers on TikTok and Instagram for a well-known cereal brand for a USA campaign.

The process easily identified which brands the influencers had already spoken about, even when they weren’t tagged or noted in the description. The ability to identify and analyse all kinds of entities allows more reliable interpretation of meaning and content.

The few keywords that were found from the accurate transcripts (not including music lyrics!) could be manually reviewed. Saving 2 weeks of mundane work!

The risk of not preparing properly

Preparation, including thorough vetting, can help avoid significant and costly problems down the line. Background checks are just as important as reach. If your campaign is successful but goes against your brand guidelines, it can lead to countless issues. As the old saying goes, "Prevention is better than cure." Can you afford to take the risk of not vetting?

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How much should we pay?

A. Payment varies based on factors such as influencer reach, engagement rates, and the nature of the collaboration.

Q. What can we expect for our fee?

A. Expectations should align with campaign goals, audience reach, content quality, and influencer professionalism.

Q. Do we have any control over the content? Do we want control? Can we ask for control?

A. Content control depends on campaign objectives and influencer agreements. Control levels can vary and should be negotiated accordingly.

Q. How will we check that the work was done, and done right?

A.Utilise tools like RippleXn's advertising compliance and contractual checking services to ensure influencers meet brand guidelines and deliver expected results.

Q. How will we report the results to clients or stakeholders? What metrics matter?

A. Report on key performance indicators (KPIs) such as engagement rates, reach, conversions, and ROI, emphasising the impact on brand objectives.

Q. What metrics are available?

A. Metrics range from quantitative data like views and clicks to qualitative insights on audience sentiment and brand resonance.

Q. How can I vet the past 2 years of content to check they are right for our campaign?

A.Talk to the RippleXn team to find out!

Q. How can I get alerts if their recent work (from checks to go live) are still safe?

A. Run an ongoing campaign in the RippleXn tool with custom keywords setup and review any alerts.

What should I do next?

If knowing more is important to you, or you would like your company’s products researched, talk to the RippleXn team at hello@ripplexn.com or via the onsite forms.

Talk to us to get started