By Gustav Lindell, Co-Founder and CEO, Pixly
Nobody wants to be told what to buy. Or do they?
When it comes to Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X, the suggestions and trends served up on social media play a big role in their spending decisions.
And we’re not just talking about the latest sneaker drop or viral makeup brand – social media is increasingly swaying even the most common expenditures, influencing 14% of grocery store purchases, for instance.
According to Pew, over 70% of American adults under 30 follow at least one influencer on social media. It’s no surprise then that the 50 most influential creators grossed about $700 million last year (up 23% from 2022).
So social media influencers are powerful – yes, we all know that by now.
But the takeaway here is that they’re increasingly proving out a use case and a business model as direct drivers of social commerce. This means that when it comes to tapping influencer partners, brands need to apply a little more rigor and attention.
Brands that get it right are finding that their investments in influencer marketing are paying off, earning nearly $6 for every $1 spent.
Here’s how to turn your influencer spend into fuller carts and bigger sales:
Choose brand-fit > follower size
No matter how many followers an influencer has, if they don’t fit properly with the brand and the audience’s affinities, they won’t be effective. A brand-fit influencer is able to seamlessly promote products in an authentic way that resonates with the target audience. Don’t be tempted to just go with big numbers. It’s more important to find the right fit for each brand. Once you’ve determined the fit, then you can expand the volume of influencers.
Let the creators do the creating
So often, a brand finds the “right” influencer and makes the mistake of forcing them to parrot a corporate message. For the greatest success, brands need to give influencers the creative freedom to incorporate the brand organically into their content. Influencer marketing shouldn’t look like an infomercial.
Seatgeek, the ticket-selling service, was one of the first companies to give creative freedom to its social media influencers. As a result, their YouTube influencer campaigns went mega-viral and enabled the brand to compete with big-pocket rivals such as Ticketmaster and StubHub.
Go for a long-term relationship
Not so long ago, influencer marketing was something that brands did once or twice a year, if that. But it’s increasingly important for social media influencer marketing to be a consistent feature of the community.
Long-term collaborations create deeper brand integrations and help to build trust with the influencer’s audience. To them, brands should be like family – always there, always dependable.
Pick one (yes one!) platform to start
From YouTube to TikTok, from Instagram to Twitch, the number of social media platforms can be overwhelming. Brands don’t need to be up on all of them.
YouTube’s longer-form content, for instance, allows for a better ability to educate viewers with tutorials about products or services. TikTok is an undeniable force with the Gen Z audience, but it’s sometimes hard to grab attention. Choose the platform best suited to your product, and to your customers’ demographic.
Treat it like any other marketing spend and track your ROI
In the virtual aisle, it’s important to understand what drives a purchase.
Just as brands measure how successful an advertising campaign is, they need to collect performance insights with influencer campaigns.
Brands can increasingly draw a direct line from influencers to digital sales. Stop treating influencer marketing like a one-off solution and start thinking of it as an ongoing, evolving strategy to find, engage and inspire your customers to make purchases.
