Influencer marketing, like any business activity, should have specific goals in mind and brands can lose out by approaching this type of promotion improperly.
When working with influencers, pay particular attention to their social media platforms and engagement rates. Look for influencers with high-quality photos and videos that you can utilize as content for collaborations.
1. Misleading Content
Many companies try to reach their target audiences via various methods, such as paid ads, email campaigns, search engine optimization (SEO), influencer marketing and influencer outreach. Although these tactics may draw visitors to your website and increase traffic counts, they don’t always lead to conversions because they fail to build brand trust which customers require in order to purchase your products or services.
Influencer marketing can help build brand recognition and encourage potential customers to explore your business further, yet it’s crucial that you avoid potential pitfalls which could damage its reputation – these could include:
Misleading Content
Influencers who promote your product for payment might not always disclose it, which could result in lack of transparency among their followers and lead to distrust among your target market. Furthermore, legal action taken by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) might ensue and cause your brand credibility loss.
Understanding how to identify misleading content and prevent its impact from damaging your brand is key for its protection. You will need to pay careful attention to both the quality of your products/services as well as how you interact with audiences when trying to identify any misleading material that may affect them.
Research should also include conducting extensive investigations of any influencers you’re considering working with. This should involve reviewing their social media profile and seeing how they engage their followers; if any appear fake or don’t fit your brand requirements it would be best to move on quickly.
When using influencers to promote your brand, it’s essential that high-quality images be created. This is especially relevant on Instagram where photos are often the sole means by which new followers discover it. Furthermore, without including relevant hashtags and descriptions for products and services provided you could miss an opportunity to attract more people and expand your business.
Your campaign should also avoid influencers that don’t comply with FTC guidelines for influencer marketing, which stipulate that influencers must clearly disclose when promoting products or services to their audiences.
2. Inauthenticity
Most brands employ various marketing tactics to reach and engage their target audience, including paid ads, email campaigns, search engine optimization (SEO) and influencer marketing. While these approaches may work initially, they often become ineffective due to lacking enough content that keeps customers engaged on your website – this can be avoided through influencer marketing by connecting you with people already trusted by your target market.
But like any form of marketing, influencer marketing carries risks as well. One such risk is inauthenticity – which modern consumers can easily detect. They want their brands they support to feel connected to them, so inauthentic messaging may alienate them from supporting it. An inauthentic message such as one trying to piggyback off current events or social justice movements for sales may come off as inauthentic and even offensive to some individuals; to combat this potential pitfall of influencer marketing successfully is by working with influencers who truly love and use what you are promoting as this will keep this from happening! To combat inauthenticity head on, work closely with influencers who use and love what products you are promoting; otherwise inauthentic advertising will fail miserably
Monitoring their campaign results closely from day 1 will allow marketers to spot any inauthentic material before it goes viral for all the wrong reasons. Agorapulse provides marketers with tools for tracking engagement, brand awareness and ROI while monitoring conversations mentioning their brand name.
Finally, it is essential that influencers be involved in the creation of marketing strategies. Doing so will prevent miscommunication or misunderstanding that can result in embarrassing public errors while giving creators pride of ownership over what they create which can boost engagement levels overall.
As the COVID-19 pandemic escalates, it’s vital that companies protect their reputation and brand image by avoiding influencer marketing mistakes. By being mindful of any risks related to influencer marketing strategies and keeping an eye out for any errors made during implementation, companies can make use of influencer marketing for maximum effect in driving brand awareness, engagement and sales – for more tips on safeguarding their brands check out this blog post!
3. Over-Promotion
Every campaign should have an objective in mind. While some brands focus solely on reach and engagement metrics, it is equally essential to track other metrics such as brand mentions, website traffic, customer purchases etc. If these goals aren’t set from the outset it becomes harder to assess results; to make this process simpler use promo codes, UTMs and tracking when creating campaigns so all data collected accurately.
If your goal is to introduce a new product or service, be sure to include a clear call to action in your content brief for creators. That way, when they create their content they’ll find it easier to highlight its key features and benefits – encouraging viewers to follow your branded social media accounts, visit your website, and sign up for mailing lists or follow you.
Marketers frequently make the mistake of overpromising an influencer post’s impact, whether out of eagerness to see sales increase or client pressure to meet specific deadlines. Over-promising can damage both your brand reputation and lead to negative feedback and legal action against the business in question.
Consider being wary when selecting influencers with large audiences. Although mega influencers are great for increasing brand recognition, their content may not resonate as strongly with followers due to lack of engagement rates and relevance compared with mid-level influencers who align well with your audience and brand.
Influencer marketing should be treated as a long-term investment, so short-term partnerships with influencers may cause your results to fluctuate significantly. To stay on the right side of this trend, try developing long-term relationships with each influencer you collaborate with.
Assuming you maintain positive relations with influencers, they’re more likely to want to collaborate again – particularly micro-influencers with smaller followings.
4. Negative Feedback
Influencer marketing can be an excellent way to expand brand recognition among new consumer audiences. But its challenges could have serious repercussions for your reputation; without proper preparation for these challenges, your campaign may experience serious setbacks. Here are some ways you can protect your brand against some common influencer marketing missteps and risks.
Before selecting influencers for your campaign, it is crucial that you conduct in-depth research on them and review their social media profiles to look out for any red flags that could indicate negative influencer experiences – for instance if they frequently post about how much they dislike their job then perhaps another candidate would be better suited.
One key thing to keep an eye out for when considering any creator is any potential conflicts that may have involved him or her in. These conflicts can have a dramatic effect on audience perception of your brand – for instance, Fyre Festival was notorious for recruiting celebrities like Bella Hadid and Hailey Baldwin to promote its event, only for them to later cause major controversy that ultimately damaged both of their personal brands and that of Fyre Festival itself.
Furthermore, it’s crucial that you assess an influencer’s past content and posts for any negative comments left in their comment sections. This can provide an indicator of their ability to manage any complaints effectively as well as whether their audience takes them seriously.
As soon as any negative feedback comes in, it’s essential that businesses respond swiftly and appropriately in order to protect their brand image and prevent losing any potential customers. Be sure to address it personally instead of sending out generic canned responses; listen closely to what your audience needs before creating solutions that benefit all parties involved.
Avoid these five common missteps of influencer marketing to ensure the greatest possible success for your campaign and achieve your desired results. Be sure to track key performance indicators during your influencer marketing effort such as sales, lead generation and conversion rates so you can adjust as needed.