Top 3 mistakes of influencer marketing

There is a growing concern around the actual impact of this type of marketing.

Imagine you're the brand manager of a renowned brand. When you're going through brand mentions, you find that a small-scale 'influencer' has tagged your brand in a post. (Let's call her - Mia). We all work towards generating user-generated content, so it is great that the brand is being tagged in posts without paying. However, going through the post again you realise it looks like an endorsement, though you have not paid for it. Hence, Mia is faking brand association with you. This is unsolicited association since you would never partner with an influencer like her. So, what do you do?

Anvesha Poswalia

You could reach out to Mia, politely requesting her to take down the post. However, what if this backfires? What if she does not take this in the right spirit and creates unnecessary drama?

According to industry reports, influencer marketing in India is over Rs 1000 crore in size. However, there is a growing concern about the actual impact of this type of marketing. While everything comes with its pros and cons, here are the top three mistakes marketers can avoid to better utilise Influencer Marketing:-

Not taking ownership of the content

The best way to prevent unwanted and fake association is to ensure that every influencer collaboration has a "paid partnership" tag attached. This way, the audience knows which partnerships are being paid for and which are posted of their own accord. These days, most consumers are aware that this is a brand endorsement and you can see lots of comments beneath such posts asking if this is a paid collaboration. Hence, the best way is to be upfront about the association, instead of making it "look" like a natural post.

Surprisingly, some A-listed celebrity posts do not have the "paid" label, hoping to pass it off as a natural endorsement. A recent post by Katrina Kaif for Adidas missed a "sponsored" tag, in spite of a public announcement of her being signed up as a brand ambassador. Make it a mandate and you will see the myth being busted that "paid partnerships" will not perform well. In fact, consumers respect transparency in the digital world and any attempt to mislead them can backfire.

Focusing on the wrong metrics

The other issue that brands face today is with the genuineness of influencers, especially regarding followers. There are some tools to check for that; hence, you could run at least some basic checks to determine if an Instagram account is genuine. However, the best way to avoid being cheated is to focus on the "quality" of engagements rather than "quantity".

While reach is important, the more critical bit is to ensure that it is added back to the brand in some way. You can look at the kind of queries you receive about the brand, the kind of comments that have come through, rather than only looking at the number of likes and shares or impressions.

Social listening and qualitative analysis can help

There are also options like 'swipe up to buy' and website referrals that can directly give you sales numbers. However, it is not always wise to judge the success of an influencer campaign by the kind of sales generated in the short-term. It is more of a long-term brand-building effort than a gimmicky standalone campaign. An uplift in brand sentiment or queries in the long-term is more important than just a one-time buzz creation. Powerful influencer engagement can also be about co-creation. A limited designer range can help you leverage the influencer's popularity, directly contributing to sales.

Signing up the wrong influencer

Just because an influencer is popular doesn't mean that collaborating with them is suitable for your brand. Gap's association with Sarah Jessica Parker bombed, even though she is the style icon from 'Sex & the City'. However, the style she is known for is not in line with Gap's simple clothing image, so that was not the best association to go for.

You should look at fitment of brand values with the influencer, the kind of followers that the influencer has and the genre. It is also unnecessary to only look at influencers in the same genre as your brand. You can consider a completely unrelated genre and if you can find a way to get them talking about your brand, it can help you reach the right audience.

There has been an increasing inclination towards opting for micro-influencers as opposed to macro-influencers. Each influencer has their unique proposition and hence, the choice would depend on the brand objective, budgets and most importantly, brand values. If you have a well thought out strategy, it should be relatively simple to map the set of influencers for specific outcomes desired.

ALSO READ: "Influencers play a key role in this category": Kedar Apte, Castrol

The best strategy is not to completely shun the format, because of the challenges or to blindly follow the trend of the adoption of this new-age marketing tactic. Put your consumer at the centre - if it adds value to them, this is the right thing to do!

(The author currently leads Digital Marketing at Asian Paints)