It’s full steam ahead for marketers finalising their FY22/23 plans.
With only a few months left to get next year’s budget finalised, it’s prime time to pitch the idea of an influencer marketing strategy to your team.
Influencer marketing is an increasingly popular and effective marketing strategy that 93% of marketers have used. So it’s not so farfetched for us to say that if you aren’t engaging with influencers this next financial year, your brand may start to fall behind the 8 ball.
Whether you’re new to influencer marketing or looking to fine-tune your efforts, here are five tips to implement in your FY22/23 strategy that will guarantee you a successful year ahead.
#1 Prioritise an omni-platform approach
2021 was dominated by the ‘Instagram vs TikTok’ chatter, but marketers shouldn’t get distracted by the noise, says Vamp’s co-founder, Aaron Brooks. We’re seeing more marketers engage with influencers across multiple platforms to deliver on different objectives, reach a higher number of customers, show off different sides of their personality, and get the chance to connect with different demographics.
Not sure what each channel is best used for? Here’s a quick guide:
- TikTok provides us with immersive entertainment and light relief. Think funny skits, trending challenges, and authentic vlogs. This is a platform for brands to show their fun and spontaneous side, and where you can achieve strong ROI. You only have to look at the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt phenomenon to understand the platform’s power to drive online sales.
- Instagram then transports us to a world of polished, high-quality, and aspirational content. This is where you want to be sharing beautiful imagery, Stories, and Reels that will inspire your customers. It’s also where your brand can achieve high engagement with the help of Instagram’s suite of engagement-driving tools and features.
- YouTube is a great platform for driving deeper brand advocacy through tutorials and reviews. This type of long-form video content will help you achieve mass brand and product awareness.
As we mentioned earlier, marketers can access different audiences across these platforms, helping them tap into a more rounded customer base.
YouTube’s users are predominantly 15-25, TikTok’s are 18-24 and Instagram’s are 25-34, according to Sprout Social. So the challenge isn’t for marketers to pick a side. It’s delivering a cohesive experience across each platform, while adapting to their intricacies.
Thankfully, Vamp’s platform makes it easy for brands, such as Benefit Cosmetics and Estee Lauder, to run Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube campaigns concurrently.
#2 Leave room for reactivity
Tapping into social media trends through your influencer campaigns is a great way to engage your audience and drive them to action, increase your brand’s relevance within the space, and make your brand stand out from competitors.
But it’s important to note that these trends form on social media extremely quickly – especially on TikTok – so the most successful brands have a budget to utilise for reactive opportunities. Take Vamp’s client, Sanitarium for example.
When overnight Weet-Bix recipes were trending on TikTok, the brand wanted to amplify the trend through TikTok creators. They used Vamp’s platform to generate pre-approved overnight Weet-Bix recipes from key Australian creators. Check out some of the best-performing content here and here.
Reactiveness isn’t always easy for brands who need time to source brand-safe creators and brief them all before the trend loses momentum. This is why Vamp’s platform will be your saving grace.
Within hours of drafting your campaign brief via Vamp’s briefing form, you can have it moderated by our team and sent out to thousands of pre-vetted creators where you’ll receive 50% of applications within the first 2 hours. If that’s not reactive, we don’t know what is.
@fahad_teaches
#ad The high protein peanut butter Overnight Weet-Bix recipe is just 🤤❤️ #WeetBix #OvernightWeetbix #ad @Weet-Bix
♬ original sound – Fahad Teaches
#3 Don’t forget to amplify
A paid media strategy can help supercharge your influencer campaign results and drive mass awareness, website traffic, engagements, and return on ad spend. Plus, with constant social algorithm changes, turning your influencer-generated content into Instagram’s Branded Content Ads or TikTok’s Spark Ads is a sure-fire way to get them directly in front of your target audience.
Boosted posts appear native – with the original content, caption, and influencer handle – but can be targeted with precision to reach specific audiences, age ranges, and locations.
It also helps to create a smooth path to purchase. Given 67% of consumers say they’ve increased their online shopping since the start of the pandemic, this is imperative now more than ever for brands to offer their customers.
The ‘Shop now’ button which can be added to boosted posts will take consumers straight to your ecommerce site – turning social scrollers into shoppers in a matter of clicks. For maximum results, Vamp suggests putting spend behind content that is already performing well organically. This tactic has driven up to 113x ROAS for Vamp clients.
#4 Video content should be front of mind
It’s no surprise that video content – particularly short-form video content – is now favoured by social platforms. Instagram and YouTube both now offer users their own short-form video features; Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, both having taken inspiration from TikTok (which was once again the most downloaded app in Q1 2022).
Instagram has also been testing 60-second Stories to give users yet another excuse to create short-form video content on the platform. This push from social platforms for their users to create and consume more short-form video content means users’ attention spans have grown shorter, and they crave those short bursts of entertainment.
So now more than ever it’s important for brands to keep video content front of mind when engaging with influencers, as this is how you’ll capture and keep the attention of your customers.
One thing you’ll need to be cautious about is music licensing. To avoid any legal issues, it’s best to ask your creators at the briefing stage to only use royalty free music in their video content. This will make them aware up front and will give you the ability to boost their content if you choose to. Thankfully, Vamp’s briefing form is easy to use and prompts you to include a campaign description, do’s and dont’s, and required survey questions for creators to answer at the application stage.
#5 Have an ‘always on’ mindset
Through the power of social media and influencer marketing, brands can have multiple conversations with shoppers in a single day. You can connect with your audience every time they log in, which is usually everyday of the week. Having an ‘always on’ content strategy will boost your brand’s recognition and recall, helping you stay front of mind.
Coming up with creative influencer campaign ideas all year round may sound time-consuming, but it isn’t when you have Vamp’s content calendar on hand. Our most downloaded resource keeps you organised, on track with international holidays and events, and ensures you’re always creating the most relevant content for your audience.
You can use it to plan successful influencer campaigns around seasonal themes that you know will be top of mind with your audience. And trust us, whatever your niche, there’s a national day for you!
Start implementing these tips into your FY22/23 strategy and get in touch with our sales team.
