Why Use Instagram for Influencer Marketing?

In 2020, influencer marketing is set to become an $8 billion industry – in itself, a testament to its effectiveness in boosting brands. Below are some of the other reasons why the platform is the quintessential choice for influencer marketing.

It has a wider reach

Just take a gander at some of these stats:

• 1 billion people use Instagram every month, half of which use Instagram Stories every day. As well, 1/3 of the most viewed stories are from businesses.
• 63% of Instagram users log in at least once a day, and is expected to spend an average of 28 minutes per day on the platform in 2020. Additionally, 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile daily.
• In 2020, Instagram is expected to reach 112.5 US users – a 5.4% increase from 2019. It also remains the most popular traditional social network among US teens.

Best choice for higher engagement

Instagram maintains its lead over Facebook for the social platform with the highest engagement, with an average of 3.21% engagement rate compared to 1.5% across all social platforms. And apart from engaging with their peers, 62% of its users say they become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories. This has translated for it to be a go-to resource for consumers early in the buying cycle, with 81% of people using Instagram to help research products and services. It’s no surprise then that 130 million users tap on Instagram shopping posts every month.

Influencers’ choice

A fairly recent report by #HASHOFF found that 92% of influencers said that their networking platform of choice was Instagram. And even micro-influencers (those with followers between 1,000 to 100,000) find the most success on the platform, seeing of the highest engagement rates.

Additionally, influencers love IG because by design, it makes it easy for users to group themselves together based on their interests. And when you click on its “Explore” tab, all your interests are essentially bundled on the grid.

How to Utilize Instagram for Influencer Marketing

1. Video is still king

By now, there’s no doubt that video has the power to capture more eyeballs than any other type of content. And that’s why Instagram has been pushing all sorts of format types all within its platform. Their feature that allows snippets of IGTV content within the feed, with the option to click through for more has made IGTV something that brands now need to experiment with.

But whatever you choose to utilize – the feed, stories, IGTV, or better yet, a combination of all there – you’re setting yourself up to reach your goals when you spend resources on creating video content.

2. Longer captions are IN

After taking a backseat to visuals, influencers are now pivoting toward posts with lengthy captions in an effort to share more insight into their world and/or expertise.

Quigley Goode who has long been known to share in-depth posts with her 240,000 followers even shared her thought process behind her long form captions.

According to a research by Fohr, the average caption length has more than doubled since 2016 and is expected to reach an average of 405 characters or between 65-70 words in 2020. It appears that users are finally turning around when it comes to paying attention to lengthy captions, which in turn allows brands and influencers to further educate their audience about their messaging.

3. Ephemeral content is still rising

Chalk this up to the continued consumer demand for more authenticity. As such, expect influencers to cater to the interest in raw, behind-the-scenes content. As opposed to the highly-curated glossy content on feeds, ephemeral content allows brands to connect with audiences in a way that’s much more relatable.

Source

4. Micro-influencers for big results

As alluded to earlier, Instagram enjoys the highest engagement rates on average compared to other platforms. But it’s important to note that it’s micro-influencers, more specifically those with between 0-25,000 followers had the highest engagement rates regardless of their genre, target audience, or topics at 7%.

Take for example, Sarah Ferguson’s post, known for her work with children’s brands, received close to 900 likes and 122 comments from her loyal community of just 20,000 followers.

This fact enables brands to maximize their influencer marketing budgets by working with more affordable personalities.

5. Optimize your posting times

In early 2019, Later analyzed 12 million Instagram posts, posted in multiple time zones around the world, from accounts with followers ranging from 100 to 1 million, to find out which times are the best posting times. Here’s what they found:

And because Instagram has chosen to prioritize “new” content as opposed to chronologically, this data should be extremely useful for maximizing engagement. But you should also look into when most of your unique audience is actively scrolling through the app to truly optimize engagement and get your content seen. To help with this, you can use Later’s Best Time to Post feature, which calculates your 7 top posting times on your best performing posts from the recent month.

6. Measuring metrics will become even more important

If you’ve been in digital marketing for a while, you understand the importance of tracking different metrics. But as pointed out by Forbes, with even more information provided by platform APIs, influencers and agencies are now able to see crucial engagement metrics (such as saves and private shares on Instagram). These types of data can be extremely valuable for measuring things like audience interest and new audience reach.

Additionally, if you have the resources, you can also partner with agencies that have access to deep-dive influencer data, which can definitely help in optimizing your influencer marketing efforts as well as driving top-quality customer engagement.

Final words

If you’ve already got experience with Instagram and influencer marketing, the above trends and tips should leave you primed to elevate your game even further. And if you’re just about to embark on your first campaign, the same should help you hit the ground running.

Keep in mind, though, that you can’t just copy what others are doing. Start by understanding your own unique audience. This will allow you to get insights on which tactics would potentially work for your brand.

The post How to Effectively Use Instagram for Influencer Marketing This 2020 and Beyond appeared first on Relevance.

This article will discuss the different types of user-generated content, its benefits, how to leverage them to boost conversion rates, and how to manage bad reviews.

First off, what is user-generated content?

Essentially, user-generated content is any kind of content (images, videos, text, gifs, etc.) created and posted online by unpaid users. It could be an Instagram Story of someone using a particular product, a tweet mentioning a brand, or a product review on YouTube.

Types of user-generated content

While it’s not limited to the aforementioned and what’s below, here are the very basic types of user-generated content:

Images – You see it every day as part of the estimated 95 million photos posted on Instagram per day. It’s that photo posted by your friend of her new restaurant discovery. It can also be an image reposted by a brand as you can see below.

Source: https://gossipgenie.com

Feedback – This could be any type of feedback posted anywhere online—on people’s feeds, in the comments section, even a short story about a particular dessert can be considered user-generated feedback.

Reviews – While similar to feedback, reviews are often found on companies’ websites, which serve as social proof for other consumers (more on this later).

Source: https://support.trustpilot.com

Benefits of user-generated content

Higher-brand engagement

User-generated content has been found to have 28% higher engagement rate than regular brand posts, while videos created by (and featuring) users get 10x more views on YouTube than branded content. In this age where consumers place increasing value on authenticity and transparency, user-generated content has become one of the most trusted pieces of content.

When users trust the content, this tends to facilitate social exchanges. And as you can see with the changes in Instagram’s algorithm, which values interest, recency, and relationship brands have with users, user engagement has become more important than ever.

Builds credibility and trust

Speaking of trust, according to a Nielsen Consumer Trust Index, 92% of consumers trust organic, user-generated content more than they do traditional advertising. This is owed to the unbiased nature of UGC. And because users aren’t being paid for the content, people perceive user-generated content as more authentic and honest.

Saves time on content creation

User-generated content also provides brands with a steady stream of content they can repost and repurpose. While it would only be ethical that brands get users’ permission first, people generally appreciate the attention given when brands use their content.

As you can see below, brands can utilize hashtags to encourage UGC.

Source: https://www.digitaldoughnut.com 

Increased conversion rates

When your brand is trusted, it’s much easier to convert. Fashion brand Brownie exhibits how smart ecommerce looks like, integrating user-generated content to their product pages.

Source: https://www.digitaldoughnut.com 

Part of the authenticity and trust cultivated by brands is showing products in real-world settings, which could be just what you need to nudge consumers into a purchase. And with 48% of customers saying that UGC is a great way to discover new products, it can also improve your customer acquisition efficiency.

How to leverage user-generated content for conversion rate optimization

Use reviews and ratings to get more leads

Over 70% of consumers say they look at product reviews before considering a purchase. Because reviews show potential customers how reliable your offerings are, you should encourage customers to leave reviews whenever possible. Apart from allowing it on your site and social channels, invite customers to write on third-party apps like Yelp, Google, and TripAdvisor as well.

You can even incentivize reviews by offering discount codes in exchange for them. Don’t be discouraged when you get negative reviews. They’re part of what makes a brand all the more authentic.

Source: https://www.smartinsights.com 

Run contests and generate hashtags

You’ve seen in the Brownie example how creating hashtags for user-generated content makes it convenient to collate UGC. By combining hashtags with contests, you can encourage even more user-generated content. The added bonus of hashtags is that if you get them to trend, this will inevitably increase engagement, build brand awareness, and ultimately, boost sales.

Marc Jacobs, for example, declared that they would cast a model for their next campaign through user-generated content with the hashtag #CastMeMarc. In just 24 hours, the contest already generated 15,000 hashtag entries.

Source: https://www.smartinsights.com 

Utilize video

Video has been on top of the content marketing food chain for a while now, and for good reason. Not only can brands incorporate messaging faster with short videos (as opposed to text), its shareability and potential for going viral are also added benefits.

Pampers did a great job for their “Love, Sleep and Play” campaign where they created a video using user-generated content. After asking customers to submit videos of their babies through Facebook, they combined it in a single video that showed babies and their parents playing, falling asleep, and having fun.

As you might expect with anything involving cute babies, the video resonated with the brand’s audience and led to extremely positive feedback.

Source: YouTube 

Gamify it

Gamification has always been great at increasing engagement. In gamification, users are required to complete tasks and are rewarded and recognized for doing so. The recognition can come through badges and leaderboards, while rewards can come in the form of special discounts and being part of VIP clubs.

A good example was Nike’s gamification of its Nike+ fueldband app. There, runners tracked their activities through metrics like distance, time, pace, and calories burnt. Then, the app was linked to social media where users shared their results and competed against each other.

Not only was Nike able to increase engagement and create awareness for their app, but they were also able to collect data that they used to further segment their market.

Seasonal content

You’re going to need to come up with a unique take on special occasions for you to be able to create a successful seasonal UGC campaign. You’re also going to need to get a good understanding of your audience, what your seasonal goals are, and which platforms this would work best on.

Because they’re a massive brand with an equally large following, Starbucks was able to do this simply with a red cup. Its #RedCupContest encouraged fans to share their customized coffee cups for a chance to win a Starbucks gift card. The catch, of course, is that users needed to purchase their red cups to join. It boosted engagement, awareness, and sales – a win all around.

Source: https://www.smartinsights.com

Bonus: How to manage bad reviews

Of course, it’s never going to be all positive when you put it in the hands of the people. But as mentioned earlier, negative reviews are also part of building brand authenticity. Here are some quick tips for managing bad reviews:

Don’t panic – Sure, it stings, but it’s part of business.

Evaluate the situation – Check if the review is real. Competitors have been found to leave fraudulent reviews. Get additional information to see if you can trace the purchase. This should give you an idea of whether the review is real or not. If you find that it’s fake, then flag it for removal.

Rectify the situation – If it is indeed a real review, respond as quickly as possible. Apologize and own up to the complaint. Offer to address the problem, and if, say, you promise a product replacement, follow up on it.

Negative reviews will always be part of the game. Keep a cool head about it, respond, and learn from whatever mistakes you unearth.

Takeaway

As you can see, there are loads of benefits to utilizing user-generated content. And with user engagement coming at a premium, encouraging your audience to create content for you will do wonders for your overall marketing strategy.

The post How to Boost Your Brand with User-Generated Content appeared first on Relevance.