7 Ways To Make Your Influencer Marketing Pop This Holiday Season

It’s officially time to map out your influencer marketing for the holiday season and begin booking influencers. With talks of inflation, which is expected to top 6% by Christmas according to the Pew Research Center, consumers are expected to spend less this year and be more mindful of purchases in general, which means your marketing campaigns must be expertly crafted and launched with plenty of time in advance to catch the attention of holiday shoppers.

There’s never been a better moment to lean heavily on influencer marketing, partnering with personality-driven creators who can demonstrate your brand’s key products and benefits through engaging and relatable content.

Strengthen your holiday campaigns by:

Planning ahead and launching early.

Holiday shopping starts earlier each year, with 31% of consumers in 2021 starting their holiday shopping before Halloween and 55% before Thanksgiving, according to a survey done by Jungle Scout. Expect that number to rise this year as consumers seek to avoid supply chain delays and seek out the best deals. With this in mind, you should plan to begin promoting holiday offerings in early October and ramp up in November to capture holiday consumers before they’ve checked off their shopping lists for the year. Even date-specific sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday should launch earlier than their traditional start so that you can advertise deals early.

Getting a head start on your holiday campaigns also means securing influencers before they become booked and locking them in before they charge a premium for last-minute holiday campaigns as well.

Partnering with strategically selected creators.

The creators you select for holiday influencer campaigns will be integral to the success of your marketing efforts, especially if you are seeking sales conversions. Creators who excel in short-form video content, have highly engaged audiences, and have a proven track record with sales conversions will be your key partners. Our extended network includes thousands of creators that we can match with your brand to ensure your goals are met.

Crafting creative that emphasizes value.

Consumers are inundated with a surplus of options these days, which is why emphasizing your brand’s benefits over the competition should be a focus of your campaign messaging. Provide influencer partners with unique discount codes to increase the campaign’s success and use influencer marketing to bring awareness to limited-time offers throughout the holiday season.

With consideration to the current economic landscape, consumers may be shopping for practical gifts, especially in the home and travel categories, while younger shoppers will likely still have trendy items on their wish lists. Take your brand’s target audiences into consideration when deciding what products to highlight for the holiday season and how influencers speak to your brand.

We can work with you to craft effective messaging that drives these points home and provide you with the right influencer partners to bring these messages to life through their content.

Activating Story content for limited-time offers and last-minute promotions.

Think of influencers as your valuable partners in informing consumers about important sales, back-in-stock items, and other informational content during the holiday season. Stories are a great way to highlight limited-time offers and time-sensitive information, like letting audiences know that a best-selling item is finally back in stock. This is why building up strong influencer relationships will give you a leg up during this busy season, as pre-existing business relationships will make it easier for you to add on last-minute campaign additions if needed.

Bringing company values to the forefront.

When faced with an overwhelming amount of choices on where to shop, consumers are mindful of supporting brands that have similar values. Showcase your charity partners and craft a campaign that features a charity component to bring your brand’s values to the forefront, using influencers with like-minded values to amplify your message.

Optimizing content.

Ad amplification is a necessary component of holiday marketing, but it is important to know that the digital ad space will become crowded as we near peak holiday shopping. Plan out your ad strategy in advance and monitor performance continually so you can make the best use of top-performing content and maximize your return on investment. Lytehouse’s team knows how to monitor and optimize ads across platforms, and can run your amplification program on your behalf.

Using the holiday season to jumpstart your 2023 ambassadorships.

Holiday is an important time for marketers, but don’t forget about a new year of marketing just beyond that! It is never too early to start thinking about your 2023 plans, and your holiday campaigns can be a great opportunity to test out influencer partners and assess potential 2023 ambassadors based on top-performing talent. With our team of influencer experts who can analyze campaign performance and provide key learnings for a new year of marketing, we can help you kick off your 2023 efforts on the best foot forward.

3 Tips To Maximizing Your Infleuncer Campaign’s Effectiveness

Just as we adjusted and adapted at the beginning of the pandemic to new normals in our strategies, we encourage you to adopt the key lessons learned in 2020 for your upcoming campaigns, considering a potential economic downturn in the latter half of the year: larger flexibility around posting, leveraging influencers to create content for brand usage, and leaning into the strengths of influencer partners for campaigns that will bring you the most bang for your buck.

Marketing budgets often see cuts in times of economic uncertainty, which means we will all need to adjust our strategies to accomplish more with fewer resources. To do so, we advise refining your campaigns in 3 major areas: influencer selection, content strategy, and campaign optimization.

Enhance Your Strategy Via:

1) Thoughtful Influencer Selection

Your influencer selection needs to be deliberate and planned out. The farther out you can lock in influencer partners, the better prepared you will be, with plenty of time to develop campaign content and the ability to book influencers at their standard rates. Contracting influencers for long-term partnerships can help ameliorate costs while also building the efficacy of your campaign. We also recommend working with influencers who have proven track records with sales conversions (either through Instagram Shop or another affiliate program) if your goal is to achieve high sales conversions through influencer content.

2) A Defined Content Strategy

Focus on content types that will maximize your campaign goals. For Instagram, Stories are typically slightly less expensive than in-feed posts and can feature clickable links, ideal for brands with sales conversions top of mind. Short-form video is also a priority on Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms, with the ability to run them as whitelisted ads, a simple way to maximize return. 

3) Campaign Optimization

Ad amplification and usage can run up influencer fees, which is why we recommend adding these on to influencer campaigns on an as-needed basis as a way to pay for only what you will use. Contracting for extensive usage upfront might seem easier, but for brands looking to cut costs, you may end up paying more for content that ends up going unused. Instead, assess organic content performance and select the optimal content pieces for ad placements and additional usage based on how well they do.

Monitoring KPIs and Determining Success in Gaming Influencer Campaigns

Now that you know why brands are getting into gaming-centric campaigns (more on that here) let’s discuss how you can track campaign performance and find success in the space.

Gaming influencer campaigns are often geared towards brand awareness and brand affinity among an increasingly valuable audience; however, they are now also being leveraged for product purchases, launches, and user acquisition.

The Key Performance Indicators to Track for Gaming Campaigns

• Average Concurrent Viewers (Avg. CCV): The average viewership at a given moment throughout the stream

• Peak Concurrent Viewers (Peak CCV): The highest level of concurrent viewership reached during the stream

• Unique Viewers: How many unique viewers engaged with the stream

• Views: Impressions of the stream

The best way to guarantee your influencer campaign in the gaming space is a success is by partnering with influencers who are passionate about the brand partnership and enthusiastic with their audience. That energy will translate to higher audience engagement.

How Brands Can Engage & Find Success

Brands have the opportunity to activate alongside creators in a depth of ways, including sponsored streams and live-streamed events, VODS and long-form series, and short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram. The brands prioritizing these areas are finding more ways to creatively own the gaming scene alongside creators. 

A big trend has been the creativity and ownership of esports content by the creators themselves. From creator tournaments like Ludwig’s Fortnite Mondays, live-streamed series like OTK’s series Schooled, and big stunts and challenge videos with influencers like Mr. Beast and PrestonPlayz, gaming creators are often at the heart of today’s innovations.

It’s worth noting that while production quality is an important factor to consider, the true keys to success in content include showcasing personalities, bringing creators together, and telling entertaining, organic-first stories.

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Have questions about launching a gaming campaign? We can walk you through the whole process. Get in touch. 

4 Reasons Why Brands Are Getting Into Gaming Marketing

The old cliché that gamers are either male kids with no purchasing power or social misfits still living in their mothers’ basements is long outdated: we've seen a 79% increase in sponsored streams on Twitch and YouTube, and there's a big reason why.

The fact of the matter is that gaming cannot be ignored. The gaming industry is projected to reach a value of $175 billion in the United States this year, with 227 million gamers in the United States in 2021 according to a study from the Entertainment Software Association. As it pertains to the world of influencer marketing, gaming influencers are incredibly popular, with 1 in 10 adults worldwide following at least 1 gaming influencer according to a study from market research company YouGov, and amongst teens in the United States, gaming influencers are the second-followed influencer type behind music personalities. 

Beyond the high usership, gaming audiences are highly engaged with the content they consume. 30 million people are tuning in to Twitch to watch live gaming content on a daily basis, there were over 800 million gaming-specific tweets in Q1 2022 alone, and the gaming spend is expected to exceed a record-breaking $200 billion this year. Across watching games, talking about gaming, and spending on games, a new kind of fan experience is being forged through this industry.

And while we are discussing gaming today, platforms like Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Facebook Gaming have found success beyond video game live streams, with plenty of popular creators hosting cooking streams, conversational chats, and other lifestyle streaming content. The possibilities of activating within the gaming community are essentially endless.

1) Young Audience Demographic

With 38% of gamers falling between the ages of 18 to 34, the gaming space is ideal for reaching Gen-Z and young millennial consumers. It is also more gender-balanced than many assume, with 41% of gamers in the US identifying as female in 2021, meaning gaming is a great space to reach young consumers of all genders.

2) Hyper-Customization

There are significant levels of creative concepts and executions that can be pursued, especially compared to the established sponsorship formats of traditional sports, music, and film. Gaming integrations go beyond purely media and product placement, and into owned events, gamification, and experiential content. 

3) Audience Engagement

Creators on platforms like Twitch have subscribers that can pay a monthly fee for access to exclusive content, meaning that they have truly opted into the creator’s content and are more likely to engage with it, including branded content. Partner with gaming influencers who have a strong subscriber base if you wish to see high engagement and conversion rates.

4) Depth of Opportunity

While streaming apps like Twitch are dominant in the world of gaming influencers, influencers in the space activate across social platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, allowing for brands to develop powerful omnichannel campaigns that reach varied audiences. 

Managing Long-Term Influencer Partnerships

Long-term partnerships between brands and influencers are the way to maximize the potential of influencer marketing.

As a brand, you’re able to establish a long-lasting relationship with both influencer partners and their audience. Now is the perfect moment to start securing influencers for brand ambassadors for 2022 programs, and we have a few tips for you so your upcoming influencer programs can break through.

Our tips for planning your upcoming influencer ambassador programs:

Select performance-based influencers: Long-term ambassadorships are an investment, and you’ll want to prioritize influencers who can deliver on the KPIs you are after.

Test creators with short-term partnerships first: Before you commit to working with influencers for a year, try working with them for a shorter period of time to test their content’s performance and ensure that their audience is aligned with your target audience. You can even use upcoming holiday programs as the trial run.

Look for organic brand supporters: Sponsored content fatigue is real. Audiences will be able to tell right away if a sponsored post is a poor fit for an influencer. Avoid this by partnering with influencers who are preexisting brand fans or whose content and style align with that of your brand.

Understand audience demographics: Not only will you want your influencer partner to align with your brand, but you’ll also want to check that their audience demographics make sense as well. When you hire influencers to promote your brand, you’re really looking to market to their following, so ask for their audience insights ahead of time so you know the content will be reaching your target audience.

Mix up posting types throughout the program: One way to keep a long-term campaign exciting is by switching up the post types throughout the program’s duration. Instagram Posts and Stories are always popular, but try out an IGTV video, blog post, live video, or another content type to see how various posts perform. We also encourage you to activate across different platforms such as TikTok, Clubhouse, or YouTube, as cross-platform campaign strategies extend the reach of the branded content to additional audiences.

Offer incentives to influencers to encourage above-and-beyond content: Ambassadorships are about relationship building, not just between your brand and the influencer’s audience, but between you and the influencer. Incentives like a commission system, gifting, and VIP experiences will strengthen your partnership and encourage the influencer to go above and beyond with their content creation. We recommend providing each influencer with a personalized discount code to provide with their audience, as it incentivizes the audience to purchase directly from the influencer’s content while at the same time providing your brand a way to track performance and sales conversion. 

Be okay with adjusting your strategy: Even the best-laid plans can go awry, which is why it’s important to know when to take a step back and recalibrate if a campaign isn’t performing as expected. Instead of continuing with content that doesn’t work, alter your strategy for the remainder of the program. Just know that such alterations may require contract edits and rate negotiations with the influencer

3 Benefits of Working With An Influencer Agency On Retainer

As you build out your brand’s influencer marketing strategy and consider amping up efforts, you may consider hiring an agency like Lytehouse on retainer.

Having an influencer agency on retainer means access to a dedicated team that can assist with strategy, casting, execution, reporting, and scalability on an ongoing, on-call basis. From one-off castings to nimble strategy-led programs, an agency retainer provides ongoing support.

Here are some reasons why you should consider hiring an agency on retainer:

1) Access team expertise whenever needed.

Agencies like Lytehouse are staffed with influencer marketing experts who have unparalleled industry knowledge and experience. Whether you need help building out your year-long strategy or simply have a question about the latest Instagram update, an agency on retainer can answer questions and provide insight on questions big and small.

2) Receive dynamic data analysis.

Hiring an agency on retainer cuts down on the time-intensive process of onboarding and reviewing previous data. Partnering with an agency like Lytehouse for a long-term retainer allows the agency to access campaign data and provide you with data-based feedback and recommendations for the next campaign.

3) Build up your influencer database.

Agencies have strong connections with influencers (especially one like Lytehouse which has a sister influencer management agency, Socialyte!) that your brand may not have the bandwidth to cultivate. With the agency team at the ready and familiar with your long-term marketing needs, the agency can establish a robust list of influencer partners for upcoming campaigns, whether that’s a one-off partnership or long-term ambassadorship.

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Want to work with Lytehouse on retainer? Let’s chat.

Best Practices For Your Holiday 2021 Influencer Campaigns

The holiday season is quickly approaching, which means now is the perfect time to get on top of your end-of-year marketing strategy.

Here are our tips on how to make your influencer programs for the holiday 2021 season incredible:

Start booking influencers now.

The sooner you book your influencer partners for holiday marketing initiatives, the better. Influencer content calendars fill up quickly, as they can limit the number of partnerships they accept so they don’t overwhelm their audience with sponsored content. Booking influencers last-minute means you risk being unable to book your top choices. As we get closer to the holiday season, influencers can also charge a premium fee for booking during an in-demand time.

Consumers will be shopping earlier than in previous years as well. Last year, 38% of shoppers planned to start their holiday shopping in October, and 60% before December, and this trend is expected to continue this year. Start booking your influencers now so that you can secure your top choices for a reasonable rate and market to consumers ahead of the competition. 

Enter With A Game Plan.

Start with the “why” of your campaign and work backward: set your goals and key performance indicators (KPI) from the beginning, identify the metrics you’ll need to track, then select influencer partners and build out your content strategy with these end goals in mind. You should also plan go-live dates ahead of time to account for key shopping moments like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and holiday shipping deadlines to ensure viewers see holiday marketing content in time to complete and receive purchases in time.

For more tips on how to pick your KPIs and track campaign performance, click here.

Book Influencers As Ambassadors.

Consumers respond well to brand partnerships that are truly genuine. They’re also more likely to turn into customers the more they are exposed to your brand messaging from the same source. Consider seizing on an influencer’s organic affinity with your brand (i.e. an influencer that has already been using your product/service organically) or re-book well-performing talent from one of your previous campaigns.

Influencer marketing is all about relationship building, both between influencer and follower as well as influencer and brand partner. The best influencer partnerships understand this, working with influencers not as one-off contractors but as trusted brand ambassadors. Whether this means seizing on an influencer’s organic brand affinity (ex. a cooking influencer has been using a specific brand of cookware for years and now works with that brand to create sponsored content) or building audience trust through a yearlong partnership with several rounds of branded posts, viewers will respond well to brand partnerships that feel genuine. They’re also more likely to turn into customers the more they are exposed to a brand’s messaging.

Video Is The Way To Go.

Instagram has already announced that it is no longer simply a photo-sharing platform, shifting its focus to video content on Reels, Stories, and IGTV. TikTok and YouTube are video-focused by nature, and even Pinterest has prioritized short-form video content with its Idea Pins. The bulk of your influencer marketing for the holiday season—and in general moving forward—should be short-form video content.

Not only are social media platforms prioritizing video in their algorithms, but video tends to drive stronger consumer engagement for marketers. 60% of marketers found Facebook videos to earn more engagement than images, according to a Databox survey, as well as higher click-through rates, and according to a 2021 report by HubSpot and Mention, organic video content on Instagram receives 38% more engagement than photo posts. Video allows creators to showcase products in an engaging manner and lead with personality, and the visual cues demand users to pause their scrolling momentarily and engage with the content for a longer period of time than they would a static image.

Have A Clear Call-To-Action.

Each piece of influencer content you book should include a clear call-to-action (e.g. a swipe-up link for conversion) that directs viewers with what you would like them to do after seeing the content. Is your goal to encourage purchases? Ensure each influencer includes a swipe-up link in their Story content that brings viewers to a product page. Are you hoping to have viewers create organic content? Create a dedicated hashtag and use influencers to promote the hashtag and start the trend. Does your brand have a charitable tie-in for the holiday season? Include specific information on how audiences can get involved and support the charity. A clear and concise CTA will ensure that your campaign turns viewership into action.

Amplify Strategically.

During a competitive season, paid amplification is the best way to extend the reach of your holiday influencer marketing to a wide, yet highly targeted audience while guaranteeing a strong return on your investment. We recommend allocating at least 20% of your overall campaign budget towards ad amplification. With this amount set aside, along with day-to-day ad performance monitoring and adjusting, Lytehouse has seen brands achieve close to 100% return on investment. Facebook and Instagram ads are tried-and-true amplification methods, but we also recommend sharing sponsored content on TikTok and Pinterest to reach additional audiences.

Use Content To The Fullest.

You’ve worked hard to secure quality influencer content for the holiday season, now make sure you’re maximizing your campaign. Secure usage rights in the contracting phase so that your brand can utilize influencer-created content on brand-owned channels. (Do note that the more extensive the usage rights, the higher the rate can become.) Develop an amplification strategy to reach new potential customers beyond the influencer’s and brand’s existing audiences. Book evergreen content that can live beyond the holiday season so that you can run longer ads and get a head start on 2022 marketing.

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Let’s recap:

• Book Influencer partners ASAP for holiday campaigns

• Set campaign goals and KPIs first

• Schedule out posting dates to hit key holiday moments

• Cast influencers as ambassadors for larger programs

• Prioritize short-form video content

• Include a clear call to action with all campaign content

• Amplify strong-performing content to reach wider audiences

• Secure usage rights so you can use influencer-created content on brand channels

Have Influencers Create Your Next Brand Campaign

In a time when media companies of all sizes have had to pare down their productions and adapt to a simpler approach, influencers have been set up for success in our current circumstances. Even before COVID-19, influencers regularly created content within their own homes, often photographing, editing, and curating the content themselves. Now when everything from news organizations to Saturday Night Live to magazines are scrambling to adjust to at-home constraints, influencers are, for the most part, continuing on as normal with their content creation. 

As you continue to plan your brand’s social media calendar, look to influencers who can operate as creative directors and develop beautiful content on behalf of your brand, especially while studios are shut down. 

Find The Right Influencer

Look to influencers who create elevated, high-quality content that matches the look and feel of your brand. The influencers who create strong content for your feed may differ from other influencers you work with where sales conversions are the main goal. When hiring influencers to develop content for use on your brand channels, high-quality photos and videos should be the top priority. Lytehouse can help you find the right Creators to help create campaign imagery on your behalf. Feel free to reach out here.

Collaborate On Creative

Think of your partnered influencer as an expert and be open to collaborating on the creative vision behind photo shoots. As experts, they are likely to bring unique and creative ideas to photo shoot concepts. Work together and be open to new suggestions to create the strongest final result.

Make Usage Rights Clear

In the contracting phase, make the usage rights of all content clear. Detail where and how campaign imagery will be used, and for how long. Even if you are not requiring the influencer to post on their own feed, you will still need to compensate them accordingly depending on how you intend to use the content.

Why One-Off Influencer Partnerships Are Becoming Less Effective

Memory is at the heart of successful marketing. It’s why brands invest energy and money into creating recognizable logos and advertisements with catchy jingles that get stuck in your head. And one way to create lasting memories? Repetition. Think about it like this: if you drive by a billboard once, you may or may not remember what the billboard is advertising, but if you drive by it every single day, you are going to have a stronger memory of the ad. The repetition of the experience strengthens the memory.

This same principle applies to influencer marketing campaigns. If followers see an influencer mention a brand just once, they may or may not remember the brand later on. On the other hand, if an influencer consistently mentions a brand month after month, followers are more likely to remember the brand, check it out, and finally purchase product from the brand. By incorporating repetition into your influencer marketing strategy, you are increasing the amount of an influencer’s followers who can translate into customers. 

There are additional advantages to partnering with influencers for multiple posts, one being that you will increase your campaign reach through multiple posts. In an ideal world, 100% of an influencer’s following would see every single post of theirs, but in reality, only a fraction of an influencer’s followers will see each post. A long term partnership increases the likelihood of more followers seeing the branded content; maybe they will miss one post, but they can see another. 

Perhaps the most important benefit of working with influencers for long term partnerships is that they are able to share an authentic brand partnership that their audience trusts. Marketing through storytelling has become a powerful way to connect with consumers, and during the coronavirus pandemic when audiences are looking to influencers to share the brands and items they genuinely rely on, the importance of authentic partnerships has only grown. Influencers who speak on a brand partner for weeks or months at a time become natural brand advocates and showcase how a brand fits into their everyday life.

7 Ways To Adjust Your Brand Messaging During Coronavirus

In recent days, brands have had to shift their messaging to account for the rapidly changing circumstances in which most find themselves following widespread measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Brands and marketers have had a lot of questions about how to appropriately address COVID-19; is it business as usual, or is it insensitive to continue marketing to consumers when businesses are closing to the public? 

These are difficult questions, and there is no one right or wrong answer across the board. Your brand will have to decide what makes the most sense moving forward, but we can tell you that while things may seem dire, we have faith that there are ways for brands and influencers to adapt to these changes and be forces for hope when people need it most. 

Influencers are open to continuing branded partnerships (in fact, 98% of influencers we surveyed said they would like to continue sharing sponsored content); they are small business owners themselves, after all, and rely on income from brand partnerships. But creative briefs and brand messaging might have to change to reflect the times we are currently in. For both influencer partnerships and your own branded content, here are 7 things to keep in mind.

1) Shift Photo and Video Guidelines To What Is Possible

Most cities are experiencing an unprecedented closure of restaurants, theaters, museums, bars, stores, and other places of gathering, and citizens are trying to remain at home as much as they can. If your campaign requires an influencer to pose at a restaurant or shop in your store, you will need to modify your creative brief to account for what is possible at the moment. 

An influencer will  not be able to film an in-store shopping excursion right now, but they can film an at-home try-on session featuring items they purchased online. We encourage you to get creative with fitting content guidelines and can of course always offer our suggestions.

2) Be Mindful Of CDC Guidelines

As always, branded messaging should follow FTC guidelines, but during the coronavirus pandemic they should also follow guidelines set forth by the CDC. This may include having influencers add in extra steps like washing their hands before applying makeup for a beauty brand partnership, or cleaning a delivered package before opening. Influencers in areas that have enacted a “safer at home” policy should also refrain from posting images out in public areas (even if those areas are empty). Adding in these additional guidelines will help get your brand messaging across while also promoting proper practices for limiting the spread of COVID-19. 

3) Acknowledge the Situation, But It’s Okay to Provide an Escape

There’s no escaping mentions of coronavirus and COVID-19 these days, and almost every industry has been affected by the disease. We do recommend addressing how your brand is responding to the issue, as your customers will want to know what measures you are taking to protect your employees, your products, and your customers. 

That being said, we’ve gathered from social media users that they do want to see regular content from brands and influencers, so you don’t have to include mentions to coronavirus in all your branded messaging. Essentially, address the situation, but don’t make it the only thing you talk about. We have enough messaging about COVID-19 to sift through on the news; feel free to allow for influencers you partner with to provide a bit of a digital escape.

4) Encourage Messages Of Positivity And Benefits

Audiences are turning to their favorite influencers now more than ever to be sources of inspiration, hope, and guidance on how to stay active and creative while quarantining at home. Keep messaging positive and hopeful, while still respecting the seriousness of the issue. Have influencers highlight the benefits of an otherwise negative situation, like how social distancing is finally giving them the time to redo their home office or cook a new recipe for the family. Highlight how your product or service helps make life at home easier. Focus on the benefits, not the setbacks. 

5) Tie In Your Campaign To Activities Or Interactive Content If Possible

There are two things we already know to be true about social media users in quarantined areas: one, a lot of people are looking for ways to pass the time while at home, and two, they are using social media more than usual. Use this knowledge to your benefit when creating campaign concepts by including a challenge or activity of some sort. Not only will this provide audiences with a way to pass the time, but it can also create organic content and increase the reach of your campaign as users organically share content.

Because users will also be engaging more with social content in general, another idea is to incorporate Instagram story poll or question features to branded story content. 

6) Highlight Products That Apply To Social Distancing 

Lifestyles have dramatically changed in the past week, but consumers are quickly adjusting and focusing on different areas of their lives, so your current campaigns should reflect current times. People may not be purchasing festival attire, but they are shopping for loungewear to make staying in more comfortable. In-store shopping is largely not an option at the moment, so redirect customers to e-commerce options. Showcasing products that are beneficial right now will help increase ROI, and help consumers see the value of your products in the moment. 

7) Consider Charitable Tie-Ins

There is no denying that the coronavirus outbreak is having a tremendous impact on all industries, from medical professionals who need supplies to combat the disease to small business owners who are feeling the economic effects of store closures. The world is hurting, but those who can give back have the power to help everyone heal. If there is a charity that your brand already partners with, it could be a great idea to give back a portion of proceeds to that charity. You can also find a medical organization or way to give back to small business owners as additional ideas to help out in-need industries.

Planning Long Term Influencer Partnerships

The new year is the perfect time to start your influencer marketing strategy on the right note and partner with influencers for the year. Long term partnerships are mutually beneficial for brands and influencers. Brands are able to build long-lasting relationships with their influencer partners, and influencers are able to maintain trust with their audience because they promote the same brand over a long period of time.

Before you start a new long term partnership, however, you will want to take several key factors into account to ensure the program’s success.

Set Clear Goals & Requirements Ahead of Time

The more you plan ahead of launching the yearlong partnership, the smoother things will run. Take time to structure the program, from how many influencers you’ll be activating to how many posts they’ll be creating and what your key performance indicators are.

Be clear and upfront from the get go about how many social posts you are looking for, as well as the cadence of posts. No one likes to be blindsided with changing requirements, so the more clear you can be upfront about your expectations, the better.

Partner With Influencers Who Have Proven Track Records

If you are working with influencers for a whole year, you will want to work with creators who can help you meet your marketing and sales goals. Use analytical tools to measure engagement and reach metrics, and follow the influencers to see firsthand how engaged their community is.

Should sales be the primary objective of your campaign, you can request case studies or conversion metrics from potential influencer partners.

Need some more assistance deciding what type or types of influencer to work with? Check out our guide on influencer selection.

Know When To Switch Gears

As much as you should try to stick to your original game plan, goals may change over the course of the partnership. In that case—or in the case that an influencer’s content is not performing as well as you had hoped—it is okay to consider experimenting and changing tactics.

Perhaps it’s switching an Instagram post requirement to a set of Instagram Stories since an influencer’s audience engages more with stories, or changing the creative direction for a post. Within reason, it is completely acceptable to have a conversation with the influencer about changing the plan. If you are asking to add more deliverables, extend the timeline, or any other major changes, however, you may need to pay an additional fee to the influencer.

Work With an Agency Who Will Do the Heavy Lifting

Whether activating 1 influencer or 100, a long term campaign features many moving pieces. Partnering with an agency like Lytehouse can help take a lot of the work off your plate and allow you to focus on big picture initiatives. From casting influencers to coordinating posts to campaign reporting, agencies are there to help with large partnerships and can offer unparalleled expertise on best practices.

Holiday Content That Works

As we make our way into the heart of the holiday season, you are no doubt also in the midst of contracting and coordinating campaigns. Wondering what makes for a successful holiday campaign?

Here are a few of our favorite 2018 holiday campaigns from Socialyte talent to give you some insight on top-performing holiday content:

Multi-Blogger Programs

Coordinating a multi-blogger campaign is a common strategy, but bringing those influencers together for a single shoot is a great way to increase engagement, making it beneficial for both the brand and the influencers involved, as they can cross-promote each other as well as the featured product.

Aim For Authenticity

When creating branded content, there is a fine balance between showcasing the promoted item and veering too far into the staged photo realm. Candid shots that display the featured product in a natural environment hit that sweet spot. Encourage captions to focus on personal stories and anecdotes to further drive that authentic feeling home.

Think Beyond Just Christmas

Between now and the start of 2020, there are plenty of holidays to celebrate! Thanksgiving, Black Friday, New Year’s Eve, and more are great opportunities to highlight your brand and mix up the content from the typical Christmas-centered fare.

Let Each Influencer’s Creativity Shine

You’ll no doubt have creative guidelines for your campaign, as the number one goal is to let the featured product shine. However, you shouldn’t be afraid to let each influencer create the content that works best for his or her audience. 

Even though these three influencers promoted the same product line, each influencer put her own spin on the styling, creative direction, filtering, and so on.

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Want to ensure you receive the best influencer content? Read more of our tips for content guidelines here.

What Type Of Influencer Should You Work With?

Selecting the right type of influencer to work with can make or break a campaign’s success. It’s easy enough to think that contracting a celebrity influencer with millions of followers will get your brand the most exposure, but there are many other factors to consider when selecting influencers.

Depending on your brand’s KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and goals, working with a group of micro-influencers might actually be more beneficial. Here are a few of the most common KPIs we see amongst brands and the types of influencers best suited to meet those goals:

If your goal is brand awareness, work with…celebrity influencers

If high campaign reach and exposure are the numbers you care about, there’s no better way to hit those benchmarks than with celebrity and macro influencers. Typically a macro influencer is defined as having over 500,000 followers.

As strange as it may seem, influencers with larger followings don’t always have the strongest engagement rates (industry standard for macro influencers is around 1-2%, while smaller influencers have higher rates) but an uber-popular influencer or celebrity toting your product will do wonders for exposing your brand to new audiences.

When working with influencers of this size, you’ll need to prepare to put a large budget behind securing just one influencer, so be sure to consider engagement rates, brand alignment, and audience demographics when choosing which macro influencer to work with.

If your goal is sales, work with…micro and mid-tier influencers paired with amplification

Micro (10,000 - 100,000 followers) and mid-tier (100,000 - 500,000) influencers are known to build strong relationships with their followers. These are the influencers that consumers turn to when making purchasing decisions because they’ve formed trust with their audiences.

By combining these posts with targeted amplification, we can optimize programs for link clicks and promote sales conversions with highly targeted customers.

If your goal is engagement, work with…micro and nano influencers

Micro and nano (1,000 - 10,000 followers) influencers may have smaller reaches, but their followers are typically very engaged. If your campaign is focused on generating comments, DM interactions, and conversations, you may want to partner with micro and nano influencers.

Because they have smaller followings, you may need to contract a larger number of influencers (and prepare a large budget for a wide-reaching and heavy lift campaign) to have a large impact on consumers.

If your goal is content, work with…creators

Influencer campaigns are a form of digital advertising, so it makes sense that your brand may want influencer-created content for your own use. Maybe you’ll use the photos influencers create on your own social media channels or website. Maybe you’ll use their videos for an ad campaign. Whatever the case may be, if owning content is your goal, you’ll want to work with true creators.

Consider the content that the influencer create and how well it aligns with your brand’s voice and aesthetic. Beyond numbers and demographics, you’ll really want to find influencers who are a good match stylistically.

When contracting influencers to use their content on your platforms, remember that this may increase their fee. Additionally, you will want to clearly lay out where their content will be used and for how long.

When To Gift Influencers

Since influencer marketing has surged in popularity, there’s been a healthy debate about whether influencer gifting is valuable. Some argue that gifting is an important way to spread brand awareness, while others would rather spend their marketing budgets on guaranteeing influencer posts, but the truth is there is a time and place for gifting influencers.

Here are the benefits and setbacks to influencer gifting campaigns so you can determine if gifting is the right move for your brand:

Pros of Gifted Campaigns

Less costly than a paid campaign: This is the most obvious benefit to gifting influencers. If your brand does not have a lot of budget to devote to influencer marketing, shipping out press packages is a less expensive option. Even if you splurge on fancy packaging, the cost of shipping and materials will be far less than contracting influencers to post.

Builds organic relationships: When influencers received gifted products without any expectations of posting, they’ll oftentimes feel more comfortable posting about said product. More importantly, gifting is a great way to allow influencers to test out the product and determine on their own if they like what they’ve received. This is incredibly beneficial for new beauty brands or anything that an individual can test out firsthand, because it gets the product directly into the hands of the influencer.

Cons of Gifted Campaigns

No guarantees: When gifting influencers, you are leaving a lot up to fate. Gifting rarely includes contracting influencers, and without any formal agreements in place, there are no promises that the influencers you are gifting will post about—or even use—your product.

Can’t control the narrative: With that being said, you also cannot control how an influencer may speak about your product. Whether they use the wrong hashtag, create subpar content, or even speak negatively about your product, once the item is sent, you have zero control over how it is talked about as no contract is required without payment. This is a large obstacle for luxury brands, especially, who want maximum control over how their brand is represented.

Hard to work with bigger influencers: Gifting is most effective when targeted toward micro influencers, who will be more appreciative of a free gift and likely to post. Influencers with larger followings, however, likely have more paid partnerships under their belt and are savvier to the intentions behind gifting, so odds are they’ll hold out for paid deals and won’t give away valuable tagging for free. However, if your brand features high-value items like designer clothing or furniture, or if the influencer in question is a natural fan, bigger influencers may be willing to give a shoutout.

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The bottom line: gifting is a more cost-effective option and a great way to build natural relationships with nano and micro influencers, but there are no guarantees regarding the quality of the content created, or even that gifted influencers will post at all.