4 Reasons Why You Should Book Influencer Ambassadors

We find that influencer ambassadors are crucial to brand marketing success and encourage you to seek out influencers who can serve as your trusted brand advocates.

1. Establish Continuity In Your Marketing

Ambassadorships form long-lasting relationships with influencers and develop marketing partnerships that can last months or even years. This allows you to integrate your brand into the influencer’s everyday life, telling a story through multiple rounds of posts and establishing brand familiarity with the influencer’s audience in the process. Continuity in marketing increases the likelihood of audiences purchasing a product, as the continued presence of the brand in an influencer’s content establishes trust and long-term loyalty.

2. Continue Relationships With Top-Performing Talent

If you are unsure of who to cast as your influencer ambassadors, look to top-performing talent from previous campaigns. Short-term partnerships are a great way to test the waters with different influencers, but once you have done so and have found the influencers who can effectively market your brand to their audience, you should prioritize working with them on a large-scale, long-term basis. These are your tried-and-true influencers. Booking them as ambassadors elevates the partnership and will likewise further elevate the content they produce.

3. Save Budgets With Cost-Efficient Package Deal

Long-term partnerships come with a larger upfront cost since they include several rounds of posts, but influencers will often offer multi-post partnerships at a discounted rate per post. For brands looking for the most cost-effective way to book influencers, we advise that it is more cost-efficient to book 10 influencers for 10 posts each than it is to book 100 influencers for 1 post each, and you will likely see better results in the long run, as well.

4. Experiment With New Platforms & Post Types

Multi-post partnerships allow you to experiment with different platforms and get creative with post types throughout the program. Leave room in your creative briefs and contracts to test out secondary social media platforms beyond your primary platforms and try out formats that stray from your typical marketing styles. You can lean on your influencers as creative collaborators, letting them brainstorm fun ideas that will make the content their own. With time and many posts to work with, you have the freedom to have some fun with the branded content your influencers put out.

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.

Representation In Marketing Is An Ongoing Commitment. Here’s How To Keep Up The Momentum.

We’ve been ecstatic to see brands significantly improve their diversity efforts in marketing, and we want to continue striving for better representation now and go forward. Let us help you get there so that diversity goes beyond surface-level marketing and truly reflects the core values of your brand.

At Lytehouse, we’ve made it our commitment to propose casts that are diverse and represent creators of different races, genders, sexualities, religions, disabilities, body shapes, ages, and cultures. While the majority of brands we work with are receptive to these casts, we have also dealt with brands that are hesitant to feature diverse casts, not out of prejudice, but out of budget constraints or fear of backlash on social media. We understand that budgets can’t possibly accommodate the entire spectrum of diversity in a single campaign, but as our partner, we can ensure that when you look back, your campaigns over the course of time are collectively inclusive.

Backlash, on the other hand, is inevitable, but we’d like to put it into context; the 90/9/1 Rule, a concept coined by Jason Nielsen, states that in online communities, 90% of users do not contribute to online conversations, 9% contribute a little, and only 1% of users contribute frequently. In other words, the vocal backlash comes from a small percentage of consumers and does not reflect the actual sentiment of the majority, and the digital conversation is never the full conversation.

The long-term benefits of representation in your marketing will also outweigh the short-term perceived negatives; earned media from press is one such benefit, as is gaining attention and support for the communities you are representing, expanding your brand’s audience base, and building a supportive and diverse community. Representation alone will not solve all the issues that plague our country, but it does help and it does have a tremendous impact on those who see themselves in media where they couldn’t see themselves before. It is why we here at Lytehouse have established a commitment to diversity in casting to ensure that the campaigns we work on affirm our own values.

Our Reminders for Brands

Utilize marketing as a way to highlight your brand’s values.

Your customer base is diverse. When your marketing reflects and represents your customers, they can clearly see where your brand’s values lie. Committing to diverse representation in your marketing lets customers know what your brand stands for and helps humanize your brand.

Remember: diversity comes in many forms.

The best inclusive campaigns celebrate diversity and intersectionality, featuring models, influencers, and/or everyday people of different races, genders, sexualities, ages, body types, religions, cultures, and disabilities. 

Represent, don’t tokenize.

It is apparent to consumers when brands are using diversity for some surface-level representation brownie points. Casting is only the first step; once your influencer partners have been selected, craft your brand’s creative briefs to highlight each individual’s story, providing plenty of creative room in your briefs to let the influencers guide the storytelling. Additionally, your diversity initiatives and support for social movements need to be backed up by your brand’s actual politics and policies. Publicize your brand’s charity and nonprofit partners, provide ways for your brand’s community to get involved with partner organizations, and speak out about social injustices.

Commit to ongoing goals for representation.

Truly diverse marketing does not simply mean working with LGBTQIA+ creators during Pride or Black creators during Black History Month. It is an ongoing goal that should be ever-present in your campaigns. Small brands may not be able to book a diverse roster of 100 creators every month, but across a whole year of marketing initiatives, you should be able to assess your influencer partnerships and see a diverse roster of creators represented.

Acknowledge pay disparities within marginalized groups.

The pay gap exists in the influencer world as well. Brands understandably want to maximize their budgets for influencer campaigns, but it is important to recognize that there is no set pricing rate for influencers and that influencers from minority or underrepresented communities might charge a higher rate than another influencer with a similar profile and following. This can be due to access to a diverse and highly engaged audience regardless of the follower tier they fall under.

Expand your goals beyond simply sales conversions.

Related to payment and maximizing budget, brands tend to sacrifice diversity goals in favor of sales conversion metrics, which we view as shortsighted and detrimental to a brand’s long-term goals. While we understand that sales are the ultimate end goal for brands, we encourage you to think beyond short-term sales conversion and consider additional metrics like community engagement, brand awareness, and brand permeance. These metrics will demonstrate if your brand is succeeding at building and maintaining relevance in culture, which will bring new customers into your brand’s community and lead to long-term success.  

Work with creators as partners.

Bringing in diverse creators as true collaborative partners will help ensure that your marketing initiatives move beyond surface-level representation and achieve true representation. Cast influencers as ambassadors, collaborate with them on upcoming launches, develop co-branded collections with them, ask for their feedback on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and take their lead when it comes to speaking to the communities they represent.

Why Did My Influencer Campaign Fail?

What happens when a campaign doesn’t meet expectations?

When a campaign fails to meet expected benchmarks, this is typically a result of one of a few things:

Poor Budgeting

The most common culprit of underperforming campaigns is a lack of budget necessary to book quality influencers at a large enough volume to achieve a high return on investment.

Lack of Strategy

We see plenty of people try a generic strategy or one-size-fits-all approach that doesn’t translate to the product being marketed. Planning and strategizing your influencer approach is essential to seeing results.

Too Much Client Control Over Creative

Overly-strict creative briefs and scripts may seem like good ways to ensure all brand talking points are hit, but they can easily hinder an influencer’s creativity and ability to make branded content come across naturally.

Unrealistic Benchmarks

Industry standards are always shifting, which is why we are constantly keeping a pulse on major changes and adjusting benchmarks accordingly, but it’s easy to measure against outdated or irrelevant benchmarks. We also see brands—especially those focused primarily on sales metrics—fail to consider variables like product pricing, influencer content messaging, website UX, and other factors that can have an impact on conversions.

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Work with an agency like Lytehouse and we’ll make sure you are setting yourself up for success, not failure. We can guide you through budgeting, strategy, benchmarks, and everything in between to make your influencer programs a hit.

What Goes Into Influencer Rates?

What is the monetary value of influencer marketing? It’s a question we get asked all the time, especially when it comes to allocating budgets toward influencer programs.

After all, influencer marketing has been heralded as a way to receive a strong return on investment for smaller budgets than traditional advertising requires. So why are influencer rates all over the place, and why can it seem so expensive to launch an influencer campaign? Let’s break it down:

Know what goes into influencer fees.

When you book an influencer, you are paying for:

• Photography/videography

• Model(s)

• Creative direction

• Location

• Photo/video editing

• Copywriting

• Agency fees (potentially)

• Usage rights (potentially)

• Exclusivity (potentially)

All within that one influencer fee, whereas those costs are spread over multiple departments, employees, and outside services for most companies. 

While many companies measure traditional marketing efforts in terms of CPM, that metric traditionally only accounts for media fees. When calculating influencer CPM, you must also account for influencer, agency, production, usage, and exclusivity fees in addition to media fees, so it’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Additional factors can also have an impact on what an influencer charges for a project:

• Scope of work

• Production costs

• Exclusivity and usage rights

• Brand affinity

• Influencer demand

• Caliber of influencer

• Engagement and conversion rates

• Niche

There is no formula for influencer rates.

Each influencer has the ability to set their own price for branded content, combining both quantitative (following, engagement metrics) and qualitative (demand, brand affinity) factors to determine what they charge. This is why you can speak to two influencers who on paper have near-identical profiles and present two varied fees for the same project.

Working with an agency such as Lyehouse will help you understand the larger landscape of influencer rates. While there isn’t one “industry standard” for determining rates, we continuously monitor project fees in this ever-changing industry and can help you separate the realistic numbers from the outrageous.

Provide clear and fair payment terms.

Paid partnerships are the main source of income for many influencers, so it is important to present clear and fair payment terms when partnering with influencers. For one-off partnerships, a net-30 payment is typical, but for larger programs, we suggest being flexible with payment terms to ensure creators are receiving compensation in a timely manner. This may come in the form of 50/50 payment terms so that influencers aren’t waiting until the program is complete to receive any payment.

Including payment terms that are fair and get influencers compensated in a timely manner will only improve your reputation amongst influencers and help keep the influencer marketing industry transparent and fair for all.

If you're ready to get started on your 2022 influencer marketing campaigns, don't be afraid to reach out.

What To Include (And What To Avoid) In Your Influencer Campaign Brief

Creative briefs should be less prescriptive & one-size-fits-all to allow influencers to do what they do best: creating content that tells a captivating and authentic story that speaks to their audience.

What creative briefs should include:

Scope of Work

The content requirements for the campaign, including platforms and post types. Consider a flexible scope that allows creators to choose content types they are best suited for based on social presence and consumer relationships across those channels.

Timeline Details

Set expectations for when drafts should be received, when content needs to go live, and how long amplified content will run (if part of the scope).

Do’s and Don’ts

What must creators absolutely include within their content? This could be brand tags or hashtags, photo requirements...on the other hand, is there anything that would trigger an immediate reshoot? Spell out any do’s and don’ts plainly so that there is no confusion on what the brand is looking for.

A Holistic Overview of Content Guidelines

Provide an overview of key talking points, visual requirements, and the overall storyline of the campaign. 

Examples of Content the Brand is Looking For

Examples of visual and caption content that the brand loves help illustrate exactly what the brand is seeking out of influencer content. While brands should not expect influencer partners to directly recreate example content, it helps give everyone a clear understanding of content expectations.

Want successful influencer content? Don’t do these things in your creative brief:

DON’T Provide a script or caption that influencers must read/post word-for-word.

Social media users are savvy to branded content and won’t be moved by generic, overly-branded messaging. Allow room for each influencer to tell a story through their content and make the campaign their own.

DON’T include frame-by-frame guidelines on what content needs to look like.

Likewise, a rigorous frame-by-frame outline of requirements will stifle an influencer’s creativity and prohibit them from making the content their own. Instead, provide a holistic overview of required talking points but allow flexibility for the creator to make their content unique.

DON’T require influencers to post on a platform or create a content type that they’ve never shared before.

Unless you’re activating an A-list celebrity to create their first post on a social media platform (think: Jennifer Aniston finally joining Instagram to promote the Friends reunion) we advise against requiring an influencer to post on a brand new platform or create a type of content they haven’t shared before. It’s why we recommend a flexible scope of work that allows the individual influencers to select the content types they are best at making. If your brand is insistent that every influencer partner post to a specific platform, do the research into suggested influencers ahead of time to ensure that each one has the ability to create that type of content.

Need help crafting your influencer campaigns? Lytehouse can help! Let’s work together.

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

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

4 Ways To Create Campaigns That Break Through The Noise

The pool of influencers has never been bigger, but that also means the competition for eyeballs is fiercer than ever before.

This means that the standard one-and-done Instagram post approach to influencer marketing is not going to have the same effect that it did just a few years ago.

So, what content will cut through the noise in 2021?

1) Embrace Long-Term Partnerships

For one, long-term partnerships are going to help you tell a story through weeks or even months. According to the popular “Rule of 7”, people need to see an ad interact with a brand 7 times before they remember it, so seeing an influencer speak about a product once and then never again probably isn’t going to have much of an impact on converting those views to customers. On the other hand, if an influencer constantly mentions a brand month after month, followers are more likely to remember the brand, take it into consideration, and finally purchase the product. By incorporating repetition into your influencer marketing strategy, you increase the likelihood for an influencer’s followers to translate into customers.

2) Lean Into Relevant Trends

Social media apps from Instagram to TikTok to Twitter thrive on trending content and viral hits. Creators hop aboard popular sounds and hashtags to make their content discoverable, taking trending formats and making them their own. When it makes sense for brands to do so, they can also join in on viral trends and give it their own branded spin.

Take Nathan Apodaca’s insanely popular TikTok video of him skateboarding while drinking a jug of Ocean Spray cranberry juice while Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” plays. The video was viewed over 78 million times, spawned countless remakes, and even got multiple Fleetwood Mac band members to join TikTok to talk about the unexpected reemergence of their 1977 hit. When clothing brand KJP put a preppy autumnal spin on Apodaca’s video, they received over 5 million views. KJP’s take on the “Dreams” video worked because they tied it into their brand personality and made it their own (in this iteration, the skateboarder is wearing one of KJP’s pumpkin sweaters and has a carved pumpkin head; the cranberry juice is replaced with a preppy classic, a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte). The organic plug of Ocean Spray came full circle for Apodaca, too: Ocean Spray turned Apodaca’s video into an official #DreamsChallenge trend and also gifted him with a brand new truck (plus all the cranberry juice he could ask for).

3) Capitalize On Authentic Moments

Which brings us to another opportunity for innovative marketing: take advantage of authentic moments in the space when you see them. When TikTok’s biggest star Charli D’Amelio was constantly sipping iced Dunkin’ Donuts drinks in her popular dance videos, Dunkin’ saw the opportunity to partner with D’Amelio and created “The Charli”, a signature drink that fans could order at Dunkin’ locations. Because the partnership stemmed out of D’Amelio’s natural love of the coffee, it proved to be a major success. It also required minimal effort on Dunkin’s part, as they didn’t need to develop a new product, just market Charli’s signature order.

Other food companies have taken this approach in recent months, like McDonald’s with the Travis Scott meal. With both of these campaigns, the brands noticed natural affinities and transformed those into official partnerships, and because D’Amelio and Scott were already fans of Dunkin’ and McDonald’s respectively, their audiences saw these partnerships as natural progressions rather than disingenuous, money-motivated collaborations. 

4) Do It For The Meme

Similar to capitalizing on trending content, Instagram itself declared 2020 the Year of the Meme. Their year-end review highlighted the most popular memes that took the Internet by storm last year, from the Dolly Parton Challenge to Tiger King to relatable jokes about working from home in quarantine. Such memes succeeded on Instagram not only because they were witty and clever, but because they were inherently sharable. Shares and saves have become increasingly valuable analytics to monitor on Instagram and other social media platforms, and we suggest this be one of your key metrics to focus on when developing your social media content strategy.

Take the recent proliferation of Bernie Sanders memes: one iconic photo of the Vermont senator donning his favorite Burton jacket and a pair of hand-knit mittens sitting by himself at President Biden’s inauguration became an instantly viral meme that flooded the internet in record time. Here he is, joining the cast of Sex and the City as the fourth member now that Samantha isn’t returning for the reboot. Here he is with fellow meme icon Guy Fieri. In fact, one man even created a website where you could insert an inauguration Bernie into any photo you desire, should inspiration for a meme strike (and over 9 million photos were created on the site in the week that it was live). Or you can transform yourself into the mittens-wearing senator with an Instagram Story filter. You get the idea.

As a case study, the Bernie Sanders memes encapsulates so much about the content that succeeds in 2021: it tied into a timely event, was easy to transform and turn into a trend where everyone could add their own spin on the image, created for hilarious memes that were highly shareable, and the image itself was incredibly relatable. Who among us hasn’t felt like a curmudgeonly old man looking moderately annoyed with everything after this past year? 

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Gone are the days of obsessing over magazine-quality photography and vague three-word captions. Social media users want content that is sharable, saveable, and relatable; in other words, content that educates, entertains, and inspires. With every new social media post and influencer campaign in 2021, ask yourself how each piece of content is achieving one of these 3 main goals and you’ll see your brand grow and foster a community of its own.

For more on the latest social media trends and where the influencer marketing industry is heading, download our State Of Influencer Marketing 2021 report. 

3 Ways To Maximize Influencer Campaign Success

You’ve spent valuable time and money on your latest influencer campaign. Now it’s time to make the most of it.

Here are 3 ways that you can maximize the results of your influencer marketing campaigns.

1) Secure Usage Rights For Brand Channels

You’re already contracting influencers to create content on behalf of your brand, why not utilize that content for brand-owned channels and digital ads as well? Internet-savvy consumers tend to prefer influencer-created content over branded imagery, so utilizing influencer-created content can help increase clicks and sales conversions. Note that usage and amplification may increase an influencer’s fee and should be discussed in the contracting phase of a campaign.

For more on using influencer content on brand channels, check out this blog post.

2) Strategically Amplify Influencer Content

The right content amplification strategy is the secret to a successful influencer marketing campaign. Whitelisting (which we break down in detail here) can extend the reach of your campaign beyond just an influencer’s existing audience, exposing your brand to new, like minded users who may also be interested in your brand. In addition to targeting lookalike audiences, you’re able to customize copy, imagery, and calls-to-action for whitelisted posts, ensuring that you can achieve a number of KPIs and test out different strategies until you find the perfect formula.

3) Re-Partner With Successful Influencers

When you find an influencer partner who exceeds campaign expectations, it’s time to brainstorm the next partnership! As the industry becomes more saturated, finding and fostering strong relationships with influencers will become essential to long term success. Continuous partnerships will also help build trust with the influencer’s audience, as they’ll see the influencer returning to your brand time and time again and be encouraged to do the same. Join forces with your best influencers to help support new launches and marketing initiatives on a regular basis and utilize them as brand ambassadors.

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Let’s plan your next influencer marketing campaign together so we can ensure all your goals are met. Connect with us here.

The Basics Of Influencer Campaign Contracting

Contracts: a time-consuming yet vitally important part of the influencer campaign process.

We know, contracts are no one’s favorite part of the campaign process, but they’re detailed and necessary for a reason. Contracts set expectations for all parties involved in the campaign, from what type of content is required to when and how an influencer will be paid for their services.

A contract that is too short or missing crucial information can lead to disappointment and frustration further down the road of the campaign process. A clear and detailed contract assumes nothing and outlines all expectations and processes so no one is left in the dark about a partnership’s requirements. 

Here are the basics:

Disclaimer: Nothing in this post is intended to be construed as legal advice. If you need assistance with any of the issues identified in this post, we recommend you consult with an attorney in your area.

Do influencer campaigns really need contracts?

Yes! Contracts protect the influencer, brand, and any other party involved in the campaign. Even if it’s just a one-off Instagram Story post, creating a contract with clear guidelines and legal verbiage protects all parties involved.

What should be included in a contract?

Scope of work: What is being asked of the influencer for this campaign? This should outline how many posts the influencer is expected to post over the course of the partnership, which platforms they need to post on, and so on.

Pro tip: if the campaign requires Instagram Story content, specify how many slides of Stories are required! We can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to clarify what counts as “1 Story” with clients.

Creative guidelines: This is where all the photo, caption, and/or video requirements are outlined. Include talking points, image requirements, required hashtags, example content, and do’s and don’ts of campaign content. Providing clear creative direction for influencers to refer to will minimize back and forth on approving content and give all parties involved a clear understanding of what the brand is looking for with influencer creative.

Approval process: How does the influencer go about submitting their content for approval? Is there a limit to how many times the influencer can be asked to reshoot content? 

Campaign timeline: This should include not only posting dates but also approval deadlines. 

Payment terms: How will the influencer be paid, how much will they receive for the project, and when will they receive payment? This section should clearly answer all 3 of these questions.

Content usage: If the brand would like to use the influencer’s content for brand-owned channels and materials, it is important to outline precisely where and for how long the brand will be utilizing the influencer’s content. An influencer should never be surprised to see their content on brand materials.

Note: usage may increase an influencer’s rate.

Exclusivity terms: It’s pretty understandable that a brand would not want an influencer talking about a direct brand competitor in close proximity to a campaign going live, so this section is a great place to outline any exclusivity details. It should be noted that the broader and longer an exclusivity term is, the more an influencer is likely to charge. When you can, get specific about your content category (for example, asking for exclusivity in the shampoo category as opposed to exclusivity in the beauty category). 

Indemnification and liability limitations: By working together and associating themselves with each other to the public, both the brand and influencer are taking on new legal risks. These types of provisions (which can get fairly technical) ensure that both parties are going to take responsibility for any issues they might have caused for the other party as part of the campaign, and also minimize the amount of legal exposure they might otherwise have.

Cancellation policy: Marketing plans can change for any number of reasons, and after 2020, we became especially aware of how important it is to keep in a cancellation policy should circumstances around the campaign change. 

FTC disclosure requirements: The Federal Trade Commission requires brand partnerships to be clearly and transparently disclosed, so it’s good to have a reminder of what you require influencers to include in their disclosures.

For more information on what does and what does not count as proper partnership disclosure according to the FTC, check out our article here.

Confidentiality: When working on a campaign, it’s possible that confidential information will be shared between the brand and influencer. A confidentiality paragraph will ensure that items like the influencer’s rates or the brand’s trade secrets are kept confidential.

What are the biggest mistakes when it comes to contracting?

Omitting details and requirements: Essentially, the more details the better when it comes to influencer contracts. The biggest issues with influencer campaigns often arise out of lack of communication or expecting influencers to just know things, even if they aren’t explicitly stated. 

Expecting exclusivity: While a lot of influencers will try to limit the partnerships they accept in certain categories, unless exclusivity terms are clearly outlined in a contract, you cannot expect an influencer to know that they aren’t “supposed” to be posting about other brands or competitors. 

What’s the biggest contract red flag?

Asking influencers to NOT disclose paid partnerships. This violates FTC guidelines and can lead to penalties and other legal actions. Not to mention, it just feels shady.

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For all the latest on influencer marketing, download Lytehouse’s State of Influencer Marketing 2021 report.

What Factors Go Into An Influencer’s Rate?

Influencer rates cannot be determined by formulas and quantitative factors alone. The truth is much more complicated.

Let’s discuss influencer rates. Within our industry, it’s one of the most widely debated topics, one that lacks transparency and standardization across the board. We’ve seen influencers undervalue their worth with low rates, and we’ve seen brands bristle at influencers asking for what the brands view as overinflated fees. It’s a fine line to walk; ask for too little and you’re setting up a standard of brands underpaying creators; ask for too much and run the risk of not meeting the brand’s ROI expectations, or turn them off influencer marketing altogether.

While it would be easy to have a set formula to determine what an influencer should be charging for a sponsored post, the truth is that influencer rates are not one-size-fits-all. Two influencers who on paper may appear similar in following and content may charge two vastly different rates. That doesn’t mean that one is overcharging or one is undercharging; it simply means that there are more factors to consider that have an impact on an influencer’s fee for sponsored content. 

Factors To Consider

Analytics: Quantitative numbers like following size and engagement rates are a great place to start, but they don’t tell the whole picture. An influencer could have a million followers but reach the same audience as an influencer with 50K followers. 

Demographics: Who is the influencer’s audience? Do they appeal to in-demand millennial and Gen Z users? Do they have a majority-US following? Strong demographics can raise an influencer’s fee.

Campaign scope: The scale of a campaign will have an impact on an influencer’s fee. One Instagram photo will cost less than a 5-minute professionally-filmed IGTV video, for example. Some influencers will charge for multiple posts a la carte, while others may offer “discounted” rates for comprehensive projects. 

Content Usage: Using an influencer’s content on brand-owned channels and materials can raise the price of a campaign. It’s important to outline exactly where and for how long your brand intends to use an influencer’s content so there is no confusion about usage.

Exclusivity: Exclusivity clauses are important for a lot of brands—you don’t want to have an influencer partner feature your competitor the next day!—but they do affect rates. Short time frames with specific category exclusivities (for example, a 1-week exclusivity in the shampoo category) will incur lower fees than broader exclusivity requirements (like a year-long exclusivity in the hair space). 

Expertise: The recommendations of industry experts are highly valued and thus can drive up the price of a sponsored post. A verified account with a blue check can also lend an air of credibility and likewise raise an influencer’s rate. 

Demand: It’s simple economics: in-demand influencers can charge more for partnerships. Influencers often limit the amount of partnerships they take on to avoid oversaturating their feeds with branded content, so highly sought after influencers may raise their rates. Influencers may also charge a premium during holidays when demand surges. 

Content quality: How does the influencer create content? Do they use their phone, or are they hiring photographers and videographers? Are their captions compelling and thought-out, or are they simple and to the point? 

Management: Yes, management means an influencer is giving a certain percentage to their agency, but it also establishes the influencer as having a proven track record. 

Past partnerships: Past partnerships can also showcase an influencer’s track record in the space. Working with prestigious brands and securing repeat partnerships can speak to an influencer’s success and ability to market effectively to audiences. 

Press appeal: Celebrities and public figures are so appealing for brands because they can garner press coverage, which is also why they can charge a premium for sponsored content compared to traditional influencers with similar following sizes.

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Have more questions about influencer rates? We can help!

Think Beyond Traditional Influencers

Stretching your understanding of who an influencer can be will open up your campaigns to a wide audience.

Traditional influencers—creators known for their lifestyle content on social media—are essential for digital marketing in 2021, and we’ll be the first ones to advocate for the power of digital influence. Sometimes, though, a campaign requires an expansive approach that looks beyond the realm of standard influencer marketing and considers a broader definition of who can be considered an influential partner.

Influencer Employees

Look internally and cast employees within your own business to speak as brand advocates. They can share an inside look at the brand and speak as authentic (albeit somewhat biased) advocates for the company.

Customers

Why not tap into your network of already-devoted customers? Create a dedicated branded hashtag to capture user-generated content, encourage audience participation through contests and design decisions, and bring customers into your brand’s valued community.

Nano-Influencers

Defined as influencers with under 10,000 followers, these creators have smaller but highly engaged audiences and can speak to niche audiences, making them great partners for targeting specific or localized audiences for a minimal budget.

Trade Influencers

B2B and SaaS companies can benefit from partnering with professional influencers with specified backgrounds who can speak to fellow professionals about the products that benefit them.

Graphic Design & Meme Accounts

Shareability has become an increasingly valuable measure of success for social media campaigns. Educational and entertaining text and graphic-heavy content is ripe for sharing, increasing the overall reach of content.

Activist Influencers

Social media is where we’re having necessary conversations about race, politics, gender, the environment, and other important issues, and social media activists are becoming influencers in their own right. You can work with activists as you would traditional influencers and partner with them on sponsored content, but we encourage you to look at larger ways you can partner with activists, potentially bringing them on as brand consultants to address diversity in marketing and within your company as a way to holistically collaborate and enact change both internally and externally. 

Niche Creators

When you hear the term “influencer” your mind probably wanders to fashion and beauty lovers, or perhaps world travelers showcasing exotic locales. The truth is, you can talk about pretty much anything and hold influence; take TikTok creator Tony Piloseno, who went viral for his popular paint mixing videos, as an example. For brands with products that may not make sense for a traditional lifestyle influencer to promote, there’s a niche creator out there who can speak to your brand’s offerings.

Entrepreneur Influencers

Entrepreneurs are taking to social media to educate audiences on what it takes to start a business and inspire others to follow their dreams. These entrepreneur influencers have dedicated followings and know how to sell, so they are great partners for conversion-focused campaigns. They also often have various online offerings, including podcasts, e-books, and online courses, providing additional ways to partner on branded content. 

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With so many people turning to social media to share their passions, there are more types of influencers than ever before. For more information on non-traditional influencers and how to best activate them, download our full State Of Influencer Marketing 2021 Report here.

How To Activate Local Influencers

We often think about influencer marketing on a macro scale, where campaigns reach hundreds of thousands of people and benefit national and even global marketing efforts, but influencer marketing can be just as powerful when applied to local businesses as well.

Local influencers and public figures may not have as large of followings as celebrity influencers, but they can provide niche expertise and appeal to local audiences in an authentic way more than any celebrity ever could. 

Restaurants, boutiques, and other small businesses can partner with local influencers to get the word out about the business and turn social media postings into conversions, whether that’s in-store visits or purchases. 

When searching for the right influencers to partner with, you will want to find influencers who post content that is relevant to your business and who live in or near your area. If your business requires in-person patronage or doesn’t have an e-commerce platform, micro influencers with smaller but more localized followings will be the best partners for your campaign, as they typically have a high following from their own area. This means that the majority of their followers will be interested in learning more about your business and actually able to support it.

Aside from appealing to a localized audience, micro influencers have a strong ability to relate to their followers and cultivate a sense of authenticity with their recommendations, from the clothes they wear to the businesses they frequent. Think of your influencer partners as brand ambassadors who act as an extension of your business. You can even collaborate with them to develop content for use on your brand’s social media accounts. 

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Interested in working with local influencers but not sure where to start? Lytehouse has tools to source the perfect influencers for campaigns big and small, so reach out to us here.

What Brands Need To Know About The FTC’s Influencer Guidelines

Like any form of commercial advertising, influencer marketing requires disclosures for monetary relationships. In the United States, the FTC (also known as the Federal Trade Commission) is responsible for “protecting consumers from unfair and deceptive practices in the marketplace”. In the social media marketing world, this means that brand relationships need to be disclosed clearly.

Today, we are breaking down everything you need to know about when to disclose brand partnerships, acceptable and unacceptable ways to disclose, and why greater ad transparency helps all parties involved. 

Note: As Lytehouse is based in the United States, this is a guide for US-based campaigns. If you are managing a campaign in a different country, check their regulations and guidelines regarding influencer partnerships so you are using proper disclosure language. 

Why Should I Care About FTC Guidelines?

Clear disclosures of brand-influencer relationships benefit all parties involved by creating transparency. 

Audience trust is crucial for influencers, so they want to be clear and transparent with their audiences about when they have paid relationships with brands. Likewise, brands should strive for honesty with both their followers and the followers of influencers with whom they partner. And third, consumers want to know when the content they see has been paid for.

Some people view paid partnership disclosures as a negative, arguing that they decrease post engagement or seem “inauthentic” but at this stage in the evolution of influencer marketing, consumers understand the ecosystem and deserve to have transparent disclosure language and obvious indicators that content is advertorial, the same way that television commercials or branded magazine editorials are clearly demarcated.

When Should A Partnership Be Disclosed?

According to the FTC’s influencer handbook, influencers need to disclose any “financial, employment, personal, or family relationship” with a brand. One important thing to note: contrary to popular belief, gifted or discounted products provided by a brand count as a financial relationship.

Dos and Don’ts of FTC Disclosure

Disclosures should be obvious and easy to find for anyone looking at the piece of content. Here are some dos and don’ts to keep in mind:

Do...make a disclosure obvious and easy to find within the branded caption or post message.

Don’t...hide disclosure language in a comment, group of hashtags, or “read more” button.

Do...place disclosures toward the beginning of a post or caption.

Don’t...assume audiences know about existing brand relationships. If an influencer posts 20 times for a brand, all 20 posts should include disclosures.

Do...require clear and easy-to-understand language like “Thanks to [brand] for gifting this product” or “This post is sponsored by [brand]” makes the brand-influencer relationship clear. Other acceptable terms to use include “advertisement”, “ad”, and “sponsored”. 

Don’t...use abbreviated or confusing terms like “sp”, “spon”, or “collab”. 

Do...use a social platform’s official partnership disclosure (like Instagram’s Paid Partnership Tool) when possible.

Don’t...ask influencers to discuss or endorse a product or experience that they have not yet tried. 

Do...include disclosures in both verbal and written form when sharing video content, and consider that many viewers watch social media videos without sound. 

Don’t...hide or minimize disclosure text on Instagram Stories or Snapchat posts. 

Who Is Responsible For Enforcing FTC Disclosures Are Added?

Both brands and influencers should hold themselves accountable for enforcing proper disclosures. Brands can do this by outlining proper disclosures in their contracts with influencers. Influencers can do this by pushing back when brands try to avoid adding disclosure language.

What Are The Repercussions of Ignoring FTC Guidelines?

The FTC has started to crack down on deceptive advertising in the influencer space, issuing warnings and fines to influencers and brands alike. Violating FTC guidelines could have significant monetary and legal consequences. Beyond that, ignoring proper disclosures will hurt your brand’s reputation as well as the influencers you partner with as social media consumers have become more wary of deceptive ads. 

At the end of the day, brand-influencer relationship disclosures make the influencer marketing industry as a whole more transparent, so we should be holding each other accountable, as the industry only stands to benefit.

How Socialyte Influencers Are Creating Branded Content While Staying Home

As we continually work to slow the spread of COVID-19, Socialyte influencers have found creative ways to partner with brands and develop inspired content from home. By highlighting timely products and structuring creative briefs around “safe from home” guidelines, branded campaigns have found success during our “new normal”. 

Here are a few ways Socialyte influencers and brands partnered together for recent campaigns:

Working From Home with Leo Chan

With a large portion of audiences working from home, find ways to develop related campaigns when applicable. For example, working from home provided the perfect opportunity for Leo Chan and a technology company to share a new computer monitor that could benefit those perfecting their home office setups. 

At-Home Activities with Jessica Hall

Jessica Hall found a clever way to tie in a favorite snack to her family’s home activities. She and her family “camped” in their living room, complete with a tent, s’mores, and more. By tying in the brand partner to a timely activity that other parents might try in their own homes, the campaign found a way to be relevant with audiences.

Loungewear with Linc + Canyon

Loungewear is seeing a surge in popularity as a large portion of the country is working from home and spending time indoors. For a recent campaign with a clothing brand, Linc and Canyon shared how they are spending their time during quarantine along with what they are wearing. Especially for fashion brands, it is important to emphasize categories that speak to current consumer trends, like loungewear and basics.

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For more tips on developing creative briefs during the coronavirus pandemic, check out our blog post here.

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.

During COVID-19, Team Up With Influencers That Give Back

We have all had to adjust our brand messaging and content strategies over recent weeks to account for our new normal of social distancing as the world works together to limit the spread of COVID-19. It’s challenged us all to think on our feet and evolve in the midst of rapidly-changing circumstances, but we at Socialyte are here to guide you through these changing times.

Influencer marketing has found ways to adapt, largely focusing on in-the-moment content that can be shot indoors. We encourage you to continue prioritizing influencer content as marketing strategies weigh heavier and heavier on digital. 

One consideration we highly encourage you to take into account is to partner with influencers who are using this time to support charities and local businesses. This is an important time for influencers to use their voices for good, and by partnering with creators who are helping their local communities, you can also demonstrate that charitable initiatives are at the forefront of your brand’s values. 

We are incredibly proud to see Socialyte influencers step up during these uncertain times and use their voices to support those in need. Here is how our talent are using their influence for good:

Quigley Goode is matching donations to the Los Angeles Food Bank up to $5,000 and encouraging her audience to get involved. She is also donating a percentage of sales from her online course from now until April 1. Sam Hwang is also donating 50% of earnings from her online shop to the LA Food Bank for the next month. Every dollar donated provides food for 4 meals for children, seniors, and families who are in need. 

Christine Kong is supporting small local businesses by shopping online and ordering gift cards for her favorite local businesses. She’ll be highlighting favorite local businesses on her Instagram stories each day. 

Hayet Rida is also supporting small businesses, particularly florists who rely on events for a majority of their incomes. She encourages her audience to send flowers to friends, coworkers, family, or anyone else as a way to support these small business owners. 

Anthony Urbano is donating money to Direct Relief and encouraging his audience to do the same so that medical workers, including his mother, can have the personal protective equipment they need to stay healthy while helping others with COVID-19. Brian Morr is also donating a portion of his recent campaign earnings to Direct Relief.

To celebrate her birthday, Ashlee Rose Hartley donated $278 (.05 cents for every like) to Feeding America. This will provide 2780 meals to communities in need. 

Wendy Nguyen is helping deliver groceries and other necessary supplies to elderly and at-risk citizens in her apartment building and community. 

Catt Sadler has launched #FormalFridays to encourage her audience to have fun and get dressed up as well as give back. For every #FormalFridays post, Catt will donate $10 to Baby 2 Baby, which is working to provide children with meals and essentials while school is out. 

Stella Simona has pledged to donate $5 for every Amarilo and Haati Chai jewelry sale through the end of April to No Kid Hungry, an organization that makes sure kids get the food they need during school closures and all year long.

Coco Bassey has pledged 10% of her April income to the CDC Foundation, which has launched an Emergency Response Fund to provide needed resources and supplies to impacted communities. 

Ali Castillo is supporting St. Mary’s Food Bank, which serves communities in her state of Arizona. 

Eugenie Grey is raising money for the LA Food Bank and The Bowery Mission through her #ApocalypseChallenge. She will donate $1 to those organizations for every post with the hashtag.

Interested in collaborating with these influencers? Contact becca.bahrke@socialyte.com for talent inquiries.

Influencer Marketing During The Coronavirus Pandemic: What To Expect

Coronavirus and efforts to contain the disease have had an enormous impact on all industries, influencer marketing among them. Both brands and influencers are struggling with a number of factors, from supply chain delays to the inability to hire professional photographers, causing new issues as we all try to understand this new normal (for the time being). 

There is a way to continue influencer marketing campaigns throughout the coronavirus pandemic, but both brands and influencers will need to work together to adjust expectations and make partnerships during this time as effectively as possible.

Here are a few helpful reminders on how to successfully navigate influencer campaigns during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Setbacks and Delays Are Inevitable

From backordered warehouses to cancelled photoshoots, there are a slew of setbacks both brands and influencers are facing presently. As circumstances rapidly change, prepare to expect the unexpected and allow for more leniency with posting schedules than usual. Have patience throughout the process.

Consider Adjusting Creative Briefs To The Situation

The marketing language used to communicate with followers may need to change. Think critically about your campaign messaging and remove any overly sales-y verbiage. Yes, people are still purchasing items they need and shopping online, but aggressive marketing tactics may alienate followers instead of winning them over. It’s important to show compassion and be mindful of what people are going through during this difficult time.

Additionally, the photo or video guidelines of your campaign may have to adjust. The world, including influencers, are practicing “social distancing” and remaining in their homes as much as they can, so asking an influencer to visually reflect anything of the like isn’t only socially irresponsible, but impossible for most at the moment. Hiring a professional photographer may not be possible for influencers who are concerned about spreading coronavirus, so if an influencer informs you that they can only take phone pictures, understand that that may be the only option under these circumstances. 

Team Up With Influencers Who Are Giving Back

At Socialyte and Lytehouse we always encourage our talent to give back and use their influence for good, and during the coronavirus pandemic, this is more important than ever. We are encouraging our influencers to support a cause either directly related to COVID-19 relief (such as food banks, shelters, and hospitals) or share ways to give back to local small businesses who are suffering the financial effects of widespread store closures. 

Now is the time to showcase how influencers can be positive role models in their communities, and we encourage brands to partner with influencers who are giving back. We also recommend that brands include charity tie-ins with upcoming campaigns, for example promising to give back a percentage of profits to a charity partner or coordinating a social awareness campaign to educate audiences on important causes. 

Be Flexible and Understanding

This is an incredibly difficult and confusing time for us all. Our world and the way we go about our routines is changing day by day. As we mentioned before, setbacks are going to happen during this time, so be as flexible as possible and understand if your original content guidelines cannot be met.

If an influencer backs out of a campaign, or has concerns about a partnership, listen to them and take in what they have to say. They may be facing extraneous circumstances that prevent them from completing a partnership, or perhaps they may feel unsure about whether or not the branded content makes sense for the times. We are all navigating through these uncharted waters together, so have patience.

Let’s #FlattenTheCurve Against COVID-19 Together

Dear reader,

Your health and safety, as well as that of our employees at Socialyte and Lytehouse, are our top priority. During this difficult time for everyone, we’ve done our part to mandate a company-wide work-from-home policy until further notice. That said, we’re fortunate enough to maintain business as usual thanks to our digital tools and virtual capabilities. Feel free to continue to use us as a resource as we all adjust to what the coming weeks have in store for us and our businesses.

We're in this fight against COVID-19 together. It affects us all regardless of race, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, health record, or socio-economic status. Along with washing our hands and avoiding touching our face, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has advised communities where the virus is spreading to practice social distancing in an effort to prevent further transmission from this highly contagious disease.

Over the coming weeks, we understand that this will become increasingly difficult for everyone, so we’ve asked all of our influencers to educate and remind their followers about the importance of social distancing. In short, this means limiting social interaction, avoiding large group gatherings and keeping 6 feet between yourself and strangers. By doing so, you reduce peaks of outbreaks keeping the daily number of cases below the healthcare system capacity as not to overwhelm hospitals. This article by Vox explains this concept called “flattening the curve” very well.

As influencers, we understand that they can have a tremendous impact, which is why we’re encouraging all of our influencers to promote the #FlattenTheCurve movement through their content. Socialyte and Lytehouse as agencies will also be taking this stance on social media channels and we encourage your brands to do the same.

As always, we’re here for you and we’re working within the safety of our individual homes together on strategies to promote brands and help re-stimulate the economy from the impact of this pandemic. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us to help your brand navigate this difficult time. We’re here for you.

Stay safe and healthy,

Beca