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.

7 Places Where You Can Amplify Influencer Content

Expand your amplification strategy. Expand your campaign reach.

Most brands spend the majority of their amplification efforts on Meta-owned properties Facebook and Instagram (and if you need some tips on Facebook amplification, we have those), but there are a number of platforms that allow amplification:

1) TikTok

Brands on TikTok can amplify and whitelist influencer content to run as video ads. They can also boost brand-posted content to target audiences.

2) Pinterest

While Pinterest doesn’t support the option to whitelist influencer content at the moment, brands can run photo, video, shopping, and carousel Pins as ads.

3) Twitter

Twitter’s Promoted Ads feature allows brands to promote Tweets to specific audiences (these Tweets don’t have to show up on the brand’s profile). Brands can also whitelist Influencer content to create Promoted Ads that appear from the influencer’s handle.

4) Snapchat

Snapchat supports a number of advertising options, including pre- and mid-roll ads, branded filters and lenses, story ads, and catalogs. 

5) LinkedIn

LinkedIn provides a number of advertising options, including image, video, carousel, and event ads, as well as message ads and pre-filled forms for lead generation. 

6) YouTube

YouTube allows brands to run pre-roll and mid-roll video ads.

7) Hulu

Hulu has recently launched the Beta for their self-service advertising platform, allowing brands to set target audiences and market video content during Hulu content ad breaks.

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Now that you know where you can amplify influencer content, let’s work together to strategize your next influencer marketing campaign. Get in touch with us here.

What To Know About Amplifying Influencer Content

Social media amplification has been an effective tool for brands looking to maximize their advertising dollars and efficiently reach new potential customers.

New privacy settings and changes in data collection have made targeted amplification trickier, but with strategic tactics and performance monitoring, we still find amplification to be a powerful means to extend the reach of influencer content and marketing efforts. And when you partner with Lytehouse, we work to create a customized amplification strategy that meets your brand’s individual marketing needs.

Whitelisting vs. Boosting

There are 2 main types of social media amplification: boosting and whitelisting.

Boosting, or using the Branded Content tool on Facebook and Instagram, is the simpler of the two. This allows a brand to boost out an influencer’s post exactly as it appears on their feed and extend it to a larger audience. This is quick and easy to do, but lacks the options to customize copy and imagery for different performance metrics or target a lookalike audience, and does not provide detailed data past 14 days.

Whitelisting is where influencers give brand partners access to their accounts in order to modify and promote content directly from the brand account. Whitelisting allows brands to customize captions, images, and calls-to-action to target different performance metrics, provides the option to dark post content (where a sponsored post appears to come from an influencer’s profile but does not appear on their feed), and allows access to detailed metrics. 

How does whitelisting affect influencer rates?

Influencers typically charge an added fee to allow brands the ability to whitelist content. It is important to clearly lay out where and for how long your brand intends to amplify influencer content so that fees can be determined accordingly.

These factors typically affect influencer rates when amplification is added on:

Content Usage: Influencers will charge an added fee for brands to use influencer-created content for amplification purposes.

Duration of Whitelisting Content: The longer your brand requests access to whitelist influencer content, the higher their fee will be. 

Nature of the Brand and/or Content: Influencers can charge a premium for partnerships that discuss potentially sensitive topics.

How can I optimize content for performance-based metrics?

Amplification is a game of trial and error. Test different combinations of captions, images, and CTAs for different marketing goals, try out different audiences, budgets, and durations, then assess what’s working and recalibrate your strategy from there. Or you can work with an agency like Lytehouse that can do all the heavy lifting for you and run amplification in-house.

For more information on whitelisting, read our Whitelisting vs. Boosting blog post.

Why Facebook Amplification Should Be Part Of Your Influencer Marketing Strategy

Facebook ads are an extremely important aspect of digital marketing and a large reason why brands have been able to find incredible success in the e-commerce world, often without physical stores.

Between Facebook and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) their ads have the potential to reach millions of potential customers. Most brands with a digital marketing strategy know the importance of Facebook ads, but not all brands are taking full advantage of Facebook’s features, especially as it pertains to influencer marketing.

Today, we are breaking down how to amplify your influencer partnerships across Facebook and Instagram and why Facebook amplification should be part of your efforts moving forward.

What Is Amplification?

Amplification is exactly what it sounds like: the ability to share an influencer’s content to new audiences beyond the accounts that already follow them. Amplification benefits both the brand and influencer, as it increases the content’s reach to new audiences that can go on to follow the influencer and purchase the product they are promoting. Audiences are also more likely to trust and engage with promoted posts from an influencer account as opposed to a brand account, as influencer content typically appears more relatable. 

How Do I Promote An Influencer’s Post?

The “Tag Business Partner” feature on Instagram and Facebook allows influencers to “handshake” with the brands with which they work. One major benefit of this is added transparency of branded partnerships, but the “handshake” tool also makes it easy for brands to promote influencer content on the influencer’s behalf. 

When an influencer partner’s post goes live, ask them to tag your brand using the “Tag Business Partner” tool (note that before the campaign goes live, your brand channel will need to grant the influencer access to tag your brand as a business partner; learn more about how to add influencer partners here) and have them toggle the “Allow Business Partner to Promote” option. This will give you, the brand, the ability to promote the content on Instagram and Facebook. 

Another option is to have the influencer grant advertiser access through their Facebook. This will require them to have an ad account on Facebook (another great reason to work with influencers who have Business accounts) but will give you, the advertiser, a wealth of options to create targeted 

Note: as this is additional content usage, the parameters and length of boosted content should all be outlined within your contract with the influencer. Boosting the influencer’s content may incur additional fees. 

What Options Do I Have To Promote Influencer Posts?

Once the influencer has granted you advertiser access, you will be able to promote the content on their behalf. There are two main options on how to promote: boosting and amplification. Both options will get the influencer’s content—and your brand—in front of new audiences, but they vary in terms of customization and targeting options. 

Boosting

The simplest option is to boost an influencer’s content, promoting the post exactly how it appears on their account. When boosting a post, you are given a few customization options and can select your target audience, your budget, and the duration of your promoted post. This option is quick and easy, but the customization options are limited, making the second option, amplification, the better way to make the most of your promoted content.

Amplification

Amplification allows for greater customization. Through this method, ads are created through Facebook’s Ad Manager, where you can decide where the amplified posts will appear on both Facebook and Instagram (including Instagram stories, ads in Facebook Messenger, and other locations), specify your ad objectives, and develop your target audience with greater tools than boosting allows.

In addition, you can edit captions, add call-to-action buttons, and create carousel ads using Ad Manager. For example, say an influencer creates a carousel Instagram post on their feed where the first photo features the influencer prominently, and the second photo is a close-up of your product. With the creator’s consent, you can switch the order of the photos to feature the product close-up in the ad. 

Because of the various ad objectives you can select, Facebook Ads are optimal for gaining new customers and sales conversions. 

Lytehouse has a paid amplification division that can amplify content on your brand’s behalf. Get in touch with us here.

How Much Should I Budget For Amplified Content?

Budgets will vary from case to case, but we suggest allocating around 20% of your overall influencer marketing budget toward post amplification. We have found that brands who spend around this percentage (with daily monitoring of ad performance, making adjustments where needed) see close to a 100% return on investment. Increasing the spend beyond 20% similarly increases the ROI. Again, exact budgeting will vary per brand, influencer content, and campaign goals.

The value of amplified content is worth the extra budget, as it can exponentially increase the reach of your influencer campaign and bring a greater ROI than simply leveraging an influencer’s existing following.