Lytehouse’s Influencer Marketing Dictionary

We use a lot of lingo in the influencer marketing world.

If you’ve ever come across an industry term you’re unfamiliar with, or an acronym you can’t decipher, this is your secret weapon to knowing all the essential industry terms and sounding like a total pro.

Affiliate Marketing

A marketing model in which brand affiliates earn a commission on sales made through their promotion for a brand, usually tracked through personalized affiliate links or codes.

Amplification

Putting ad spend behind social media content to extend the reach of the content beyond the poster’s pre-existing followers. 

Analytics

The numerical data available for social media posts and accounts. 

Also referred to as: metrics, insights

Average Watch Time

The mean number of how long a piece of video content has been viewed divided by the total number of viewers.

Why it’s important: Average watch time is an important metric in determining if the majority of viewers are watching a piece of video content all the way through. An average watch time that is close to the total duration of the video indicates that the majority of viewers are watching the video all the way through, while a lower average watch time indicates that most viewers are not completing the video.

Awareness

A common goal for influencer campaigns in which a brand seeks to extend the familiarity of the brand amongst consumers. 

Benchmarks

The hypothetical goal set ahead of time to gauge future campaign performance. Typically set using industry standards to present an approximate idea of how content will perform.

Boosting

A type of amplification tactic that allows a social media account to put ad spend behind a pre-existing post and amplify it to a larger audience. With boosting, you can add in a call-to-action but you cannot make edits to the caption or visual components of the post. Boosted posts also have limited audience targeting capabilities.

Learn more: To learn more about boosting and another form of social media amplification called whitelisting, check out this blog post.

Call-To-Action

A sentence, phrase, or button that encourages viewers to take a particular action. Common examples include “Shop Now” or “Learn More” with a link to the relevant product or website. 

(Campaign) Brief

the set of guidelines that a brand or agency shares with an influencer that details the creative expectations for the campaign. 

Campaign

A marketing program run by a brand or agency.

Celebrity Influencer

Influencers who are public figures and typically known for their profession outside of social media. Actors, musicians, athletes, authors, and television personalities can all be considered celebrity influencers. Like macro-influencers, celebrity influencers generally have large, general followings and are ideal brand partners for increasing brand awareness and securing press coverage.

Content Creator

Someone who creates photo and/or video content, typically shared to social media platforms or their own website. See also: influencer

Conversion

The ability to turn consumer views into purchases.

Cost-Per-Mille (CPM)

The price an advertiser pays to achieve one thousand views on a piece of advertising content. 

Also known as: Cost-Per-Thousand (CPT)

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

The cost of advertising a piece of content compared to the number of clicks said piece of content earns.

CTR (click-through-rate)

The percentage of viewers that click through to a link on an ad or other piece of linked content compared to the total number of viewers.

Dark Posting

When a promoted social media post appears to come from an influencer or brand’s social media account but does not appear on their profile feed, or as an organic post in follower’s timeline feeds.

Deliverables

The assets that an influencer agrees to provide for a brand campaign. These can include social media posts, event appearances, photo or video assets for brand usage, etc. 

Demographics

The data behind an audience’s makeup. This can include statistical data on the locations, genders, ages, interests, and behaviors of social media followings.

FTC Disclosure

Identifying the relationship between the influencer and brand. This can be done by adding a “Paid Partnership” label, adding #ad, #advertisement, or #sponsored clearly in the caption of the post, or otherwise clearly indicating a paid business relationship between influencer and brand. NOTE: Gifted product does count as payment according to the Federal Trade Commission. For more on disclosure best practices, check out our blog post on FTC disclosure best practices.

Earned Media

Additional publicity gained outside of branded or advertising content. This often includes press placements or mentions as well as shares, mentions, and/or reposts of either brand or ad content.

Engagement

Most broadly, the number of interactions a social media post receives. Those interactions can be likes, comments, saves, or shares. 

Engagement Rate

The rate at which a user’s followers interact with their content. This can be calculated by the following formula: the total amount of engagement a post receives / the poster’s total number of followers x 100 = Engagement Rate %. Engagement rate is an important metric to measure when assessing influencer partners because it tells you what percentage of their audience is likely to interact with their content, providing a more complete picture of a user’s audience than simply their follower total.

Exclusivity

The terms that limit speaking on or working with competitor brands during a mutually agreed-upon period of time. 

Experiential Marketing

Immersive brand campaigns that invite consumers to experience the brand and/or its products. Popular examples of this include brand pop-ups, branded speaker panels, classes, tutorials, and other branded events. Experiential marketing often refers to in-person activations but can refer to virtual events as well. 

Following

The action of opting into a social media account’s content. When a user is “following” a social media account, the user will be served that account’s content on their home feed.

For You Feed (FYF)

The tab on TikTok that displays videos from both creators a user follows and suggested videos based on a user’s engagement with similar content, as determined by TikTok’s algorithm. Commonly referred to as the “For You Page” or “FYP”.

Gifting

When a brand sends free product to an influencer, typically in lieu of financial compensation. 

(Instagram) Guide

Guides are a way to share content, locations, and products as a collection. You can think of them as mini blogs or catalogues that are accessible directly on Instagram.

For more on Instagram Guides, check out this explainer: https://lytehouse.agency/blog/instagram-guides-explained 

Idea Pin

A type of post on Pinterest that allows a user to share a collection of up to 20 photos, videos and/or text pieces as a single post that viewers can click through. These are somewhat similar to Stories on Instagram, except for the fact that Idea Pins live permanently and are visible on the Pinterest home feed.

Impressions

The number of times a piece of content is viewed. This number includes people who have viewed a piece of content at least once, but will count each time they view the content; for example, if 1 person views a piece of content 2 times, that will count as 2 impressions.

Influencer

A person, typically on social media, who uses their platform to provide advice, recommendations, and inspiration to their followers through the content they create and share. Ideally, an influencer has the ability to guide or have an impact on followers’ decisions.

Interactions

A metric that adds up the total number of ways users have engaged with a piece of content on Instagram.

For a post, this will add up the total number of likes, comments, shares, and saves.

For a story, this will add up the total number of link clicks, shares, website clicks, sticker taps, and profile visits.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

The way to measure the success of the main objective(s) of your campaign. 

For more on how to measure KPIs, take a look at our infographic here.

Macro-Influencer

An influencer with an extremely large following on social media, typically with a following of 500,000+. These influencers are great to work with when you want to reach a general audience and increase brand awareness. 

Metaverse

A virtual world focused on social interaction.

Micro-Influencer

An influencer with a small following on social media, typically between 10,000 and 100,000 followers.

Mid-tier Influencer

An influencer with a mid-size following on social media, typically between 100,000 and 500,000. 

Nano-Influencer

An influencer with an extremely small following on social media, typically between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. These creators typically speak to a hyper-specific niche or demographic. Despite their small followings, they tend to achieve high levels of engagement and are ideal for when a brand wants to market to a hyper-specific audience. 

Niche

The specified category or categories that an influencer speaks to in their content. 

Objective(s)

The goals for a social media campaign.

Organic: 

Can mean:

1) Content that is shared without any brand relationship or financial incentive

2) The data results of how a piece of content performs without any advertising budget set against it

Paid Media

Content that has an advertising budget set for it to increase the reach of said content.

Performance

The actual results of the campaign based on the final influencer cast and actual performance. A combination of influencer and paid results if amplification is included.

Pin

A photo or video post shared on Pinterest.

Quote Tweet

When a Twitter user adds their own additional commentary to a Retweet.

Reach

The number of users who see a piece of content. Unlike Impressions or Views, this metric does not account for multiple views, so even if a user views a piece of content 10 times, they will only count as 1 account reached.

Retweet

When a Twitter user re-shares a Tweet to their own audience without additional commentary. 

Revenue Share

A payment model between brand and influencer where the influencer earns a mutually agreed-upon percentage of sales made through their promotions of the brand. 

Return on Investment (ROI)

The ratio of the net income generated over a period of time compared to the cost of the marketing campaign. 

Saves

Users can bookmark content for future reference using the save button. Examples of commonly-saved content pieces include recipes, tutorials, motivational quotes, and infographics.

For more on Instagram insights, check out our full explainer here: https://socialyte.com/business-of-influence/instagram-insights-analytics-explained 

Sentiment Analysis

The evaluation of audience or consumer attitude towards a brand product, or service being promoted, whether good, bad, or neutral.

Scope of Work (SOW)

The mutually agreed-upon list of deliverables and/or services a creator is expected to provide over the course of a brand partnership agreement.

Shares

Users can share a post by clicking the “paper plane” icon, either through direct messages with friends, or to their Instagram Story. A shareable post can be anything posted to Instagram, including your own, from a hilarious meme to a news update to a cute pair of boots that someone wants to share with their friend.

Social Listening

The process of tracking social media mentions and conversations around a particular brand, product, influencer, or another subject.

Story

A photo or video post that only lives on a user’s profile for 24 hours. These are typically in-the-moment, less-curated content pieces. Stories can be posted on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat.

For more on Story insights, read this.

For tips on using Stories in your influencer marketing, read this.

Story Highlight

A collection of Story posts that live on a user’s Instagram profile permanently.

Strategy

The approach a brand or company takes to achieve and execute their marketing objectives.

Total Watch Time

The sum of all hours (or minutes) all viewers have logged viewing a piece of video content. 

User-Generated Content (UGC)

Social media content that features a brand and/or its products but is created independently by social media users. This could include a customer sharing an organic review, posting a photo featuring a brand, an influencer featuring a brand in a post organically, etc. 

Usage

The mutually agreed-upon terms designating where, how, and for how long a piece of influencer-created content can be used for brand purposes.

Views

The number of times a piece of content is seen. This number tracks multiple watches by a single viewer, meaning that if a single viewer watches a piece of content 10 times, that will count as 10 views. 

Whitelisting

Whitelisting is where an influencer gives a brand partner access to their account in order to modify and promote content directly from their account. Through whitelisting, brands can ​​customize a post’s captions, images, and calls-to-action to target different KPIs and achieve various campaign objectives and can also create posts that appear to be shared from the influencer’s channel but do not appear on their feed. In addition to customization options, brands also have access to a vast number of performance insights such as reach, engagement, impressions, and clicks.

To learn more about whitelisting, read this.

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.

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.

Whitelisting vs. Boosting: Breaking Down The Differences & Benefits

We’re firm believers in the power of amplification in influencer marketing, but it can be tricky to figure out successful tactics. Let’s break down the basics.

Whitelisting, dark posting, boosting...if you’re in the digital marketing world, you’ve likely heard these terms before, but understanding what they all mean can be complicated. The world of digital ad amplification is still relatively new, and finding the pathways to success can be difficult for newcomers.

For Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram, there are two main methods of amplification: boosting and whitelisting, and in our opinion, one is far superior to the other.

Boosting

Boosting influencer content through Instagram’s Branded Content Tool is simple, but it’s options are limited.

The Limitations of Boosting

As we mentioned, boosting is a little too simplistic to create targeted ads that maximize reach and conversion.

For one, you cannot edit a post’s copy or imagery in order to run variant ads and figure out which ads are performing better and worth scaling. Another drawback is the inability to target lookalike audiences through boosted pos ts, and some features, like Instagram Stories, are not supported through Branded Content boosting.

Last, advertising partners can only access metrics of an influencer’s content for 14 days after the original posting date, making it difficult to run longterm ads and determine success over time.

Whitelisting

Whitelisting is where influencers will give brand partners access to their accounts in order to modify and promote content directly from their account.

The Benefits of Whitelisting

Brands can customize a post’s captions, images, and calls-to-action to target different KPIs and achieve various campaign objectives. Through whitelisting, brands can also create posts that appear to be shared from the influencer’s channel but do not appear on their feed.

In addition to customization options, brands also have access to a vast number of performance insights such as reach, engagement, impressions, and clicks.

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We love the customization opportunities and insights that come with whitelisting and definitely recommend it for your next influencer campaign. Have no clue where to start? Amplification is one of the many services Lytehouse can manage on your brand’s behalf. Let’s chat.

Creating Content That Resonates

As influencer marketing and social ads grow in volume, so does the competition for capturing new consumers.

Social media behavior moves at the speed of light, and influencer programs that worked a few years ago may feel completely outdated now. So what type of content can hold audience attention in 2021? Here’s our advice:

Embrace Long-Term Partnerships

It’s time to look at influencers as true partners rather than one-off contractors. When an influencer speaks about a brand multiple times over the course of weeks or months, their audience is more likely to trust the partnership and take the influencer’s recommendation into consideration and sales clicks.

Lean Into Relevant Trends

TikTok, memes, and trending hashtags have all contributed to the rise of trend-based content, and brands can benefit from the virality of popular trends by adapting relevant trends for their own channels.

Be warned: trends move quickly on apps like TikTok, so if you are going to try your hand at trend-based content, you’ll need a quick turnaround. Most trends come and go in about a week.

As the FTC gets stricter on how music on apps like TikTok and Instagram are used, you’ll also need to be wary of copyrights around trending music.

Capitalize On Authentic Moments

Lean into authentic brand moments when you see them. Brands like Dunkin’ Donuts have hosted successful campaigns centered around organic brand affinities, such as “The Charli”, a rebranded drink based on TikTok star Charli D’Amelio’s favorite Dunkin’ order. Her fans have seen her sip Dunkin’ coffee all over her social media, so the partnership was a no-brainer.

Do It For The Meme

As with trending content, memes are all about contributing your own spin on zeitgeist cultural moments. From Tiger King jokes to Bernie Sanders appearing literally everywhere after an iconic photo from President Biden’s inauguration, memes are everywhere. They’re also sharable, relatable, and easy to digest, making them primed for extended reach and impressions. 

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Looking for more ways to step you your digital marketing plans and learn about the latest trends driving influencer marketing? Our State of Influencer Marketing 2021 Report breaks down resonating content and so much more. Download it here.

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.

4 Reasons Why Instagram Stories Are A Valuable Platform For Marketers

Social media is always evolving, and one trend we’ve certainly noticed in 2020 is that Instagram Stories are slowly overtaking Instagram Posts as the most popular post type for influencer campaigns.

From April to September, Instagram Stories accounted for almost half of all our campaign post types. Across that time period, we observed an 8% increase in Instagram Story campaigns from 2019 to 2020.

Why is it that Instagram Stories are on the rise? There are a few factors that make Instagram Stories so valuable for marketers. Let’s break them down:

1. Relatability Factor

If Instagram feed posts are a dreamy highlight reel, then Instagram Stories are where an influencer’s personality and real life can shine. There is less pressure to make every Instagram Story frame picture-perfect, making them feel much more relatable and off-the-cuff.

When it comes to brand partnerships, even Instagram Stories are often pre-recorded and approved by the brand before posting, but their reliance on selfie videos, iPhone photos, and behind-the-scenes sneak peeks make them relatable to viewers, much more so than the curated content that goes on an influencer’s feed. 

2. Demonstrations Made Easy

Instagram Stories make it incredibly easy to demonstrate how to use a featured product in short, concise clips. Whether an influencer is cooking a recipe, demoing a new technology, showing how to style a piece of clothing, or something else, Instagram Stories are the perfect platform for such demonstrations. With the ability to add text captions and GIF stickers too, there are plenty of tools to create engaging and informative tutorial-like content. 

3. Conversation Is Key

Instagram Stories are about community building, and the poll and question stickers, along with the ability for followers to direct message (aka DM) an influencer help cultivate conversation. Viewers can provide feedback, ask questions, and create a dialogue that can last far beyond the 24 hours that a Story is live.

Story interactions are beneficial for 2 main reasons: first, replies, poll votes, and other interactions help increase the Story’s engagement numbers and can in turn boost an influencer’s Story to the front of people’s Story feeds. Second, both your brand and the influencer can receive immediate feedback on the content, product, and partnership. Maybe a follower has a question about how to use a product or absolutely loves the content produced and DMs the influencer to say as much. This instant feedback can help both of you inform future content and strategies for future marketing efforts.

4. Ease Of Conversion

Last but certainly not least, the ability to add “swipe-up links” is perhaps the valuable benefit of Instagram Stories, particularly if you are deciding whether an in-feed Post or Story is more worth your time (and budget). Adding in swipe-up links allows influencers to turn their content into sales conversions and hopefully drive more sales to your brand.

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Now that you know why Instagram Stories are all the rage in influencer marketing, make sure you know the ins and outs of Instagram Story analytics so that you can track your campaign success.