Switzerland has a number of agencies who can help you grow your brand by taking over your social media marketing.
In this article we’d like to give you an overview of the Swiss landscape for social media marketing.
We’ve listed the agencies by the major cities in Switzerland.
3 important criteria for choosing a good social media marketing agency
Here’s a checklist you can use to pick the best agency to work with:
Experience. When choosing a social media marketing agency, make sure they have enough experience working with clients. Ask for their client portfolio to see past projects they’ve completed. It’s easy to simply call yourself an agency and go into business – actually getting results in the real world is something different.
Services offered. Check if the agency is providing the exact services you’ll need. Often you’ll have a specific kind of social media campaign in mind to grow your brand. You want them to be able to achieve your goal.
Price. While it’s generally not a good idea to just look at the price and go for the cheapest option, you still might want to shop around before deciding on a social media marketing agency to work with. It’s important to only pay for services that’ll actually benefit you. If you can have the agency tailor the campaign to work only on what’s essential, you might be able to stay within budget more easily while reaping all the rewards.
The best social media marketing agencies in Zurich
Zurich has by far the most social media marketing agencies of any city in Switzerland – which makes sense with it being a hub for business in the region. You’ll find everything from small start-ups to big agencies that have been around for decades.
Following are the best social media marketing agencies in Zurich, Switzerland:
If you’re looking for an agency in Basel to help you with your social media marketing efforts, there’s multiple to choose from.
Some of these have been in business for over 10 or even 20 years. While certain agencies focus on social media marketing, many are full-service agencies providing help with all sorts of digital marketing tasks.
Here are the best social media marketing agencies in Basel:
Bern boasts a number of high-quality social media marketing agencies as well.
Some of these, like ads&figures, are known for services such as Google Ads – but they’re equally talented in social media marketing. As another Swiss city with great marketing expertise, you’ll surely find an agency who can create a campaign to your exact needs.
St. Gallen’s premier social media marketing agencies
Getting into some of the smaller cities in Switzerland, the marketplace for marketing services will become a bit smaller as well. Yet, there’s still a number of agencies in St. Gallen that are worth your business.
The best social media marketing agencies we’ve found in the city of St. Gallen are the following:
Best social media marketing agencies in Winterthur
In Winterthur you’ll find a small number of Swiss agencies specializing in social media marketing. Some of these are well-established and have been around for a long time.
As always, it pays to shop around and compare different agencies with regards to expertise, services and pricing.
Here are the top social media marketing agencies in Winterthur:
The top social media marketing agencies in Romandie – Genf, Lausanne, Fribourg
If you’re looking for social media marketing services in the Romandie region, you’ll be able to find several agencies who can provide those for you.
If you don’t like what you see in one city, you might have to check out the next. But overall there’s still a wealth of options, so in the end you should be able to find the one who can carry out your social media campaign to your satisfaction.
The best social media agencies in the Romandie region of Switzerland (Genf, Lausanne and Fribourg) are:
There’s at least 50 social media marketing agencies in Switzerland worth mentioning, and among them you’re sure to find the perfect one for your own campaigns.
As was to be expected, Zurich has the most choice when it comes to social media agencies. It’s also where Kingfluencers is based.
So if you’re in Zurich and looking for a reputable agency to help you with your social media marketing, don’t hesitate to contact us at Kingfluencers. With our large portfolio of successful client work, we have the experience and skills to multiply your results on social media.
Okay, so you’ve chosen the right influencers to work with. That was a crucial first step and the necessary foundation for your campaign.
But obviously your job isn’t done yet.
What comes next determines whether your brand succeeds or fails with influencer marketing:
How you actually work with your influencers on your campaign.
Now you want to make sure that your collaboration with them will meet your expectations or even go above and beyond.
You can work together with your influencers to create something special – campaigns that bring massive reach and new growth to your brand.
Follow the three steps outlined in this guide and you’ll be well on your way to a highly successful collaboration with your influencers.
Let’s dive in.
Step #1: Establish a Measurable Framework for The Ultimate Win-Win Collaboration with Goals, Deadlines, & Compensation
The first step is to set the stage for successful work on your campaign with your influencers.
Build the framework in which the collaboration takes place. Create a great working relationship – which is vital for your campaign to go smoothly and the relationship to last long enough to get the results you’re after.
Set reasonable goals & expectations
Before any content is created, talk about which KPIs (key performance indicators) are important in the campaign, your goals for improving them, and how much content will have to be created to realistically achieve those goals.
Different KPIs for your collaboration could be:
Brand mentions
Engagement rates
Website traffic
Leads generated
Improved conversion rates
Sales
Financial ROI
Be realistic about predicting these outcomes. Base it on historical influencer marketing data, results from past campaigns your influencers have taken part in, and even competitor results.
You want to err on the side of being conservative in your predictions, so you’re not putting too much pressure on your influencers (and yourself), and are not setting yourself up for disappointment. If the campaign performs above expectation, that’s just an amazing bonus on top!
Have deadlines, but don’t rush your influencers
Establishing a timeframe for your campaign is important. It provides structure and incentivizes focused work. But a deadline should never be a threat to your influencers.
They need to know they have enough freedom to let their creative juices flow and create the best content they can for you. Putting them under added time pressure will not help that outcome – on the contrary, it can potentially prevent it.
Compensate your influencers well for working with you
How much and in which way (there are many) you’ll pay your influencers depends on numerous factors. For example, when charging per post, it’s usually between CHF200-1000 in today’s influencer marketing landscape.
There are other ways they can get paid:
A monthly salary for the duration of your campaign
A percentage of sales
Free products
A combination of these options
Whichever way you decide to pay your influencers, make sure it’s enough for them to actually feel incentivized – so they’re motivated to give their best when creating content for you and working with you in general.
Be open-minded: Let your influencers do what they do best
Influencers are more than just a number on their profile. Use the expertise and creativity that content creators are willing and able to bring to the table.
Yes, you do want to set expectations and brief them on your goals – but you also want to give them a good amount of creative freedom.
Sure, influencers are your vehicle for connecting to your audience (an effective one). But if you acknowledge their status as subject matter experts and authorities in their niche, they can contribute a lot of that expertise to your campaign. They can help you develop even more creative ideas – ideas that are specific to their audience (which they know inside and out), and are likely to hit the mark.
They’re uniquely qualified to help your brand be more creative, bringing fresh ideas no one else inside your organization may have thought of before.
Creative ideation can be done either independently by an influencer or together with you as the brand.
Influencer marketing has massive potential to sell complicated brands and experiences. If you think about the story you want to tell with your brand, influencers can offer you a targeted, personal, and credible voice to tell that story.
As mentioned, influencers know their community very well. Give them a precise briefing, but as much freedom as you can.
Resist the urge to simply tell them how to do their job. You might be able to pay them to say a specific slogan into the camera, but communities can be very harsh with content creators who do that. If they tell you that won’t work, listen to them. They may have a better idea in mind.
Create an influencer agreement (contract)
Creating an influencer contract is in the best interests of both you and the collaborating influencers. It clarifies all expectations for both sides so everybody knows what exactly will be part of the campaign. And having a contract in place will simply give both of you peace of mind. In case things don’t work out, or the other party does something unexpected, there will at least be potential legal recourse.
Here’s what you influencer agreement should include:
What type of content they’ll be asked to create
How many pieces of content will be created during the collaboration
Which metrics they should aim to hit (awareness, traffic, sales) – and how (mentioning your brand, linking to your website, showing your product)
What compensation they’ll receive in return – which amount, for which time frame, in how many payments
Asking them to adhere to FTC/GDPR guidelines and guard your brand safety
Confidentiality agreement about the terms of the contract and other details of the campaign
What constitutes a breach of contract
Creating the influencer contract is boring work – but should any problems arise during your campaign, you’ll be glad to have done it. In almost all cases, it’s not a good idea to just wing it when working with influencers.
Be someone they like working with
How do you achieve that, other than being a good person and a friendly higher-up?
Help your influencers do their work better and more easily, by sharing everything you can with them:
Relevant media (photos, videos, audio recordings, screenshots)
Create templates for some of the content formats
Consider building a media kit for the influencers to use with checklists, guidelines, examples, etc.
They’ll surely appreciate your help in this way and it’s bound to improve your working relationship … and speed up content creation.
Step #2: Build and Launch a Beautiful Campaign Together
Now that you’ve created the perfect framework for successfully collaborating with your influencers, it’s time to start working on your actual campaign.
Craft a campaign that’s guaranteed to make an impact on your audience, and be a win-win situation for both you and the influencers you’re working with.
Martina Klieber, Publicity Manager at Universal Pictures Switzerland put it this way: “Universal’s success shows that you can have great success when the influencer and community are a good match for your brand, and the influencer is excited about your brand and tells the story properly.”
Here’s how to do it:
Make sure to stay “on brand”
Stay consistent with your brand values. Influencer marketing, like all marketing initiatives, must be consistently aligned with your brand identity. While you should – as we’ve talked about above – leverage your brand advocates’ unique personality and creative ideas, they must not conflict with your key brand messages.
The content they put out for your campaign should fit what your brand stands for and the image your audience has formed of your brand in their heads. If the messages are too inventive, too different, too off-the-rails, it’ll go against the associations your fans have with your brand and might hurt your connection.
So, as long as you’re abundantly clear about what your brand identity and brand values are, and you determine that the messages put out during the campaign fit your identity and values, you can rest assured. Your influencer marketing efforts will only serve to strengthen your brand’s perception in the eyes of your fans – not damage it.
Be creative: experiment with different formats
Don’t assume you know which type of content will resonate with your audience. Instead, you could test and vary different attributes during your influencer collaboration – such as using multiple social media channels, hitting various themes, and creating different kinds of media.
While keeping in mind not to be too inventive as mentioned above, and staying consistent with your brand identity – allow yourself to step out of the box of bland, copycat content.
The goal should be to create fresh, organic content together with the influencers.
Vary your themes: Tailor the influencer content to current events, holidays, or popular leisure activities and trends
Hit different topics: Home or public life, hobbies, relationships, sports, celebrities
Change up the people: Have a mix of different influencers and brand advocates put out your messages
Finally, use several social media formats to make your campaign unique and engaging:
Go live
Live-streaming offers your audience a more personal experience with your creators and will create a more authentic connection.
Make IG stories
In IG stories, the influencers can be even more creative because stories don’t have to be as polished as your usual curated social media posts. This provides the opportunity to deliver your message in a different, more down-to-earth way.
Make longer-form videos
YouTube and IGTV are the ideal platforms for this. In a longer-form video, influencers can teach the audience how to use your product, show the impact of your services over a longer time period, or offer in-depth explanations of some of your brand features.
TikToks & Reels
The most popular form of modern social media content, these short-form videos can go viral if they are creative, done well, and hit a nerve.
Interactive polls
Polls are a way to gain insights from your audience and involve them more in your brand, instead of relying only on one-way communication. This shows your fans that you care about their opinion!
Forum posts
This is a more old-school option, but it’s still applicable in some niches. Forums often have a user base that’s incredibly dedicated to their topic of choice. If you manage to connect with them using well-made influencer content, you could win over some real power consumers to your brand.
Sponsored posts
Image or video posts that draw attention to and/or link to your brand are still effective – if the content is something that resonates with the audience.
Guest blogs
If your brand appears on a high-authority blog in your niche, its authority will rub off on you – which could work wonders for how you’re perceived in the marketplace and prime readers to buy from you. Collaborating with the right kinds of influencers who can deliver this type of quality post is what will make this work for you.
Account takeovers
Have one of your influencers take over your company’s social media accounts for a day. This can be a really entertaining and bonding experience for your audience.
Contests
Contests are a great way to drive impressive engagement! Contests can mobilize the influencers’ followers from being mere content consumers to taking part in the story. As we all know, actively engaged prospects are much more likely to buy.
Launch a new product & unboxing videos
You can coordinate your influencer marketing campaign such that they will launch your new product for you in front of the eyes of their thousands of followers. One cool way to show off the products is to have them make a video of receiving the product, unboxing it, and starting to use it.
Run live events
Creating a live event that followers can take part in is a creative and very engaging way to educate people about your company, display services, and showcase features … but above all: Create a strong, loyal community around your brand – which is massively valuable.
Make your campaigns interactive – think about community engagement
Social influence marketing provides an agile, real-time communication channel with consumers. When doing influencer marketing, like social media in general, brands should engage with consumers and aim for effective two-way communication.
Too often brands push out a stream of content to their audiences without bothering to also listen. But interactive campaigns lead to increased engagement, brand advocacy and likability, as well as more conversions and better customer loyalty.
Social media provides brands with the unique opportunity to make campaigns interactive and collaborative. You can turn campaigns from brand monologues into conversations by encouraging participation and interaction, as well as incorporating user-generated
content.
What are some examples of interactive influencer content?
Challenges
Contests
Polls
Q&A sessions
Debates
For example, CoverGirl partnered with eight TikTok influencers to boost product awareness among Gen Z. The campaign encouraged audience interaction with the content by incorporating lip-syncing, one of the central engagement drivers on TikTok. The #CleanFreshHype branded campaign generated over 6.5B impressions and a 5.7% engagement rate.
Be authentic and forge emotional connections
A successful brand is one that’s able to truly connect with consumers and create a real relationship.
If you manage to create this connection, it will lead to people converting into customers. Customers who are loyal to you for the long term, and will even go out to advocate for your brand and your products or services.
The best way to stand out from the crowd and connect is with emotion, empathy, storytelling, and authenticity. People are craving authentic and real content as well as advice, and look for people and brands they believe in to provide this.
Authenticity is vital to connecting, and consumers notice it immediately.
As consumers strive for purpose, they seek out brands that demonstrate shared values. These values must be communicated clearly, while consistently remaining authentic. Additionally, brands can boost their emotional appeal by engaging in people-driven, creative storytelling and advertising that unlocks emotion.
Leverage your influencer campaigns to tell stories and you’ll give your brand a face people can relate to. You’ll create more emotional connections and make your social media presence much more appealing.
Step #3: Monitor your Campaigns, Improve ROI, Be Agile, & Know When to Stop
Track your performance – Manage your campaigns thoroughly
Successful collaboration means giving your brand advocates clear briefings at the start of your campaign and following up thoroughly. This is so you have a check on what influencers are actually doing for you. Does it match the brief? Does it meet your quality standards? Only then will it positively reinforce your brand.
With a distributed team of different influencers, mistakes can obviously happen. This is why you must monitor your campaign on an ongoing basis. The good news is that if you spot an error promptly, it can be corrected. The bad news is that you must invest the time to monitor if you want to spot errors promptly.
Improve ROI
Fortunately, it’s becoming increasingly easy to measure attribution of social media investments to accurately calculate your ROI. If you’re experimenting among multiple parameters, as recommended, you can then alter future campaigns by increasing investments in the most successful tactics – and thus improve your ROI.
You can also combine the power of influencer marketing with innovative campaign management technology. This can substantially increase the efficiency of your campaign and improve outcomes. Some influencer marketing platforms can accurately predict campaign outcomes such as estimated impressions, reach, engagement, interactions, and conversion, based on unique campaign parameters.
Stay agile
Armed with these metrics, don’t be afraid to make shifts if something is not working as it’s supposed to. Influencer marketing can be a very agile tool, and you should make use of that fact!
Be encouraged to pivot if you identify a direction that’s more fruitful than the current path.
Fortunately, the personality traits of influencers and the nature of social media, coupled with your campaign insights, will make it easy for you to course-correct and put your campaign on the path to greater success.
Know when to stop collaborating
After you’ve done all the work of identifying good influencers, setting expectations and guidelines, and signing a contract with the specifics, you’ve done all you can to eliminate the risk of your collaboration failing.
But, of course, things can always still go wrong, and a bad or fake influencer could reveal themselves only after you’ve hired them.
Stop your collaboration if:
Communication is continually poor
Their values turn out to be misaligned with yours
They’re not getting the results you wanted
If the relationship still seems salvageable, you can try to renegotiate.
If it is indeed hopeless, maybe it’s best to tell them, “Our goals don’t seem to be aligned. This isn’t working.” To maintain your brand’s reputation, always be kind in these situations. You could even offer the influencers in question a parting gift to soothe the disappointment or make them an affiliate (if it was just the scope of the campaign that didn’t work). Never just ignore them or react unprofessionally.
What to do after the event?
Again, be agile, revisit your campaign, and focus on the best way forward.
As mentioned, almost all of these incidents can be prevented by vetting and recruiting your influencers in the right way. And each of these little setbacks will teach you more about what to look out for in the future.
Conclusion
Now you know how you can make your next influencer collaboration a great success! Check out our other blog posts and some of our case studies for more influencer marketing content and inspiration for your next campaigns. We’re glad that you’ll be using the power of influencer marketing to take your brand to the next level!
We’re happy to help if you’d like to find out how to use influencer marketing most effectively for your brand.
Last week our first KF Movie Night in cooperation with Pathé Spreitenbach took place.
The movie The Batman, which was shown, revolves around good and evil and the blurred line in between, just like in reality. In view of current world events and the processing of this in the medium of film, we have put together a guide for films on the subject of Ukraine and Russia.
In this sense we hope for more “Batmans” & *Catwomen” and less “Riddlers” in this world.
Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom (2015)
Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedomis a 2015 documentary film about the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine from 21 November 2013 to 23 February 2014.
In just 93 days, what started as peaceful student demonstrations became a violent revolution. Netflix original documentary Winter on Fire brings you the story of Ukraine’s fight for freedom from the frontlines of the 2014 uprising.
Invisible Battalion (2017)
Invisible Battalion consists of six stories of servicewomen told by three Ukrainian film directors. The film protagonists are different by their life experience, age, military, and civil professions, but all of them were united by the war. Their stories create a panoramic picture of the woman’s status in the Armed Forces in Ukraine.
UNAVAILABLE (2018)
Lyuba works at a pastry shop. Her son is in the war zone and out of communication. The mother goes in search of her son in a territory unknown to her. A heartbreaking short film depicting the love of a mother for her son.
NO OBVIOUS SIGNS (2018)
This documentary tells the story of a woman who returns from war. Talking to psychologists, battling her PTSD and panic attacks, she tries hard to get back to normal life. The documentary shows her path from the beginning of her rehabilitation till her going back to work.
THE EARTH IS BLUE AS AN ORANGE (2020)
To cope with the daily trauma of living in a war zone, Anna and her children make a film together about their life among surreal surroundings. This documentary shows the contrast of both explosive trauma and the mundane peripheral existence in everyday life in war.
Leto (2019)
Leto (translated from Russain: Summer) is a Russian musical film that depicts the underground rock scene of the early 1980s in repressive Leningrad. Mike and his girlfriend Natascha get to know the charismatic musician Viktor Tsoi. United in their untamed passion for music they get caught up in a love triangle.
Train Kyiv-War (2020)
A train journey from Kyiv to Kostiantynivka, a small industrial city near the war zone, is only 12 hours long. People with different political views, beliefs, and social backgrounds are traveling to and from the war every day. And, of course, some conversations between passengers during that ride tend to get heated.
We are looking forward to your impressions and further movie suggestions.
When building strategy and tactics for influencer marketing campaigns, it’s important to be aware of common pitfalls and to have plans in place if disaster should strike. After all, forewarned is forearmed. Knowledge is power. In this article, we’ll dive deeper into how to analyze and build an approach for success, to both achieve your goals and avoid stumbles.
Metrics to Monitor
There are many metrics you can review in order to assess the efficacy of your social media efforts. Building upon that foundation, we’ll address what to monitor specifically to look for red flags, so you can pull a circuit breaker and stop any campaigns that may be ineffective at best or damaging at worst.
Fake Followers: A high quantity of followers on social media means access to a large audience. Of course, not if that “high quantity” consists of fake bot followers. Unfortunately, fake followers, like spam, are inevitable. A few signs to help determine if followers are potentially bots include:
Globally dispersed followers
Lack of engagement
Comments that consist entirely of emojis
Generic comments such as, “I like this post”
However, don’t let the presence of some bot followers eliminate an influencer from your consideration. There’s no precise way to know with certainty if followers are bots, and there’s no specific formula to measure how many bots you should tolerate before rejecting an influencer.
Selected Influencers: Avoid IM landmines by making influencer matches as perfect as possible. Influencer choice must align with your brand’s message and values, as well as your campaign objectives. When you conduct due diligence, also be on the lookout for influencers who might have the potential to offend your audience, or who are prone to impulsive or deliberately shocking actions. Working with an influencer marketing agency can also help avoid disasters, since agencies conduct extensive research prior to doing business with any brand or influencer.
Target Audience: If you’re a Swiss business working to earn Swiss customers, it might go without saying that you need to reach a Swiss audience. Examine the followers of influencers you’re considering, and don’t just assume all influencers based in Switzerland have many Swiss followers. Additionally, look for an overlap between your target customer audience and the influencer’s followers, for demographics such as age group, background, and interests.
Languages: Swiss brands often need coverage of French, Italian, and German, depending on their objectives and focus. This creates important questions and decisions to be made for brands in terms of which languages to communicate in, where and when. What is crucial is to address your audiences in a way that they feel personally addressed and maintain a consistent approach over time. Even when there’s shared language, there are still colloquialisms to consider. For example, “getting pissed,” has quite different connotations for Americans versus Brits, (angry versus drunk.)
Regionalization of Messaging: Knowledge of the local culture and history can help you be more impactful and successful, as well as avoid potential disasters. In most cases above points can be addressed to a degree by working with the right mix of influencers who have a focus on specific regions – perhaps because they are from or live in the region – and languages.
Avoid Cultural Missteps
As described by Fast Company, “Say the words ‘Kendall Jenner’ and ‘Pepsi’ and people know… This is at the top of just about every Worst Ad list and will be for a long, long time.” Such catastrophes should be avoidable with a hearty dose of common sense, combined with a diversity of perspectives. Those perspectives should include plenty of local insight, both fluency in the local language and knowledge of local customs.
In May of 2020, Volkswagen posted a clip on Instagram of a black man who is pushed around by a white hand and finally flicked into a shop called “Petit Colon,” which translates to “Little Colonist.” The car maker was reluctant at first to recognize the error, but ultimately described the video as tasteless and promised to clarify the situation.
Swiss organic bratbutter Migros produced containers with the Italian text, “Burro per arrostire svizzeri,” which means something like “butter to fry the Swiss.” A tasty chop was depicted directly above this cannibalistic sentence.
Conduct Due Diligence
Making ideal influencer matches is an important step in avoiding trouble. Influencer choice must align with your brand’s message and values, as well as your campaign objectives. There must be a clear link between your brand and the person in order to keep your IM campaigns real. Authenticity is always a good best practice, and by working with credible influencers who use and genuinely like your products, you can drive engagement while avoiding backlash due to compromised trust.
When you conduct due diligence, also be on the lookout for influencers who might have the potential to offend your audience, or who are prone to impulsive or deliberately shocking actions. An agency can be particularly helpful in making influencer matches, as well as negotiating terms, executing contracts, and managing projects over time to ensure high quality and brand reputation.
In addition to the fit between your brand and an influencer, consider brands they’ve promoted in the past. A sustainability brand such as Greenpeace might want to avoid influencers who’ve previously collaborated with non-sustainable brands.
Give Influencers a Precise Briefing, But as Much Freedom as You Can
To make influencer marketing effective, it must align with your key brand messages. For your influencer partners to accomplish this, they must understand those messages. Success begins with giving influencers and content creators a clear briefing. Not only must they understand the messages, but the entire scope of the project, including the processes for approval prior to posting, and details such as hashtags and URLs to include.
Let influencers do what they do best. Give direction without putting them in a box. While influencers are an effective vehicle for connecting to your audience, they can also contribute their subject matter expertise and collaborate with you to develop creative campaign ideas. As subject matter experts, they’re uniquely qualified to help your brand be more creative, bringing fresh, creative ideas.
Many Swiss brands tend to keep their marketing efforts centered on traditional initiatives. Influencer marketing can help serve as a catalyst to breathe fresh air into your marketing mix. Even those brands that already have a unique, creative approach have found influencer marketing to be a particularly successful addition.
Plan for Contingencies
Finally, make sure your influencers know your contingency plans if things go wrong. The only thing worse than bad news is bad news late. Influencers should know to immediately inform the brand of backlash so you can proceed with your existing crisis management plans.
Swiss-Specific Support
As a Swiss company, we also wanted to share some tips that are unique to Switzerland.
Remain Politically Neutral. Of course, this is safest since there’s no risk of alienating those with differing views, but it’s also considered polite to keep political views private. This is in stark contrast to the US, where all influencers and celebrities are expected to be left-oriented.
Express a Sense of Community. Many influencers are proud of the canton/area they’re from and freely express it. Such pride is common and also helps influencers connect with fellow canton residents.
Consider Varying Platform Popularity. The relative popularity of platforms in Switzerland doesn’t always align directly with global usage. For example, while Twitter is one of the “established giants,” it’s not widely used in Switzerland. Additionally, Twitch doesn’t have many Swiss users, although you may want to consider it to reach a niche audience.
Manage Expectations. The total population of Germany is nearly 10 times larger than that of Switzerland, and France is almost 8 times larger. It’s important to keep these numbers in mind, since the community size of Swiss influencers is therefore smaller. Fortunately, Swiss communities are very responsive and engaging, especially if the influencer speaks in their native dialect. The smaller quantity of Swiss influencers who offer high-quality content helps their audience remain engaged and loyal.
Keep your Eyes on Performance at all Times
Too often brands measure the wrong metrics or measure the right ones but from the wrong point of view. Often absolute numbers or topline metrics like ‘followers’ or ‘website visitors’ tell you very little about how you are really performing. A more nuanced measurement is required involving qualitative and quantitative angles combined. The most common social media metrics that are worth monitoring include:
Total followers and audience growth
Impressions & reach per post or campaign
Engagement (Likes, shares, comments, etc.)
Click-Through-Rate
Share of voice: volume and sentiment
ROI
Through it all, stay focused on how your metrics are trending, and how they compare to your individual goals. Pay close attention to engagement, which is one of the most important metrics. When a person has actually engaged with your content, they have absorbed your message and the content created a moment for them. Those moments matter because the more positive moments you achieve, the more people will feel connected to your brand. Click here to find out more about our influencer marketing services.
Full disclosure: we’re a marketing services firm specializing in social media and influencer marketing. As such, we are convinced that influencer marketing is an authentic, innovative, and forward-looking form of advertising which suits many brands. More than advertising, it is a storytelling approach that generates real impact.
But we’re not going to pretend sh*tstorms never happen. Instead, in this article, we’ll cover how to avoid problems, and what to do if they occur.
Avoid IM Landmines by Making Influencer Matches as Perfect as Possible
The ability to select specific influencers provides exceptional targeting capabilities. Influencer choice must align with your brand’s message and values, as well as your campaign objectives. When you conduct due diligence, also be on the lookout for influencers who might have the potential to offend your audience, or who are prone to impulsive or deliberately shocking actions.
Authenticity is always a good best practice, and by working with credible influencers who use and genuinely like your products, you can avoid backlash due to compromised trust. Many questioned the fit and authenticity of the 2005 Carl’s Jr ad featuring the very thin Paris Hilton eating a huge hamburger for example. Makes sense! Often common sense already goes a long way as well. There must be a clear link between your brand and the person in order to keep your IM campaigns real. People connect with people, not logos. So the more the audience can relate to the person, the higher the engagement factor.
Snack brand BiFi worked with Donna Adrienne in what was considered one of the most embarrassing influencer campaigns of the year 2018. One Instagram post featured the Heidelberg medical student naked in a bathtub, covered in bubbles, smiling while eating a mini salami. A Horizont article satirically stated, “Because it is so obvious and convenient to tear open a sausage pack during a relaxing bath and eat an oily salami.” While this is an example of influencer marketing gone wrong, it was not a paid promotion. BiFi sent Donna Adrienne free samples in response to her inquiry, but the promotion wasn’t discussed with BiFi and therefore didn’t align with their marketing strategy. Nevertheless as the audience and critics did not know this BiFi and Donna Adrienne were criticized for not indicating that the content was advertising and thus in violation of the guidelines surrounding influencer marketing. The lesson is to be very careful and apply the rules correctly at any time. When in doubt, rather take the road of caution and indicate that a post is part of a collaboration – independent of the exchange behind it.
Additionally, with long-term collaborations, you establish an enduring relationship of trust between your brand and selected influencers. This creates real value by giving a credible face to your brand, such as Mujinga Kambundji, the fastest woman in Switzerland and Nike. By associating liked people to the brand, people feel closer to the brand and connect more to it, ultimately building positive brand preference.
As your relationship with the influencers grows stronger and they come to know the brand in detail, the risk of mistakes gets lower. Be aware however that at the same time these influencers become such a part of your brand that missteps can cause little shockwaves. It is thus important to continuously keep managing the relationship with your brand ambassadors and assure that they are aware of what is happening with the brand as well as the role they play in your success and how to play that role to their best abilities.
The closer you work with them the more positive the outcomes of your collaboration will be over time. Get the most out of these relationships by investing the time and effort, because it’s worth it.
Fit with Former Collaborations
In addition to the fit between a brand and an influencer, problems can arise when a single influencer promotes multiple brands with contradictory values.
For example, a health-conscious influencer might be a good fit for a campaign against alcohol, but make sure their feed doesn’t have a previous promotion of beer. A sustainability app such as Greenpeace might want to avoid influencers who’ve previously collaborated with non-sustainable brands.
An Experiment to Determine if Influencers Will Do Anything for Money
Recently, Marvin Wildhage, a German Youtuber, created a fake skincare product, Hydrohype, complete with a fake PR firm and attempted to convince influencers to promote it. The face cream was actually made out of personal lubricant and listed with fake ingredients, like uranium, asbestos, and “pipikaka seed oil.”
Spoiler alert – he succeeded, and a few well-known German influencers promoted Hydrohype in their Instagram stories. Martin told the story in a series of videos, with more to come.
It’s easy to dismiss these influencers as gullible and greedy, but we shouldn’t be too quick to condemn them for accepting payment in exchange for promoting a product. One solution is for influencers to work with an agency, that can protect them from this type of scam since professional influencer marketing agencies conduct extensive research prior to doing business with any brand. Rest assured the vast majority of influencers are highly trustworthy professionals adhering to clear ethical standards and taking their job very seriously. But for the few ‘rotten apples’ in the basket you can rest assure that industry professionals will shield you from those. Top agencies know exactly who is who in the influencer ecosystem and have a tested working relationships with influencers they engage with.
Negotiate & Write Contracts Carefully
Like service agreements with any vendor, contracts with influencers must be written carefully. Of course, contracts must include details like payment terms and content rights. To help avoid disaster, also include clauses within the statement of work, such as:
Process for approving posts for quality control before go live
Steps to take if they make mistakes, resulting in a negative backlash
Provisions and pricing for any re-work needed
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but still include crisis management procedures in your contracts in case the sickness should strike.
Give Influencers Creative Freedom, but Monitor Campaign Details Carefully
Kingfluencers consistently advises letting influencers do what they do best. Don’t use influencers strictly as a vehicle for connecting to your audience, but instead leverage their subject matter expertise and collaborate to develop creative campaign ideas. Give them a precise briefing and direction (including a creative concept for consistency and guidance), but as much freedom as you can at the same time.
That being said, once they bring fresh, creative ideas to the table, approve those posts prior to going live. While we encourage brands to resist the urge to simply tell influencers how to do their job, we do encourage you to supervise and grant final approval before messages are communicated out to your audience, at least for influencers you do not have a long standing relationship with yet.
Invest the time to monitor if you want to spot errors. Influencers must include many things in each post such as hashtags, swipe up links, tags, and tracking links. It’s a lot of work to check it all. Careful campaign management is another way in which an agency can be particularly helpful, such as providing quality control for posts and approval of content before it goes live.
When Precautious Fail & You’re Facing Backlash
Expect the best, but plan for the worst. While no brand begins an IM campaign expecting a crisis, it’s important to make plans and be prepared. Working with people always means mistakes can be made. No one is perfect, don’t forget that. Crisis management plans should include:
Affected stakeholders
Type of crisis
Crisis levels
Designated crisis communicator
Who to contact
Procedures, including reach out, remove the post, and apologize (if relevant)
Outline steps influencers must take if any content generates negative backlash, such as for example apologizing and engaging in activities necessary to remedy the damage, such as making additional posts.
Delete the offending content
Don’t pretend it was never online. Denial can lead to additional backlash!
Own up to it and apologize where needed
A statement from the influencer can also go a long way in smoothing things over
Determine the necessary actions and take them, this might include separating the influencer and terminating the working relationship
Post an update letting your audience know the status
Even if the mistake was entirely on the influencer side, know that as a brand you always should pick up responsibility. That also means that trashing the influencer will not help in times of a crisis and might actually make you look bad. Keeping a positive and constructive posture always works best. Never go low as it could affect the way your brand is perceived.
Based in Switzerland, the Conscious Influence Hub (CIH) is a non-profit NGO that encourages conscious behavior in influencer marketing. Working together, Kingfluencers and the new CIH recently launched a new Code of Conduct for influencers which supports them in acting with respect, empathy and transparency.
Some of the guidance which can help both brands and influencers avoid problems includes, “Stay factual and check your sources. Credibility is your greatest asset. Be honest and transparent. Respect the rules of the analogue world online.”
Mistakes are Opportunities to Learn
It’s important to remember that mistakes are also opportunities to learn and grow as an influencer and a brand. It can help you challenge yourself and your business, and make improvements. It is harmful to not learn from one’s own mistakes and those of others and simply carry on as nothing happened. Instead, one should draw lessons, define actions, and share the results. This is how one remains credible and human.
Work with Experts to Navigate and Remediate Safely
An agency like Kingfluencers has the expertise to help you navigate influencer marketing, work to avoid problems, and react quickly and effectively to mitigate damage in the event of an issue.
Having experts to rely on is always helpful, but particularly in a stressful crisis situation.
CIH Campaign
Zeki, one of the largest influencers in Switzerland, made fun of an attack on LGBTQ TikTokers which occurred earlier this year at a train station. Due to Kingfluencer’s reaction, he realized his mockery was wrong, and responded by apologizing and creating content for the CIH to raise awareness. This showcases how professionals can help guide the industry to its maximum potential and assure that social influence remains a source of information and information and a force for good and positive outcomes for brands and consumers alike.
Having had the opportunity to speak with multiple successful Swiss influencers, Kingfluencers complied their top tips, along with an influencer best practices checklist. Our featured contributors are:
First, we asked our influencers what the most important requirements are to being an influencer, which included, being passionate as well as putting the work in. Steven noted that it looks easier than it is. Be passionate about your main topic on your account and let your community be part of that.
Carly said,“The magic formula is determination. You should not go there at random, but know the trends and your community.”
Younes’ recipe for being a successful influencer is, “Just be yourself, be open and it’s better to be funny than arrogant because this leaves a better impression. There are many who are trying to be serious and professional but sometimes people prefer if you are not that serious. It seems much more authentic.”
For Loredana and Kilian, not seeing yourself as an influencer is important for success. “We are just a normal family, with the small difference that we share our lives with a lot of people online.
At Kingfluencers, we’ve noticed that successful influencers are genuinely passionate about their topic. Letting that enthusiasm shine through attracts audiences, contributing to their success.
Pick the Right Platforms
Kingfluencer’s recommends selecting which channels to be active on, taking into consideration different media types, then having a strategy to be present there. “I speak a lot and I know my community likes to listen,” said Antonella.
Loredana and Kilian use TikTok because it’s a hugely creative video platform.
“We both graduated with a bachelor’s degree in multimedia production, so we find this platform one of the most exciting. Meanwhile, however, Instagram has also introduced Reels (copy of TikTok), which we also love to do. We love the Stories on Instagram and our viewers like being so close to everyday life.”
Create Value for Brands
Influencer marketing has proven to be an efficient way for brands to reach target audiences while achieving best-in-class ROI figures. Kingfluencers supports brands in leveraging this powerful tool to get even closer to consumers. We asked our influencers about their specific approaches to creating value for brands.
In creating value for brands, the first and most important is that it’s a match. You have to use the product. I believe all the people in my community could feel if I just did it because someone offered me money or if I really use the product.
Antonella Patitucci
The value is in telling your own story and putting emotion behind it. Give the product a face and so people can relate. Share your unique story and opinion. A product alone is a picture, but with you and your story, it’s like a movie.
Antonella Patitucci
Also, have longer-term collaborations rather than making just 1 or 2 posts. Brands get the most out of campaigns when they’re a longer-term partnership instead of one-offs.
Antonella Patitucci
The most important benefit an influencer has for brands is that we can reach our community on an emotional level, which can be difficult for brands with traditional media campaigns.“Influencer stories are a credible way for brands to communicate, and influencers can serve as real brand ambassadors. We give the brand a different approach, rather than copying and pasting the media and marketing strategy to another channel. The influencer is in touch with the brand and products and makes up their own story on implementing it in their daily life.
Steven Epprecht
“Influencer stories are a credible way for brands to communicate, and influencers can serve as real brand ambassadors. We give the brand a different approach, rather than copying and pasting the media and marketing strategy to another channel.”
Loredana and Kilian recommend, “Talk about goals with the partner. To make campaigns interactive and gripping, we think first and foremost about the expectations and wishes of our viewers. The focus is on the added value for viewers.”
Safeguard Authenticity and Engage with Your Community
Another commonality of successful influencers that Kingfluencer’s has observed is building a relationship with their community. Your community wants to somehow be part of your life, so interact and engage with them, which also helps build trust and credibility.
All of our influencers recognize the importance of staying authentic, which includes only doing campaigns for products they actually use.
Antonella added, “Be yourself, stick to your opinion. If you make a mistake, apologize, and change your opinion. I was against TikTok at the beginning and I made an official statement that it’s shit and just for kids, and I made fun of it. But TikTok approached me and wanted me to do it. I looked at the statistics and saw that the audience is older than I thought. I researched and changed my opinion, I wrote in the caption, ‘First I hated it, then I laughed, now I’m copying.’ Then you stay authentic, but you have to be honest, and share with the community, even your mistakes and ups and downs.”
Younes advises, “You should not forget that you earn your money because of your followers. So always interact with them.”
What Responsibilities Do Influencers Have?
Younes suggests influencers make the internet a better place by supporting one another. “Also, be aware that you are a role model, whether you like it or not. You have to be aware of the consequences when you don’t act correctly.
“Now, when I see especially young kids follow me and see me as their role model, it’s like a wake-up call for me to be conscious of what I post and how I act. Especially now, for the younger generation, influencers are the new stars.”Always think before you post something. You don’t know what people are going through at the moment. Always be open in general and open for new things/ideas, especially if someone has a different opinion than you.”
Steven added, “If I collaborate with a brand, it’s crucial that I can stand behind the product, and it’s not just for the money. There are people doing it like that, which contributes to the negativity about influencer marketing.
“I have a responsibility towards my community. It’s like a relationship with a friend. I consider if I’d recommend this to my mom or a friend. They trust you and you have credibility and shouldn’t play with that, otherwise it won’t work out in the long run. Only do what is you.”
The Conscious Influence Hub (CIH) is a non-profit NGO that encourages conscious behavior in influencer marketing. Working together, Kingfluencers and the new CIH recently launched a new Code of Conduct for influencers which supports them in acting with respect, empathy and transparency.
The Concern of Fake Followers
Most influencers don’t consider fake followers to be a problem. Loredana and Kilian said, “I think you can recognize the real online personalities very quickly if you take a closer look at the profiles.” Younes agreed that it’s easy to tell if someone has many fake followers.
Carly, on the other hand, replied, “I am very afraid of fake followers. It messes up the stats. I prefer few real subscribers rather than several fakes.”
Kingfluencers advocates that influencers and agencies work together to keep the industry clean, for example, by establishing guidelines, monitoring stats, and only engaging in legitimate organic growth strategies.
Move with Marketing Trends
It’s important for influencers to move with the trends, including interactivity. Social media enables consumers to get more involved and interact, resulting in trends like brands hosting polls or soliciting consumer feedback on issues such as new product development. Employees using social media can also serve as brand ambassadors.
Social media platforms are continually releasing new features like live emissions during which consumers can make purchases. Kingfluencers recommends that brands and influencers alike consider using these cool new features to engage audiences and provide what they like.
What Not to Do
Loredana and Kilian suggest not to:
Cooperate with a partner just because they pay a lot of money
Only post advertising content
Constantly change partners. E.g., a new car every month. No one has a new car every month, that’s not real. That doesn’t do anything for the partner or their own channels.
Younes finds it very annoying when influencers flood their stories with discount codes.
Influencer Best Practices Checklist
Be passionate about your main topic
Find out what kind of influencer, select your channels, and stick to your decisions (as long as they make sense)
Interact and engage to build a relationship with your community
You have a responsibility to your community. Treat it like a relationship with a friend.
Remember you are a role model, whether you like it or not
When promoting brands, tell your own story and put emotion behind it
Don’t just copy and paste the brand’s marketing strategy
Keep the focus on the added value for viewers
Be authentic, maintain trust and credibility – only promote brands you truly stand behind
We don’t advocate working nonstop. Vacations are healthy and beneficial, and all workers need a break. But that doesn’t mean your brand should stop your efforts in social media and influencer marketing over the summer. Brands can continue to stay active during vacation times with some advance planning, staggering of employee vacations, and support from outside agencies or specialists.
In this article we’ll address why it’s so important along with top tips for summertime success.
Users Connect and Engage More During Holiday Travel and Leisure
Social media engagement can be cumulative, and often builds on on-going momentum. The more you invest in good social media content, the more followers you earn, and the more engagement your brand can achieve. Unfortunately, it can also work in the opposite direction. If you stop engaging with your audience while your entire team takes a break, the other brands will fill the gap you’ve left in your audience’s feeds. Building your brand’s reputation is a long-term continuous effort and interruptions can make it harder to pick up again later and remain at the same level of impact.
It’s also worth remembering that, for those of us who are B2C marketing professionals, social media marketing is part of our work. But your audience engages when they’re shopping or enjoying themselves, in their free time.
Your work efforts = your customers’ leisure time.
A study from Sprout Social suggests that during holidays, consumers are significantly more likely to connect with brands through social media.
Don’t Miss Opportunities to Inspire
If you’re in the hospitality industry, we assume you don’t need us to tell you that your summer holidays aren’t a time to pause your social media efforts. In addition to researching and planning vacations, consumers use social media for inspiration on a variety of purchases, from travel and hospitality services to fashion, accessories and even certain electronics – You can also read more about this topic in our study report on Digital Influence.
Opportunities abound. According to Facebook insights, social posts increase by almost 30% in summer time. In fact, posts including the word ‘travel’ have been shown to spike by 46%.
Our always-on society never closes for business. And while overall technology use may decline in the summer, smartphone use increases, as does user social media activity. July and August are a good time to capture customers’ attention with compelling offers or simply to reinforce your brand image or boost product / service awareness. We think it’s also pretty safe to assume that there’s a good reason Amazon’s Prime Days are in late July. Consumers are more apt to purchase when they are relaxed and don’t feel stressed or rushed. For brands in most sectors it pays off to take advantage of these opportunities.
Top 10 Tips to Developing Summer Campaigns
Now that we’ve covered the why of summertime campaigns, here are some tips for success.
Get Consumers Engaged Before Summer Travel and Leisure Time
For many brands, it can be advantageous to develop a summer journey campaign, with the payoff either near-term during summer months, or building momentum towards fall. Not doing so or dropping the ball can lead to loss of business over summer and the rest of the year. This is obvious in sectors like travel, leisure, and hospitality. It’s also important for businesses like homeware and gardening, fashion, and many others to get ahead of the curve in order not to lose out. If you want to push this a little further you could also start a new loyalty program to get consumers excited for the foreseeable future. A continuous communication and nurturing effort often pays off most.
Run Summer-Themed Social Media Contests
Create contests like “share your best summer experiences,” and give consumers reasons to follow you throughout the summer. Austen at SocialToaster shared some great contest ideas:
“Captioning an image or video
Posting a fun word puzzle (scramble or anagram)
Asking your customers to fill-in-the-blank
Have your audience guess the context around an image”
Make It Relevant to Your Audience
First, take the time to understand your audiences’ summer cadence. Consider how your product or service benefits them during this time and provide them with specific ideas and actions.
Video tutorials featuring recipes and home decor ideas for outdoor entertaining
Demonstrate the use of your product while traveling, such as a fashion brand that can be hand washed, then dry quickly on a hanger in a hotel room
Show how time spent in a rental car, plane, or train traveling to a vacation destination is more fun with unlimited, commercial-free streaming music, podcasts, or audio books
Another very effective way to make content and campaigns more relevant and appealing is the use of user generated content (UGC). UGC humanizes your brand and creates a sense of fun. It’s also proven to perform much better than brand created content. Consumers are 2.4 times more likely to say user-generated content (UGC) is authentic compared to brand-created content for example and they engage a lot more with it. One way to achieve this is for example by stimulating people to share their experiences or favorite purchases in the format of images, short videos and reviews in a fun and creative way. Contests, challenges, and rewards can help to get people to share more.
Focus on Influencer Marketing
With more leisure time, consumers spend even more time on social media and, in turn, engage more with influencers. Summer is the perfect time to experiment with IM if you haven’t done so before. Influencers are also inspired during summer, and IM lets brands leverage that excitement around holidays, events, food & drink, seasonal trends, and travel destinations.
Audiences are ready to consume more social content and are consequently more receptive of marketing and sponsored posts. This means that not only do creators have even more reason to keep up a steady stream of posts, brands do too.
In Switzerland 65% of consumer follow influencers with the vast majority of consumers stating that they seek for influencer posts for inspiration on what to purchase.
Are your products targeted to specific audiences? Then don’t forget to include micro-influencers in your influencer strategy as they have dedicated, niche audiences who are specifically interested in their content and lifestyle. Typically, their followers are highly engaged, dedicated and ready to act on their recommendations, basically providing access to a pre-activated pool of potential customers for your brand.
Create Seasonal Content for Travel, Leisure, etc.
Encourage ongoing engagement by “summer-izing” your content. Use fresh themes related to fun summer topics such as swimming, travel, and cooking and eating outdoors. For the hospitality industry, current photos will naturally show people eating outdoors in warm weather, but services like car rentals can make a point of featuring happy families en route to leisure destinations.
Give your content engaging summer visuals and consider updating your cover photo as well. Seasonal summer-themed content will also make people connect more with the content during those months as it will seem more on-point and time-relevant.
Switch on Shopping Functionality
After creating beautiful seasonal product imagery, make it even easier for your customers to buy by promoting on social media, such as through shoppable posts. For example, on Instagram, you can tag products the same way you can tag people, so users can tap a post they like and see the product name and price pop up. They are able to click through to the product page on your online store, and purchase via the shopping cart in the usual way.
Promote Posts
Warmer weather can bring about warm emotions and positivity in people, and according to the Journal of Consumer Psychology, summer positivity extends to consumers’ thoughts of products. Consumers who ignored or disregarded a product during the colder months may be more open to trying it during the summer, leading to increased consumer spending during the summer.
By using sponsored posts, you can get in front of more prospective new customers and bring some of that warmth to your own brand.
Offer a Limited-Time Promotion
Make use of FOMO by offering limited-time promotions such as two-for-one, 10% off new orders, or free shipping. You can create a discount code that can be shared in both organic and sponsored posts. Create a sense of urgency by highlighting the time limit.
Take Advantage of Social Media Retargeting
Retargeting allows you to serve ads to people who’ve previously visited your website or used your mobile app. It’s a handy strategy that enables marketers to reach an audience that has already shown some level of interest, making your ads more efficient.
According to Facebook summertime content sharing on the platform through mobile devices increases by 26% over other seasons. The increase for video content is even higher at 43%. With retargeting, you can take advantage of the increased time on social media.
Use a Content Calendar and Scheduling Tools
Having posts and promotions completed, approved, and scheduled in advance is a great objective, but we realize it’s difficult to consistently achieve. Now in the spring might be an ideal time to plan ahead, so you can simultaneously take advantage of summer opportunities while taking time off and relaxing.
Use tools like HubSpot, Hootsuite, Zoho, or even just spreadsheets to keep your team organized. That way when staffers go on holiday, an agency or their remaining colleagues can keep moving without missing a beat.
Bonus #11: Mix and Match
There is no one size fits all approach. Every organization, sector, and target community is different and for that reason it is important to find the ideal mix that works for your brand and yields the most benefits. The 10 tips above can easily be combined, for example in the following way:
Incorporate UGC into retargeting
Offer an incentive to promote social media shares of your limited-time promotion
Work with influencers to create seasonal content
Use retargeting to promote your contests
If you need assistance getting started with your summer social media activities or influencer marketing, expanding your existing campaigns, or just handing off the work so you can relax on the beach, you can always work with flexible full-service providers like Kingfluencers to make it happen successfully.
Zurich, 01.04.2021: Brands usually make the mistake on social media of not telling their products an authentic story with a face that the audience can identify with. The result: a lot of effort in the battle for attention that cannot be won. Not so with our 7 tips that show what it takes to not only use social media as a brand but to properly harness it.
Know target groups & know where to find them
There is no such thing as the “best” platform, influencer, or campaign format. Brands need to invest time in researching possible options and making a choice that will best help them achieve their goals. Accurately identifying the target audience is an important first step, followed by deciding the best platforms to reach them.
Read our blog posts about the evolution of social media platforms and different audiences here.
For younger dance enthusiasts, TikTok is a natural. 60% of users are Gen Zers and the two TikTok accounts with the most followers are young dancers
Stay relevant
What most users do on a platform is very important to consider. The chances of brands being successful increase enormously if they provide the kind of content that the target groups on the platform actively seek out and consume, such as video games on Twitch. The platform has over 9 million active users and all of the top 5 are gamers.
Segmenting audiences within each platform can increase relevance even further. For example, on Facebook, brands can easily create a custom list of people who have previously messaged the company to re-engage potential customers.
Make campaigns interactive
Social influencer marketing offers an agile, real-time communication channel with consumers. In influencer marketing and social media in general, brands should interact with consumers and aim for effective two-way communication. Too often, however, brands playout content to their audience without bothering to listen to find out what they really want. Interactive campaigns, on the other hand, lead to more engagement, brand advocacy, and likeability, as well as more conversions and better customer retention.
Social media offers brands the unique opportunity to make campaigns interactive and collaborative. By encouraging participation and interaction and integrating user-generated content, brands can transform their campaigns from brand monologues into real conversations. The close connection influencers have with their communities is ideal for engaging audiences in conversations and making campaigns interactive. Influencers can generate interactions in a variety of ways, including:
Challenges
Competition
Surveys
Q&A Sessions
Using the latest technologies
Actually, the concept of virtual reality (VR) is nothing new, but with the new release of the Oculus Quest in May 2019, it has become increasingly popular. VR allows people to share and interact with others around the world, which seems especially important given the ongoing need for social distancing. As such, Facebook is currently testing the Oculus VR platform to create a virtual world where people can connect and play games.
Augmented reality (AR), on the other hand, is even more accessible, as it requires no additional hardware other than a smartphone. AR filters can be used to promote fan interaction or new products.
The popular Kinder chocolate brand’s “Jump into Africa” campaign allowed its consumers to discover animated 3D safari animals while in Tesco supermarkets in the UK.
Staying up to date on the chosen social media platforms
Brands should always be aware of the various changes and new features on social media platforms, as circumstances change quickly. Twitter, for example, announced paid Super Follows on February 25, 2021, where users will have to pay for tweets. Furthermore, YouTube Shorts, which is considered a competitor to TikTok, entered the U.S. market on March 18, 2021.
“YouTube Shorts was first launched in September and has undergone various beta tests in India over the past few months, where adoption of the product has tripled since then.”
In addition, TikTok recently launched “TikTok For Business” to highlight tips such as information on various elements for building a brand, including insights on creative inputs, strategies for ads, and key trends. TikTok Ads Manager supports as a simple self-service tool that allows brands to create and post their ads directly to the TikTok feed.
Focus on people & use stories
Human interest stories help audiences identify with the brand and encourage interaction, for example, by showing people currently using the product rather than just posting photos or videos of the product itself. Social media stories can create a strong emotional connection with the brand and further its purpose. A study by SocialInsider also found that images in stories have a 5.65% higher tap-forward rate than videos. Images of people using a product in relatable situations can help users* connect. For example, these people could be hired actors, paid influencers, or satisfied customers – all are beneficial.
Consumers are 2.4 times more likely to say they find user-generated content (UGC) more authentic than brand-created content. In addition, many employees at all levels are likely already committed to their employer and its products or services. Brands should embrace and build on this enthusiasm because people who make their employer’s product are highly credible sources
MensPeople like to see other people. Research published in the Journal of Advertising Research shows, “Ads with people’s faces and ‘face-like’ (i.e., illusory) images attract more attention in a short time and are preferred over other ads.”
Represent authenticity and values
Consumers want to support brands that embody their own values. As noted in Inc, Gen-Zers “want to see authenticity in marketing, including evidence and a culture that backs up claims of strong company values.” Sixty-seven percent agreed that “staying true to yourself and your values and beliefs makes a person cool,” and they feel the same way about brands.
74% of respondents to a Twitter poll want brands to show acts of kindness, and 77% feel more positively about brands that try to help society during this crisis.
While it’s tempting to focus on stats like followers and likes, it’s important to remember that interactive exchange is a two-way street. Interacting with the community also helps build trust and credibility.
Based on the GFM — Kingfluencers webinar from 9.12.2020
Kingfluencers and gfm recently hosted a webinar, “Influencer Marketing – a Glance into The Future.” You can watch a recording of the webinar here and we’ve highlighted top tips from our speakers, along with an influencer best practices checklist. Our featured speakers are two successful Swiss influencers, Antonella Patitucci, Actress, Presenter, Coach, Content Creator, and Steven Epprecht, Founder @ Strategy Leaders, Consultant, Content Creator. More interested in the brand perspective? Check out our previous article here.
Put the Work in and Be Passionate
First, we asked our influencers what the most important requirements are to being an influencer, which included, put the work in and be passionate. Steven noted that it looks easier than it is. Be passionate about your main topic on your account and let your community be part of that.
Antonella recommended finding out what kind of influencer you are and what’s the best for you, then sticking with your decision. Select which channels to be active on, taking into consideration different media types, then have a strategy to be present there. “I speak a lot and I know my community likes to listen,” said Antonella.
Build a relationship with the community. Your community wants to somehow be part of your life, so interact and engage with them, which also helps build trust and credibility.
Becoming an influencer is creating a personal brand, including all the factors of a brand. As a brand, you must have a strategy how to be present on the different channels.
Create Value for Brands
Antonella added, “In creating value for brands, the first and most important is that it’s a match. You have to use the product. I believe all the people in my community could feel if I just did it because someone offered me money or if I really use the product.
“The value is in telling your own story and putting emotion behind it. Give the product a face and so people can relate. Share your unique story and opinion. A product alone is a picture, but with you and your story, it’s like a movie.
“Also, have longer-term collaborations rather than making just 1 or 2 posts. Brands get the most out of campaigns when they’re a longer-term partnership instead of one-offs.”
Steven stated, “The most important benefit an influencer has for brands is that we can reach our community on an emotional level, which can be difficult for brands with traditional media campaigns.“Influencer stories are a credible way for brands to communicate, and influencers can serve as real brand ambassadors. We give the brand a different approach, rather than copying and pasting the media and marketing strategy to another channel. The influencer is in touch with the brand and products and makes up their own story on implementing it in their daily life.”
Antonella Patitucci
“The value is in telling your own story and putting emotion behind it. Give the product a face and so people can relate. Share your unique story and opinion. A product alone is a picture, but with you and your story, it’s like a movie.”
Safeguard Authenticity
Recognizing that authenticity is a critical success factor, we asked our influencers how they maintain the trust of their audience.
Antonella advised, “Be yourself, stick to your opinion. If you make a mistake, apologize, and change your opinion. I was against TikTok at the beginning and I made an official statement that it’s shit and just for kids, and I made fun of it. But TikTok approached me and wanted me to do it. I looked at the statistics and saw that the audience is older than I thought. I researched and changed my opinion, I wrote in the caption, ‘First I hated it, then I laughed, now I’m copying.’ Then you stay authentic, but you have to be honest, and share with the community, even your mistakes and ups and downs.”
Steven added, “The most important thing is, if I collaborate with a brand, it’s crucial that I can stand behind the product, and it’s not just for the money. There are people doing it like that, which contributes to the negativity about influencer marketing.“I even differentiate the type of work that I do. I’m quicker to accept jobs as a model because it’s my face, not my name. But on my own channels, I’m saying I recommend it and I have a responsibility towards my community. It’s like a relationship with a friend. I consider if I’d recommend this to my mom or a friend. They trust you and you have credibility and shouldn’t play with that, otherwise it won’t work out in the long run. Only do what is you.”
Steven Epprecht
“I even differentiate the type of work that I do. I’m quicker to accept jobs as a model because it’s my face, not my name. But on my own channels, I’m saying I recommend it and I have a responsibility towards my community. It’s like a relationship with a friend.”
Move with Marketing Trends
It’s important for influencers to move with the trends, including interactivity. Social media enables consumers to get more involved and interact, resulting in trends like brands hosting polls or soliciting consumer feedback on issues such as new product development. Employees using social media can also serve as brand ambassadors.
Influencer Best Practices Checklist
Be passionate about your main topic.
Find out what kind of influencer, select your channels, and stick to your decisions.
Interact and engage to build a relationship with your community.
You have a responsibility to your community. Treat it like a relationship with a friend.
When promoting brands, tell your own story and put emotion behind it – don’t just copy and paste the brand’s marketing strategy!
Maintain trust and credibility – only promote brands you truly stand behind.
On a recent webinar, Martina Klieber, Publicity Manager, Universal Pictures International Switzerland, GmbH, shared lessons learned on making influencer marketing work. You can watch a recording of the webinar here and following are the highlights.
Incorporate Influencer Marketing into the Marketing Mix
As Influencer marketing emerged as a distinct discipline, it was often isolated, although many attributes make it highly complementary to other components of the marketing mix. A holistic and integrated approach to marketing disciplines is ideal. More organizations are understanding this and therefore start connecting the dots, having IM interact with and impact other marketing initiatives. The result is efficiencies and increased impact, enabling brands to achieve more with the same resources. Especially when influencer marketing content is repurposed in other marketing areas, the ripple effect of this integration can be very fruitful.
Each brand has to find out where IM works best in your campaigns. Over the years, we’ve experimented with and implemented IM in our mix. It has proven to be a very effective and efficient way to reach out to what we call our ‘persuadable audience.’ This is usually a group that is harder to reach with linear TV or other advertising media, with maybe a shorter attention span, but with a great acceptance of personalized and targeted advertisement,” explained Martina.
Campaigns to Enable Connections
Universal Switzerland doesn’t promote Universal Pictures as a brand, but rather single titles or film franchises such as “Fast and Furious.” Martina, explains, “Social media and influencer marketing have replaced the common gatekeepers between brands and consumers. Recent studies have shown that IM can be a powerful tool. For us, this means IM as an integral part of our marketing campaign provides us with an opportunity to promote an experience rather than a product. IM is an emotional, personal, and credible approach that is widely accepted by a younger target audience.”
Synchronize Influencer Marketing
“Influencer marketing is never a standalone measure. For the best outcomes, it’s crucial to carefully sync timelines between media and IM campaigns. Each and every touchpoint ideally links to a campaign tentpole, picks up some hot new AV content, and supports a specific campaign goal.
“You have to be aware of the narration of the story you want to tell. You can’t just have gaps in it. Find the space where it fits in best,” said Martina.
A Second Life for Content
If done right, IM content can provide additional value and be used in a second lifecycle. It can culminate in another campaign by creating press coverage, being used in a brand platform in an owned community, or even as advertising or even communication material. Influencer marketing can enable you to succeed with secondary or tertiary goals. Using the content wisely bring a range of wins and advantages and boosts ROI even more.
The Importance of Good Matches
Martina described a campaign to promote the newest installment of a large franchise. “The campaign was particularly successful because of the perfect match we made. We challenged top influencers to create their own trailer, engaging their community and activating them to go see the film. The selected influencers were huge fans of the franchise and went above and beyond to create top content. Our confidence in their capability and creativity, combined with their enthusiasm for the project resulted in a massive overperformance,” Martina explained.
Universal’s success shows that you can have great success when the influencer and community are a good match for your brand, and the influencer is excited about your brand and tells the story properly.
Additionally, Martina noted that when creating marketing campaigns for local theatrical releases using local influencers makes sense for credibility and local language, especially in Switzerland. The influencer help bridge the gap that international stars cannot.
Influencer Marketing Best Practices List
Martina first stated, “Let me assure you, we’ve done it all wrong and right,” and then proceeded to state an exceptional list of IM best practices based on years of experience.
1. Make the Perfect Match
Make perfect matches with not only the influencers, but the community. It’s worthwhile to take a closer look into the statistics of influencers, their community, and their account. It’s nice if you can afford an A-list celebrity, but your money might be better spent by choosing a smaller or more homogenous community.
2. Access Expertise
There’s no way to tell who’s the “best” influencer, so invest time in making the perfect match for your brand. Agencies offer expertise and data to help you source. Hit lists aren’t a substitute for expertise.
3. See the Content Creator, Not the Platform
Influencers are more than just a number on their profile. Use the expertise and creativity that content creators are willing and able to bring to the table. They know their community very well. Give them a precise briefing, but as much freedom as you can.
4. Influencers are Not a Media Buy
You might be able to pay them to say a specific slogan into the camera, but communities can be very harsh with content creators who do that. If they tell you that won’t work, listen to them. Maybe they have a better idea, but maybe they’re not the perfect match.
5. Let Influencers Do What They Do Best
Don’t tell them how to do their job. IM has massive potential to sell complicated brands and experiences. If you think about the story you want to tell with your brand, influencers can offer you a targeted, personal, and credible voice to tell that story.
6. Be Creative and Be Bold
Work with influencers that bring the right amount of creativity to the table, independent of their size. Make IM an integral part of your media mix to target audiences that are otherwise harder to reach. Carefully synch the timelines for the rest of your campaigns for the best results.
