Influencer Marketing Platforms: A Guide for Businesses, Cheat Sheet of Brand Marketing

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Quick Guide:

How to Pick the Best

Influencer Marketing Platform

for your Business

Content

1 → INTRODUCTION

2 → WHAT IS AN INFLUENCER

MARKETING PLATFORM?

3 → HOW DO I PICK THE BEST

INFLUENCER MARKETING

PLATFORM?

3.1 Influencer Marketing

Platform vs. Marketplace

3.2 What Social Networks Can I

Work With?

3.3 How Large is the Database?

3.4 What Is the Data Source?

3.5 Data Available

3.6 Influencer Relationship

Management (IRM) Tools

3.7 Is the Platform End to End?

3.8 Can I Get a Demo?

3.9 Platform Usability

3.10 Customer Support

It’s no secret that influencer marketing is booming. In fact, the industry is set to grow to approximately $16.4 Billion by the end of 2022. This makes it more important than ever for brands to harness this valuable marketing tool to promote their products and services in a way that helps them stand out from the crowd.

With increased growth comes an increase in professionalization. As a result, many brands and agencies are now turning toward influencer marketing platforms as a way to enhance and scale up their influencer marketing strategies. To address this new demand, platforms are expanding their capabilities and adding new features to their products. And this is adding a great deal of value to the sector. So much so that the influencer marketing platform industry raised more than $800M in funding in 2021 alone. And this figure is predicted to continue growing.

This leads us to 2 questions: What is an influencer marketing platform?, and How can you make sure you choose the best one?.

Let’s find out.

1 → INTRODUCTION

2 → WHAT IS AN INFLUENCER MARKETING PLATFORM?

An influencer marketing platform is a form of software that has been specifically designed to help brands find influencers to collaborate with on their influencer marketing campaigns.

A good solution usually offers all the tools necessary to develop influencer campaigns from start to finish. These include discovery tools, an IRM or database, campaign management tools, and features for integrations and automation. Many solutions also offer a range of data analytical tools to track that campaigns are performing at an optimum level.

Essentially, an influencer marketing platform helps brands centralize campaigns from start to finish, saving time and professionalizing their processes. This not only saves them valuable time but also gives them access to all the tools and features they need to ensure that their campaigns are performing at an optimum level.

An influencer marketplace is a collaboration platform that helps brands and agencies connect with influencers who publish on a specific social network or those working within a certain niche segment of the market. It’s a place for like- minded brands and influencers to find each other and make quick connections.

For example, a food and beverage brand can use a marketplace to connect with a foodie Instagrammer. However, while they may save time on their search, their results are limited to the profiles included in the marketplace. This makes them more suitable for specific campaigns where the influencer that you choose is less important than the actual campaign itself.

An influencer marketing platform, on the other hand, is an end-to-end solution for every aspect of your campaign. By putting the tools directly in your hands, you have the freedom to narrow down the pool of candidates according to your criteria, helping you find the creators that match your brand values, aesthetic, and target audience. This makes it easier to build a fruitful, ongoing relationship with your influencers.

3 → HOW DO I PICK THE BEST INFLUENCER MARKETING PLATFORM?

3.2 What Social Networks Can I

Work With?

Another important aspect is what social networks you can work with. This is important because each social media platform offers specific advantages for influencer marketing.

3 → HOW DO I PICK THE BEST INFLUENCER MARKETING PLATFORM?

Instagram : This platform is great for highly visual campaigns and building an online community. Marketers can take advantage of the range of formats it offers, such as stories, reels, and carousels (posts with 10 images).

YouTube : These long-form videos are good for educating your audience about your product as you move them down the sales funnel.

TikTok : Is the fastest-growing social media network, and its algorithm prioritizes content over following, making it easier for up-and- coming creators to go viral and compete with top brands.

3.3 How Large is the Database?

If you want to expand your reach by working with new and different profiles of all sizes, you’ll want a large database with plenty of filters to narrow your search. Here are some to look for:

Follower growth over time (to identify up-and- coming profiles). Average interactions (to find the most engaged creators). Location of influencers and their audience. Interests of influencers and their audience. Top Hashtags. Brand affinity. Keywords in bio. Audience quality.

Ultimately, the more choices you have, and the better filters you have to reduce your pool of influencers, the more likely you will be to find what you actually need , not resort to the best option from a limited supply.

3 → HOW DO I PICK THE BEST INFLUENCER MARKETING PLATFORM?

3.4 What Is the Data Source?

Generally, there are two ways that platforms gather data. The first is by asking an influencer to sign up, then the platform pulls data directly from their associated social network profiles via an API (Application Programming Interface) connection. The other method relies on AI to “read” and “view” the content on an influencer’s profile.

So, what’s the difference between these two methods?

Essentially, when an influencer signs up and authorizes access to their private profile insights, you get the same profile insights that they do. While this data comes from a direct source, you are limited to the influencers who have consented to sharing their data within said platform or marketplace, making it harder to branch out and connect with potential new creators for your brand.

AI-powered platforms, on the other hand, can gather and collate all public data including Likes, comments, and YouTube video views. They can also analyze a profile the way a human would, using algorithms to identify patterns that might suggest that an account or its audience is fraudulent. This makes it a much more powerful tool when it comes to accessing all the data you need to make an informed decision about the best influencer for your brand.

3 → HOW DO I PICK THE BEST INFLUENCER MARKETING PLATFORM?

3.6 Influencer Relationship Management (IRM) Tools

Stand-alone influencer databases or marketplaces are great tools for putting a range of interesting influencer profiles at your fingertips. However, as you grow and start negotiating with more and more influencers, you’ll want a centralized interface where you can keep track of where you stand with each one. A step up from a database, and one of the most important features to look for when selecting a platform, is an Influencer Relationship Management (IRM) tool.

Think of an IRM as a CRM application (Customer Relationship Management), but for influencers. Just as you wouldn’t catch a sales team working without a CRM, an IRM is indispensable for organizing and optimizing the relationship between your brand and your influencers.

Some platforms, like Influencity, even let you create lists to see how your favorite content creators would perform together. These lists include metrics such as audience quality, interests, top mentions and hashtags, brand affinity and the percentage of unique and shared followers. All this data helps you make an informed, data-driven prediction about how well your campaign might perform before you’ve invested a single penny or cent.

3 → HOW DO I PICK THE BEST INFLUENCER MARKETING PLATFORM?

Key features of an IRM include:

In-depth analyses of an influencer’s performance and audience demographics. Email integration. Price historicals. Notes. Contact details.

By integrating your email, you and your team can contact influencers straight from the platform so that everyone can see what has been discussed, and what is pending. By adding pricing information, you know what you’ve paid this influencer for past collaborations – key information when navigating long-term influencer partnerships. Notes let you save any relevant details from the size of an influencer’s shoe to their food and drink preferences when participating in in-person events. Finally, a contact section lets you save all email addresses and phone numbers in one easy-to-find location.

Of course, Excel spreadsheets can offer a temporary solution for managing these details. However, these become less practical as your campaigns grow. If you want to make sure your influencer relationships remain healthy while growing at scale, make sure that an IRM is part of your influencer marketing software suite.

3 → HOW DO I PICK THE BEST INFLUENCER MARKETING PLATFORM?

3 → HOW DO I PICK THE BEST INFLUENCER MARKETING PLATFORM?

A good influencer marketing platform enables you to visualize each and every step of your campaign through a uniquely customizable and easy-to-use workflow interface. That way, all members of your team know precisely what has been done, and what is still pending. Basically, a campaign workflow tool makes it easy for small teams to carry out campaigns at scale, while still keeping track of all the small but vital details.

Finally, a good influencer marketing platform should give you tools to measure your performance data. This way, you can see what worked well, and what didn’t. The best reports measure KPIs such as engagement, the total earned media value of your campaign, and cost breakdowns. Audience insights are also essential, as they tell you who you’ve reached and where.

Reports dashboards need to be thorough and provide you with easy access to all these metrics, but they also need to be visually appealing and easy to read. An added bonus is if you are able to export this data to Excel or PDF. That way, if you are an agency, you can share your reports with your marketing director or client and quantify the value of your campaigns.

3.8 Can I Get a Demo?

Some platforms allow you to book a demo with one of their experts so that you can get a feel for exactly what you’ll be getting if you make a purchase, helping you to avoid any nasty surprises. A good demo will address all your needs and expectations right from the start , and then explore how the platform’s solutions can meet the specific goals of your campaigns.

Influencity offers free 30-minute demos to help you find out everything you need to know about our platform. That way, you can be sure that the platform is the right fit for your brand campaigns before committing to a purchase decision. And if you’re still not convinced after your demo, Influencity also offers a free trial so that you can try the platform out for yourself in your own time.

3 → HOW DO I PICK THE BEST INFLUENCER MARKETING PLATFORM?

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