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When we think about influencers, we usually picture a single person posting a photo or video on social media, endorsing a product. But influencer marketing is about more than that. It takes an entire team to run a successful campaign. In fact, it is a leading global industry, one that was valued at $14 billion in 2021!
As its popularity continues to rise, more and more misconceptions surround the influencer marketing industry. Let’s look at what those are. Spoiler alert: none of them are true!
8 Myths To Debunk About Working With Influencers
Influencer Marketing Is Expensive
Worried that you’ll have to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for a single post? Rest assured, that is NOT always the case.
There are many types of influencers ranging from nano to micro to macro influencers based on their follower count. Depending on your niche and the size of your business, you can definitely get a budget-friendly influencer! In fact, most influencers charge less than $500 per post.
[Jnpoc]
Of course, this may not always be the case (for example: if you want to hire a mega influencer/ a celebrity to endorse your brand), but more often than not, influencer marketing won’t make you go bankrupt.
More Followers = A Better Influencer
Follower count is not an indicator of how good an influencer is. Neither does a huge follower count guarantee you good results. It is the follower to engagement ratio that actually counts.
Let’s say there are two influencers. One of them has 50,000 followers and gets 1000 likes per post. Another has 5000 followers and gets 1000 likes per post. Which one would you choose?
The correct answer is: the second one, because they have a higher engagement ratio. They are essentially getting the job done with fewer followers.
[Search Engine Journal]
Moreover, it is never a good idea to choose an influencer blindly based on the number of followers. You need to find one in your niche.
Some niches may be so specific that those influencers won’t have a lot of followers. For example, vegan skincare. In these cases you can – and should – use smaller accounts because they will help you target a specialized audience instead of targeting a broader market.
Relevance matters more than reach. I mean, think about it. Would you rather market your product to 500 vegan skincare enthusiasts or a general audience of 50,000 people?
Influencer Marketing Doesn’t Work For B2B Brands
Influencer marketing works for everybody! As long as they are human, that is.. Luckily for us, brands are made up of human beings, so influencer marketing will definitely work on them.
There are many ways you can use influencers to promote your products or services. When it comes to B2B brands, getting influencers to make tutorial videos, asking them to write reviews/ make review videos, or hosting giveaways might be great options.
Tutorial videos are especially useful for tech products. InVideo, an online video editing tool, conducted a B2B influencer marketing campaign by asking influencers to create “how-to” videos. This was a success because it let brands know exactly how to use the tool!
In the case of B2B marketing, influencers may include notable people from your fields as well!
Measuring ROI From Influencer Marketing Campaigns Is Impossible
Does it make sense for brands to keep working with influencers if they couldn’t even measure the ROI? No.
This one is obviously a myth. But how do you measure ROI from your campaigns?
[iPleaders]
You can use several metrics such as clicks on links in bio, new traffic to websites, sign ups, and new sales. If your influencers use special coupon codes for a discount on your product, that is also a great way to track whether your campaign is working!
All Influencers Buy Fake Followers
The threat of fake followers is never far. I won’t deny that there are people who buy bake followers to buff up their account. But it is certainly not true that all influencers buy fake followers.
In actuality, influencers put in a lot of work and effort into their page. Most of them are genuinely passionate about what they do: connecting people to brands they might love. Fake followers are just going to hurt them in the long run and destroy their image. And a genuine influencer would never do anything to sabotage themselves, on account of this being.. you know.. their job.
Moreover, there are also ways in which you can find out if your influencer is a hoax. The easiest way to do this is by comparing their follower count to engagement ratio. Someone with 50,000 followers getting only 100 likes on their posts? Probably fake.
There are also AI analytics tools that conduct a thorough investigation and give you a report on this!
Influencers Are Just In It For The Money
This may come as a slight shock to some of you, but many influencers do actually care about the brands and products they endorse. Maybe they love the product, or maybe they connect with the brand’s values and ethics.
Let’s say Meredith is an influencer who is a passionate environmental advocate. She probably endorses brands that are committed to sustainability. Since the brands share the same values as her, she genuinely cares about their products and wants to promote them.
Since we are on this topic anyway- no, influencers are NOT shallow divas who are difficult to work with. They are content creators, activists, subject matter experts, and even entrepreneurs. They are just as professional as you and me.
Coming to the money part.. of course they will expect to get paid for it. It’s just like doing a job you love. No matter how much you love it, you deserve to be compensated for your time and efforts, and being an influencer is no different. Loving something you do and getting paid for it are not two mutually exclusive things; they go hand in hand.
Influencer Marketing Works Only For Gen Z And Millennial Audiences
Just yesterday, my mother bought a vacuum cleaner because she saw an influencer on FaceBook talk about how great it was. And she already has a perfectly-functioning vacuum cleaner!
I think it’s safe to say that influencer marketing works for all age groups. I mean, do older people lose their capacity to get influenced or something? That’s just silly.
Influencer Marketing Doesn’t Generate Quality Results
Now, we come to the most popular myth of all, the one that claims that influencer marketing doesn’t work at all! Why, then, would brands spend so much time and money on it? Hmm, something doesn’t add up..
Studies show that consumers are more likely to respond to influencer endorsements rather than brand advertisements. So, yes, influencer marketing does work- sometimes, even better than other forms of marketing!
There you have it! 8 popular myths about working with influencers, debunked! Heard of more myths? Let us know in the comments below. And don’t forget to share! Let’s spread facts instead of fiction.
Karina Gandola was born and raised outside the city of Charleston, in the beautiful mountain state of West Virginia. Karina loves writing about the influencer marketing space and an area she is passionate about. She considers her faith and family to be most important to her. If she isn’t spending time with her friends and family, you can almost always find her around her sweet yellow Labrador retriever, Poshna.
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