In collaboration with Joseph Cancilla from ide8ion.

TLDR: The people who post on social media are a marketing campaigns’ best friends.

Influencer marketing is an arrow in your quiver unlike any other. With the saturation of talking heads and small social media stars, it’s also more accessible than ever.

In short, influencer marketing is paying someone else to talk about your product or business. This most often takes the form of sponsored or paid posts and videos.

There are thousands of people who cultivate an audience on the Internet. From silly life updates to educational videos to game walk-throughs to hard-hitting political analysis, social media influencers cover niches for everyone. It’s likely your business matches the interests of some online community somewhere.

These aren’t just A-list celebrities in Hollywood or music. Some are humble platforms with ten thousand weekly subscribers. Between 250 thousand and 900 thousand is considered a medium-sized channel. Big hitters just under A-list can draw one million to six million view each week.

With so many options, the question then becomes, “Who do I choose?”

Simple. Choose who has an audience that you need to speak to.

Different social media sites have different audiences, naturally. Facebook is often the home for older users, while new media like Instagram or Snapchat are prevalent in younger demos. A YouTube influencer is going to have longer content typically aired once a week, while a Twitter account will need several short bursts daily to make an impact.

Blogs are also a useful outlet. A pervasive and consistently popular genre of blogs are “mommy bloggers” or “family bloggers.” These parents post their lives – struggles, triumphs, fun times and more – for all the world to see.

So if you sell baby products and you can find a local mommy blogger, you would be remiss not to try to plug your stuff there.

Traditional marketing intake and research methods are still used with influencer marketing. With the analytics tools built into social media, you find out what kind of audience each influencer attracts. As with any marketing, don’t just slap your message to every place that will take you. Target your efforts to talk to your customers.

When you’ve found a person you feel would represent your brand well, what’s next? There is no template to how you approach an influencer. The most important thing is to be you, a human being. Make friends with them! Network. Connect.

One example was our very own company. We set up a booth at a gym in search of a certain stripe of influencer. Lo and behold, someone with a decent following from a different industry approached us spontaneously. We didn’t waste the opportunity to make a connection.

Software services are available with keyword specific search engines. You can churn out a list of influencers in your category, but it doesn’t create a relationship. You’re going to have to hit the phones (yes, cold calling!) and shoot some emails. Blogger networks exist that also provide means of communicating.

Rarely is it a good idea to coercer or pressure an influencer into participating. Have something in if for them. They have an audience they have to keep a rapport with, and the wrong brand in the wrong place comes off as disingenuous. Some will want to try the product first, so you may have to give out a free sample to win them over.

One influencer on Vine had a following of 1.2 million. A client of ide8tion’s paid him $280, which kept the video loop up for 2 hours. Loops in the feed started climbing so fast, they were still spinning days later. This garnered a steady residual exposure for the brand.

Don’t think that because this person you chose to sponsor has only a few thousand followers that they are willing to do ads for free. Payment is the standard. Be reasonable. Their influence is worth your money.

There are generally two ways to work with influencers. They can create content from scratch, on their own. Or you can create the content, with the hope they will charge you less. Micromanaging the creative ideas of the influencer will not help you in this arena unless they agree to use your material.

Watch out for FTC and FCC rules and regulations. Truth in advertising laws still apply to social media. Instruct the influencer to use the hashtags #sponsored or #ad, or to somehow let their audience know that this is a paid promotion. (For information on how to navigate regulation, see our article here or our video here.)

Even though paid content can be a drag for content creators, there are still fun and light ways to go about it. The authors of Chicken Soup for the Soul were publishing their book during the OJ Simpson trial. The clever idea to send free copies of the book to every jury member popped into their heads. When the camera operators realized every juror had the same book, it became an item of interest – and then a leading video on headline news.

Needless to say, Chicken Soup for the Soul became a bestseller.

The authors didn’t stop there, however. They would call into radio stations and plug their book whenever the host let them. Many hosts were pleasantly surprised and ended up chatting about their book for a nice chunk of air time.

This may seem like it’ll be an expensive endeavor. Fear not! Many influencers don’t have to be popular or even well known to have the respect of others. A small authentic presentation is better than a generic blast of the airwaves any day.

Perhaps you have a wealth of knowledge you would like to share. You can become an influencer too! Nothing will give you more credibility in conversations with other influencers than being a decent one yourself. A friendly tone and useful info is the place to start. Mix a dab of passion in there, a platform like a blog or video channel in there, and you’ve got a recipe for success! Of course, posting once or twice a month won’t do much. Be consistent in your posting – weekly at minimum.

Once you’ve got your creative mojo going, connect with other channels or pages in your industry. Don’t get stuck in perfectionism. The skills you need will develop in time.

Whatever you do, don’t let your social media be a ghost town. The influencer can’t do all of your marketing for you. If you have no landing page to go to, or a channel with one video posted last year, much of your effort will have been in vain. Consumers need at least a website to find.

Case in point: Bored Shorts TV, a local YouTube channel, produces a video series titled “Kid History.” They began with a simple idea: get kids to tell funny stories and then have adults act it out with the kid voices dubbed over them. It’s a hilarious idea, and it didn’t take major cinematographers from powerhouse studios to film. Just some guys in their garage… basically.

If your company is larger and more well known, or if you are feeling bold, the potential is sky high. Josh Groban has done promotions. Lindsey Stirling. Devin Graham. BuzzFeed. Screen Junkies’ Honest Trailers. The list goes on and on.

At the end of the day, be intentional. Have a plan. Only pay for air time or word counts that will reach your customers. Contrary to popular belief, the best online marketing pushes are calculated, not sporadic.

Thanks for getting this far! Good luck with your campaign!

 

Just like broadcast and print advertising, the Federal Trade Commission regulates online marketing communication – including social media. Any fraudulent or deceptive marketing can draw huge fines from the agency. Some deceitful tactics can be easy to overlook or innocently put into practice. Here’s a closer look at what to watch out for when advertising online.

(Keep in mind that SMRT Social is not a law firm, and this is not legal advice. This is marketing advice. It’s best to consult an attorney for more technical questions.)

First, a cautionary tale. Lord and Taylor, a fashion department store in New York City, decided they were going to use Instagram to promote their spring fashion release of a new line of clothing. The store wanted to highlight one dress in particular. Lord and Taylor contacted 50 women and paid them between $1,000 and $4,000 to show it off on their personal Instagram posts.

Long story short, they were heavily fined and settled a lawsuit with the FTC. Full story here
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/03/lord-taylor-settles-ftc-charges-it-deceived-consumers-through

and

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2016/03/ftcs-lord-taylor-case-native-advertising-clear-disclosure

They may have been fined as much as $16,000.

What in the world did they do wrong?

It seemed innocent enough, but in the eyes of the FTC, Lord and Taylor were lying. None of the Instagram posters told their audience they were being paid. This gives the impression that these women were impartial and objectively found that dress to be better than the competition.

That’s false advertising. Think of it this way: if someone you trust tells you about a product, are you more likely to buy it? Now what happens when that someone tells you, “Oh yeah, they paid me to say it.”? The conversation has dipped from trusting a third party to essentially a washed out multilevel marketing presentation.

How do you protect yourself from getting fined? Keep these things in mind:

1. Know the difference between organic and paid posts. You, yourself can make any claim (that is true) or sell your product until your tweet-fingers get cramped. Customers and other influential people can boast about your product for free whenever they want. When you pay someone to say something about or feature your product or business, that post becomes a paid/sponsored post. (Paid and sponsored are interchangeable terms.)

Once you pay them, you then have to…

2. Disclose. If you incentivize people to promote you, they have to say in their promotion that it is being paid or sponsored. According to Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection during the Lord and Taylor investigation, “Consumers have the right to know when they’re looking at paid advertising.”

Keep in mind that it has to be obvious. Using the hashtags #ad or #sponsored in the post should cover most social media posts. When in doubt, however, ask your influencer to be explicit. Don’t let them bury the hashtag or breeze over the disclosure. Put it at the beginning, and be straight with the audience right away. This goes for customers you are giving an incentive in a contest or some other way, too.

Don’t be too intimidated with this, however! Influencer marketing is a phenomenal tool for getting your message out there. (See our video on influencer marketing here.) Consumers hate junk mail, spam, telemarketers and obnoxious, interrupting ads. But they listen to people in the media all the time. When done tactfully, consumers appreciate that their celebrity is being honest about loving a product. They are much more willing to cut them some slack because they know most social media influencers need to make money with their content.

As a bit of an aside, one group that needs to disclose their relationship with you is your employees. They have a financial investment and are certainly not objective. They need to disclose they are a part of the company.

It’s best to write guidelines down and include them in a manual for employees to review, and preferably sign to agree to. This indemnifies you from legal action, but more importantly, keeps your employees out of trouble. Help them understand how this can affect them, and see if they appreciate you a little more.

Reviews are also a common method of influencer marketing. The influencers in this case are anyone you have paid or offered a t-shirt or given a material reason in any way to review your business. These can show up on places like Yelp, Google or Facebook. The biggest problem with reviews is that they attract the unsatisfied customers and the happy ones rarely comment. Giving customers a little bonus can help your profile online.

Just stick with the rules. Have them disclose if you incentivize them to leave a review.

If you run a contest, let entrants know how and when they have to disclose they are getting something or may potentially get something. Make sure to add it to your official rules. You can send an email with exact phrasing or words for them to put in their posts or videos.

Remember, if the advertising is on your page coming from you, the ad is assumed to be self-identifying.

An example of an influencer campaign done right are the Tom brand of shoes. They ran an ad campaign asking celebrities to wear their shoes. Other people took pictures of the shoes and it created a buzz. Consumers began buying and promoting the shoes because they liked the idea that Toms was going to send free shoes to poor children. It was obvious enough that the celebrities were paid, and they were in the clear. But those people who took pictures and retweeted and shared their excitement were ok, too. They weren’t getting paid.

That’s a great example of a paid post duplicating itself over and over again. A single, strategic campaign can live for a long time well after it’s executed. Remember the ALS Ice Bucket challenge? If you do, great! It happened two years ago!

Just know that the FTC is paying attention. They monitor social media as much as other media. If you are straightforward and honest, you have little to worry about. It’s worth the time and effort. I don’t know many small businesses that can blink at a $16,000 fine! It’s safe to assume all new forms of media that have the ability to market will follow the same rules.

In short: if you pay, have them say. Incentives equal disclosure.

P.S. Any company dealing with food or nutritional supplements has to clear health claims with the FDA. They have reams of guidelines on when to mention diagnosis and treatment of illness. The rule of thumb is unless you have an MD, you can’t make a medical claim. Even then, statements need to be approved or disclose that they aren’t. These fines can be even worse, and include other, stiffer penalties. Consult a lawyer for that.

If you’re new to social media, you may have asked yourself the question:

“What’s the deal with all the pound signs?”

The ‘#’ symbol, referred to in social media platforms as a hashtag, is a powerful tool for navigating posts and other content. When a hashtag is placed before a word, it indexes the post with that phrase associated. So if I’m looking for Tweets or Instagram posts about Fall fashion, for example, I could search for the hashtag #fallfashion and I’d be likely to find what pictures or conversations relating to clothes made for the Fall.

Hasthags are essential to use as a business on social media. In practice they can act like a portal to a chat room. If your customers are ski enthusiasts, for example, posting content with hashtags relating to skiing places your content in that ‘area’ or group of posts where they are more likely to see them. Hashtags make it possible to engage with the people you want to talk to, turning social media into a targeted experience. Rather than speak to everyone like a TV commercial, you can focus your efforts (and your budget) on those customers who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer.

Here are some great tips to help you how to use Hashtags effectively.

1. Be specific. The more the better. #Grammys2016 will pull up the recent event, while #Grammys or #awardshow will pull wider, less relevant results.
2. Always use hashtags at the end of posts. It looks neater and it’s the conventional shorthand. Users expect them to be there.
3. Only use 1 to 3 hashtags per post. More than that is overkill, and will scream, “I’m an amateur!” to readers. The exception is Instagram, where more hashtags are common. Just be prudent. When in doubt, copy the pros.
4. Clear, concise and simple language is critical. Write for viewers and not for a search engine. Five-worded hashtags are nearly impossible to decipher. #noonewillreaditifitisntclear
5. Use hashtags that identify with your brand. If you are a toy company, jumping in on conversations about new movies (#StarWars) makes sense. Not so much for a bank or restaurant, unless you have a specific promotion related to it. You don’t need to be in every conversation at once.
6. Show followers you are listening to them. When monitoring social media sites (something to be done daily), your followers will often be engaged in conversations using hashtags. If you pick up on it, you can customize content or even just chime in to make your company relevant. Customers will appreciate that you’re active and will pay attention back.

An example of a well-executed hashtag campaign was Charmin’s #TweetFromTheSeat idea. It gave followers something to do, identified with the brand, and created a lot of playful and funny snippets from customers. Win, win, win!

Some important dos and don’ts:

DON’T make new words you didn’t intend.
When Susan Boyle, an opera singer, announced her new album, she used the hashtag #Susanalbumparty.

See any problems there?

Simply using #SusanBoyle would have sufficed. At least capitalize the first letter in each word to make it easier to read and prevent extra words from appearing. #SusanAlbumParty

DON’T make it long.

#Thisisanexampleofabadhasthag

This is not:

#hashtag

No one will type the first one. It will die in the nether of cyberspace alone.

DON’T butt into controversial conversations.

The following hashtag was trending during the Casey Anthony case:

#notguilty

Some brands used it to stick ads into the conversation. That was insensitive to say the least, and they paid for it with public backlash.

DON’T get fancy.

For our YouTube show, #smrtsocialTV is too much. The moniker #SmrtTV is plenty. People are smart enough to pick up on what you are saying.

DON’T create hashtag phrases.

#I #love #star #wars will get you nowhere. The words are split up and each one is a separate index. Star Wars is lost in the mix. Just use #StarWars.

DON’T make obnoxious hashtags

“Hashtag hijacking” is when trolls on the Internet take your hashtag and twist the meaning. The more outrageous your tag is, the more likely it will be co-opted by less-than-well-meaning denizens of the web.

Finally, DO live tweet. Tweeting while an event is going on is the best way to find and use relevant hashtags. This can get you onto trending topics, and it shows you want to be involved in your followers’ lives.

As long as you check in on your hashtags periodically, are wise about what words you use and exercise discretion in participating in conversations, you will steer clear of any PR nightmares.

Good luck, and happy hashtagging!