6 Types of Instagram Influencer Campaigns To Add To Your Strategy

While we hear a lot of chatter about why influencer marketing is important in the digital marketing climate, it’s not often we talk about how to actually implement a strategy. Let’s learn from 6 TYPES of influencer campaigns and identify which type of influencer campaign is the best fit for your brand!

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1. Affiliate Marketing

• Goal: To obtain sales
• Affiliate marketing is no doubt one of the most popular influencer campaign strategies. Many brands share exclusive promo codes with their influencers to pass on to their fans. Since Instagram does not allow links in posts, the brand usually creates promo codes in the influencer's name such as 'KIM5' or 'Pew20' which helps them track precisely how much sales have been created through such a program.

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Founded just 7 years ago, Daniel Wellington has grown to a brand worth $220 million by banking heavily on influencer collaboration. They gifted each influencer a free watch and gave them discount coupons in their name to share with their followers.

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2. Giveaways

• Goal: To increase brand awareness and exposure
• Any sort of contest where a prize can be won grabs attention and if parceled creatively enough. Influencer campaigns involving giveaways can help you achieve various kinds of goals. Typical examples of contests include Tagging a Friend, Posting a Picture (or Selfie) with a specific hashtag, Commenting on a post.

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KeVita, a probiotic beverage company, partnered with influencers to run a contest offering KeVita drinks and a $50 Amazon gift card. All the influencers had to do was to post about Kevita and ask his/her followers to follow @kevitadrinks, comment on the photo with their favorite KeVita flavor and tag a friend.

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3. Sponsored Post

• Goal: To reach the target audience and familiarize your brand
• Brands can send your product or invite influencers to experience your service to get an Instagram endorsement. Most influencers do expect remuneration for their service but some micro-influencers are happy to do so for free.It's imperative to disclose that the post is an advertisement by adding a hashtag #ad #sp #sponsored #partner to steer clear of legal trouble.

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This kind of influencer campaign will work well if:

• The influencer's audience related to your brand
• The influencer's interests and posts align with your brand
• The influencer's feed is not over-filled with sponsored posts thus seeming inauthentic

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4. Long-term Influencer Campaigns

• Goal: To Create Brand Loyalty
• Influencers are the new celebrities on social media, and it would be good to treat their advertising roles as such. Just as you would sign a contract with LeBron James, influencers too should find themselves at the signing end for long-term associations.

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Jamie Lieberman, founder of law firm Hashtag Legal stated that there has been an influx of contracts that want influencers for 6 months- 1 year for a brand spokespeople role; some with morality clauses that ensure influencers don’t do anything scandalous like YouTube’s Logan Paul.

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5. Instagram Takeover

• Goal: To increase engagement
• As the name suggests, this strategy involves taking over someone's Instagram account temporarily and sharing content with their audience. An Instagram takeover is a mutually beneficial way for brands and influencers to collaborate and cross-promote content. It is essential to partner with highly engaging influencers to maximize your reach and exposure.

To promote the movie Beauty and the Beast, Disney got actor Luke Evans to take over its Instagram profile. Evans posted images throughout the day of his time at the film's world premiere, sharing them with Disney’s massive Instagram following.

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6. Event Activation

• Goal: PR, Product Launch
• The purpose of this influencer campaign is to collaborate with a large number of influencers to create a buzz around an event. This will create a chance for your brand to have a one-on-one interaction with influencers, let's make it an experience that they won’t forget easily.

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While launching a new mascara in 2018, Benefit decided to create events at 3 major cities of London, Manchester, and Cardiff with social influencers to help build anticipation. Over 250 guests were invited including press and key influencers, to a space-themed event at the Cochrane Theatre in London. Due to their unique theme and reach of their influencers, they were able to achieve a total reach of 35million, 25 print articles and 15 digital pieces written.

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Conclusion

When it comes to influencer campaign strategy, there really can’t be a one-size-fits-all strategy. Depending on the goal at the time of your influencer campaign, you can choose which campaigns to apply, and above all, don’t forget to find the right influencer to work with! Can you think of any other interesting influencer campaigns? Let us know in the comments below.