Choosing the best social media platform for your marketing campaign can be challenging. Each channel has its unique features and there is no one-size-fits-all social media channel for your influencer campaigns. With the vast number of social networking sites out there, it is important for brands to understand the nature of each platform and work with those which can bring the best results for their campaigns.
While Instagram appears to be the most referred influencer marketing channel, other apps such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest can provide a new, unique approach to your campaign. In this series of articles, we’ll be guiding you through 7 most popular social media channels, including Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest. Let’s find out how to optimise your usage of these channels for your next influencer marketing campaign!
With over 600 million members and 300 million active users, LinkedIn is the largest social media channel for professionals. Unlike Instagram where influencers are measured based on follower count, LinkedIn influencers are industry experts who have in-depth knowledge and real influence in their area of expertise. For that reason, LinkedIn is a suitable platform for B2B firms looking for a formal approach to enhance brand awareness and build trust with their customers online.
Marketing professor and brand strategist David Aaker is a perfect example of a LinkedIn expert-influencer. As Former Marketing Professor and current Vice Chairman at Prophet consultancy, he has over 268k followers due to his regular sharings of insightful knowledge and perspectives on the marketing industry.
LinkedIn influencers can be found by searching for keywords or joining relevant industry groups to search for active members. Once a suitable influencer is found, it is advisable for marketers to personalize their outreach. You can start by complimenting their recent work or posts and build a genuine conversation before bringing up a business offer. As most LinkedIn influencers are professionals and can be busy with work, it is important to show your respect and avoid being pushy.
Common ways LinkedIn professionals can endorse your brand include writing articles, sharing your content or giving a product review. Here’s an example:
According to LinkedIn statistics, LinkedIn is generating 80% of B2B leads and conversions, reinforcing its position as an important social platform for B2B marketing. Although influencer marketing campaigns on LinkedIn are few and far between at the moment, this platform is still expected to be a game-changing strategy for B2B marketing.
According to Statista, America is the largest Twitter market with American users making up more than 60 million users as of July 2020. Within Southeast Asia, popular markets include Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, making Twitter an ideal platform for brands to tap into these countries. Brands can also use Twitter to reach out to younger audiences as 44% of Twitter users are aged from 18–24.
More importantly, Twitter is an extremely powerful platform for influencer marketing. According to Twitter Blog, nearly 40% of Twitter users claimed to make a purchase after seeing a tweet from an influencer. Users exposed to a campaign that featured both brand and influencer Tweets also had a 5.2x lift in purchase intent.
So, how can brands build a powerful influencer marketing strategy on Twitter? While hashtags are commonly used on social media platforms, Twitter was actually the first to have hashtags back in 2009. Hence, hashtags are an integral part of Twitter conversations and most influencer campaigns go viral by creating trending hashtags.
Besides creating your own, brands can also tap onto current trending hashtags to ride on new trends and take part in the conversation. Launching campaigns on specific occasions (eg. Halloween, Christmas) is one way you can get your campaign noticed.
Additionally, influencers can encourage their followers to join a hashtag challenge/ content and share their experience using the product under a particular hashtag. To spread the message and resonate with the audience, brands can also consider combining hashtags with user-generated content. Let’s take a look at 2 campaigns below:
LG USA: In early 2017, in order to boost its sales in the US market, LG USA Mobile ran a singing contest on Twitter with superstar Nick Jonas. Users were encouraged to download the ‘Sing! Karaoke’ app and post their performances on Smule or Youtube. Winners stand to receive up to $5,000 in LG Products and the chance to sing a duet with Nick Jonas! Unsurprisingly, the #SingwithLG contest received huge attention on social media. All the amazing performances were then compiled into 1 video and uploaded on Twitter, receiving over 3.2k likes and more than 700 retweets from the audience.
Pepsico: In summer 2016, Pepsi came up with a creative campaign on Twitter with their hashtag #SayItWithPepsi. The brand created interesting designs for their products with 200 funny emojis and partnered with influencers to generate online conversations. Featuring unique emojis on their cans, Pepsi encouraged millennials to share their purchase on social media. The campaign went viral quickly and flooded Twitter and Instagram with plenty of user-generated content!
From the example above, it is evident that Twitter is a powerful channel for brands to implement their influencer campaigns. While Twitter’s character limit (less than 280 characters) has its disadvantages, its ability to drive immediate conversation is a powerful advantage brands can leverage on.
Millions of users watch videos on Youtube every day, making it the second-largest social media platform behind Facebook. With 5 millions videos watched per day, YouTube has proved itself to be a powerful channel which can give brands a huge customer reach. Although brands can post videos on other social media platforms as well, YouTube is the ideal place for long-form video content which can provide in-depth information about your product or service. The question worth pondering is: How can you make your videos stand out given that there’s 500 hours of videos uploaded per minute?
1. Impress your Audience with Good Openings
According to Adage, 20 percent of viewers drop off within the first 10 seconds of your video. This emphasizes the importance of creating a wonderful impression in the first 10 seconds.
2. Create Tutorial Videos
Tutorial or how-to videos is a good way to educate your audience about your products. Beauty brands were one of the first to team up with beauty influencers and Youtubers to create tutorial videos to promote their products. However, this type of video content can be used by any brand. Ensure that you collaborate with those who have the real influence in your niche to add more credibility to your video.
3. Leverage on Unboxing Videos
Unboxing videos are engaging to watch and easy to make. These videos offer a personal and interesting look at products of all kinds, from foods to cosmetics to high-tech products. You can partner with influencers in your niche or collaborate with popular unboxing Youtube channels to feature your product.
4. Tap into the Gaming Community
Youtube is one of the platforms that own a big share of the gaming market. That’s why video game companies need to put their money and resources to create impactful Youtube influencer campaigns. In 2017, Next Games created a buzz on social media by their partnership with famous Youtuber Lele Pons in the campaign for their new game “The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land”. The 4-minute video successfully engaged the audience thanks to its creative concept and a great sense of humor.
Do gaming influencers only promote games? Definitely not. Marketers can collaborate with gaming influencers to promote your product in a new and innovative way. Brands can also throw in mentions during live streams and host giveaways with gaming influencers on YouTube. With so many ways for brands outside and inside the gaming industry to partner with gaming influencers, it’s time to consider tapping into this potential customer segment.
5. Move beyond Traditional Product Endorsements
In our latest blog on influencer marketing strategy for eCommerce, we mentioned the campaign “Tiki with Vietnamese artists”, in which Tiki, a popular Vietnamese eCommerce platform, banked heavily on sponsoring more than 50 music videos produced by popular Vietnamese singers. Within a year, Tiki’s blue gift boxes and its brand name appeared more than 2 billion times, reaching 300-400 million users. According to Tiki’s representative, this campaign is 20 times more effective compared to other regular forms of advertising on this platform.
This creative and unique campaign helped Tiki stand out in a highly competitive market, claiming its position as a Vietnamese platform that is willing to take action to support its local culture and values.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of our blog as we continue looking into top social media channels including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Pinterest.
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