influencer marketing costs and challenges for marketers

Photo credit: 401(K) 2012 via Flickr

The honeymoon relationship between brands and online influencers who boast large numbers of often-adoring social media followers has become rocky … and may be ending.

Influencer marketing evolved from a hot new marketing technique just a couple of years ago to a mainstream strategy. Payments to influencers have increased significantly in recent months, and at least some PR and marketing pros now question if influencers are worth the time and money they demand.

“We threw too much money at them and did it too quickly,” an anonymous digital marketing executive told Digiday. In the very recent past, influencers were already-famous entertainers or content creators such as bloggers or photographers. Now, young people active on social media eagerly call themselves “influencers” to reap payments from marketers – never mind that they have no content-creation skills or meaningful claim to fame.

A Vanishing Act?

“Influencers are going to start disappearing,” the executive said. “Brands are going to start realizing the amount of followers you have doesn’t mean [expletive]. Just because photos look good and they have 200,000 followers means nothing.”

Some comments on the article criticized influencer marketers as charlatans and said the companies that hire them are just plain stupid. Even the term “influencer” is ridiculous. People should be named by the kind of content they create – photographers, bloggers of videographers. Others defended influencers, saying that most people don’t understand the amount of time and skill needed to be a popular blogger, video blogger or photographer.

Influencer Marketing Challenges — and Solutions.

Finding appropriate influencers, agreeing on their payments, and measuring their effectiveness remain significant challenges for marketers. Here are some solutions to common challenges.

Identifying appropriate influencers. Examining influencers’ social media profiles and engagement levels and scrutinizing their followers can reveal imposter influencers who have purchased fake followers in order to increase fees they charge brands. A social media listening service can track and measure an influencer’s engagement levels and predict a campaign’s potential return on investment.

Controlling costs. Micro-influencers, those with relatively fewer followers but high engagement levels, can be an affordable and effective alternative for marketers. “You will usually do better choosing an influencer with a smaller reach but a dedicated audience than pitching to an influencer with a huge reach of casually-connected fans who have a similarly casual connection to the influencer’s content,” says Murray Newlands, an influencer marketing expert told Inc. “So choose carefully.”

Measuring ROI. Measuring success has become more critical as costs have increased. Measuring remains challenging. Marketers can set goals for views, impressions, engagement and sometimes social sentiment. The main goal is to link those metrics to business objectives like sales. That remains difficult. Make sure influencers produce the highest-quality content possible related to your band and worry less about quantity, recommends Natalie Sexton, director of marketing of Natalie’s Orchid Island Juice Company, according to Digiday. Use unique URLs for links back to your website from an influencer’s post.

Limiting follower overlap. Influencers may share the same followers to a degree. If you work with two influencers with a million followers each, you are not necessarily reaching two million people. Influencers with more followers, say over 250,000, tend to have more overlap. Working with micro-influencers can limit overlap. Micro-influencers in niche verticals can have overlap, but that can be beneficial and may encourage people to buy the product.

Bottom Line: Although marketers eagerly seek social media influencers, many now complain about their high costs and questionable returns. While influencer marketing is unlikely to vanish, perceptive marketers may become more reticent to pay high fees and will seek sophisticated tools to identify the best influencers and measure their return on investment.