In the digital age, social media has become a powerful tool for businesses to connect with their target audience. However, sometimes a company’s own social media efforts can use a helping hand from someone with a unique reach.
One of the most effective strategies for connecting with your audience — or a potentially new audience — is social media influencer marketing. That may sound like something that’s just reserved for global brands, but even small- to medium-sized businesses in Madison can leverage the influence of local social media stars to promote their products and services, boost sales, and gain new customers.
Social media influencers are individuals who have developed a substantial and engaged following on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Twitter. They have the ability to influence the opinions and buying decisions of their followers due to their credibility and expertise in niche areas.
Influencer marketing involves collaborating with these influencers to promote your brand, products, or services. It’s an effective way to reach a wider and more targeted audience than traditional advertising methods.
Madison-based social media influencers often focus on the Capital City in unique ways and can be an intermediary in connecting your brand with their audience whom they’ve already built trust with.
Melissa Oftedahl, one half of the Instagram account EverydayMandK (@everydaymandk) with Katie Buell, notes Madison is an exciting place to live, and highlighting all that it has to offer can sometimes almost take care of itself. “It’s fun so it’s easy to make it look fun.”
“I feel like probably my favorite part of Madison is that you can be in the city or hop out and go to a small town,” says Jordan Durst, who partners with Michael DeCello on Midwest Munchers (@midwestmunchers) to highlight Madison’s restaurants and road trip experiences. “Spring Green, New Glarus, Mineral Point, Dodgeville — there’s just so many small towns within a [30-minute] radius that you can pop up for the day.”
Influencers like these put regular time and effort into engaging with their audience. For some, it can be a full-time job, while for others it’s a hobby that’s simply taken on a life of its own.
“It’s amazing having them follow me and be like, ‘Can you recommend this?’ or, ‘What do you love the most about a certain product?’” explains Jasmine Vargas, the voice behind @thejasminemaria. “It’s kind of nice to have that engaging audience that is local. I know that they’re going to trust me with my recommendation, so it’s actually pretty awesome.”
Finding local social media influencers
All that sounds great, but for a busy small business owner or leader of an organization, how do you even get started finding local influencers? To start you need to:
- Define your target audience: Who are your potential customers in Madison? What are their interests, demographics, and online habits? Understanding your audience is crucial for finding the right local influencers who resonate with them.
- Use social media platforms: Utilize social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter to search for local influencers. Use relevant hashtags, location-based searches, and keywords related to your industry or niche. For example, if you run a fitness studio in Madison, search for hashtags like #MadisonFitness or #MadisonYoga to discover influencers in the fitness space.
- Engage with local content: Spend time engaging with content produced by local influencers. Like, comment, and share their posts to build a rapport. This engagement can make it easier to approach them later for collaboration.
Websites also exist to help brands streamline the process and provide searchable databases of local influencers. Sites such as collabstr.com and influence.co make it easy to search with your region and by business category for influencers who are also interested in collaborations.
Once you’ve taken these steps, it’s time to make a connection:
- Send a personalized message: When reaching out to local influencers, avoid generic messages. Craft a personalized message that highlights why you admire their content and how a collaboration could benefit both parties. Be genuine in your approach.
- Offer value: Influencers are more likely to partner with businesses that offer something valuable. This could be monetary compensation, free products or services, or exposure to a new audience. Be clear about what you can provide in exchange for their promotional efforts.
- Build relationships: Building a strong, long-term relationship with local influencers is key. Consider inviting them to your business for a behind-the-scenes tour or an exclusive event. These personal connections can lead to more authentic and effective promotions.
There are many ways to partner with local influencers, and they may have suggestions on what strategies will fit your business’ needs best based on prior collaborations they have done, or collaborations they’ve seen other influencers they follow do.
Examples include:
- Sponsored content: The most common form of influencer marketing is sponsored content. This involves influencers creating posts, stories, or videos that feature your products or services. Ensure that the content aligns with your brand and messaging.
- Giveaways and contests: Collaborate with local influencers to run giveaways or contests. This can generate buzz and engagement around your brand while also increasing your social media following.
- Product reviews and tutorials: Ask influencers to review your products or demonstrate how to use them. Authentic reviews can build trust with potential customers and help them make informed decisions.
- Takeovers: Consider letting influencers take over your social media accounts for a day or an event. This can provide a fresh perspective and introduce your brand to their audience.
Cost-effective marketing
One of the advantages of working with local influencers is that it can be cost-effective for small to medium-sized businesses. Among the ways to maximize your budget, you may consider working with micro-influencers, those who have a smaller but highly engaged following. They often charge less than macro-influencers but can have a significant impact on a local level.
Instead of cash payments, you can also explore barter agreements where you exchange products or services for influencer promotion. This can be mutually beneficial, especially for local businesses that don’t necessarily have a large marketing budget but do have plenty of what they specialize in — products and services — on hand.
You can also consider performance-based compensation by offering influencers a percentage of the sales generated through their promotional efforts. This aligns their interests with your business goals and ensures that you only pay for results.
Potential pitfalls
While influencer marketing can be a highly effective strategy for small to medium-sized businesses, it’s essential to be aware of the potential pitfalls and challenges that can arise during influencer partnerships.
The “controversy” earlier this year from Bud Light partnering with Dylan Mulvaney, the transgender influencer, to promote its beer on Instagram, which ultimately led to some public backlash and calls from conservatives for a boycott of the ubiquitous beer brand, is probably fresh in business leaders’ minds. Understanding these hurdles and adopting best practices can help you navigate this marketing avenue successfully.
- Inauthenticity: If influencers don’t genuinely align with your brand or seem inauthentic in their promotion, it can erode trust with your audience.
- Misalignment with brand values: If an influencer’s actions or content conflict with your brand’s values, it can damage your reputation.
- Lack of control: Surrendering control to influencers can lead to unpredictable content that may not resonate with your target audience.
- Over-reliance on one influencer: Relying too heavily on one influencer can leave your business vulnerable if that influencer’s reputation takes a hit.
- Lack of metrics and KPIs: Without clear metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), it’s challenging to assess the success of your influencer campaigns.
- Ethical and legal compliance: Failure to comply with legal regulations, such as disclosing partnerships, can lead to legal trouble and damage your reputation.
- Falling engagement and ROI: Over time, audience engagement with a particular influencer can decline, leading to diminishing returns on investment.
- Public backlash: Influencer scandals or controversies can spill over onto your brand, causing public backlash.
Best practices
To ensure the success of your influencer marketing efforts and mitigate potential challenges, consider these best practices:
- Thorough research: Invest time in researching potential influencers to ensure alignment with your brand and values;
- Clear guidelines: Establish clear expectations, guidelines, and campaign objectives in collaboration with influencers;
- Transparency: Encourage influencers to disclose partnerships transparently in their content, complying with legal regulations;
- Diversify partnerships: Collaborate with a variety of influencers to reduce risk and reach different segments of your target audience;
- Performance metrics: Set measurable KPIs and regularly track the performance of influencer campaigns;
- Monitoring and feedback: Stay involved in influencer content creation, offering constructive feedback to maintain alignment with your brand;
- Crisis management plan: Prepare a crisis management plan in case any influencer partnerships go awry to protect your brand’s reputation; and
- Constant evaluation: Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of influencer marketing in achieving your business goals and adapt strategies as needed.
Social media influencer marketing can be a game-changer for small to medium-sized businesses. With the right approach, influencer marketing can become a valuable extension of your organization’s marketing plan without breaking the bank, contributing to the growth and success of your business in the Madison community and potentially even beyond as your business grows.
