Micro-influencers make the Instaworld go ‘round. They are the army of social media users who don’t have millions of followers – or even hundreds of thousands of followers – but they know how to communicate with and get their followers to take action. And that’s what’s important.

In this post, I want to break down for you who micro-influencers are in 2019, the value they bring to brands and marketers, and specifically how you can best leverage the power of micro-influencers in your next campaign.

Remind Me Again… What is a Micro-Influencer?

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Dr. Jonah Berger defines influencers as: Individuals who work in their category or are truly knowledgeable, passionate and authentic and are seen as a trusted source when it comes to recommendations for what to buy.

That’s a pretty comprehensive definition, I think. But just as there are levels of influence there are tiers of influencers. Influencer subcategories (like unfluencer, nano-influencer, micro-influencer, macro-influencer and mega-influencer) are defined primarily by the size of the influencer’s audience.

For several years, marketers agreed (for the most part) that social media users become micro-influencers when they grow their followings to at least 3,000 users. But with the growth of the nano-influencer, the definition of micro-influencer has changed a bit.

Today, nano-influencers are those with followings between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. Micro-influencers now have between 10,000 and 50,000 (to 100,000) followers. But it really does depend on who you ask and when you ask them.

For most brands and marketers, the most important thing to know about micro-influencers is that they typically have tens of thousands of followers as well as good, consistent engagement ratios. That’s the important part.

The Micro-Influencer vs Joe Blow

Before you roll your eyes and say “That’s not enough followers”, I want to make sure brands and marketers are giving proper credence to these numbers.

I saw a stat just today on Work Macro that said the average Instagram user has 150 followers (jaw drop!). According to Brandwatch, the average Facebook user has 338 followers and Twitter users average 707 followers. Jeff Bullas lists the average number of LinkedIn connections as 930 per user.

Now, I think the Instagram one’s skewed a bit because a lot of Facebook users have Instagram accounts that Facebook automatically created for them and many of these accounts have gone unclaimed (though I was surprised to see my octogenarian uncle Charles claimed his IG account and posts regularly – he’s the exception, not the rule.).

So, that number on Instagram may be a little higher for active users. Still, if you look at the average number of followers the typical social media user has across the other three major platforms, you can place a pretty safe bet that the average Instagram user (including Uncle Charles) has less than 1,000 followers.

I said all of that to say this:

Legitimately achieving the status of micro-influencer is an accomplishment that required a substantial investment of time, money and other resources from the influencer.

For all the ra-ra, very few social media users achieve the designation of macro- or mega-influencer. Only 1.6 percent of Instagram users have between 500,000 and 1 million followers. Greater perspective – the total number of Instagram users with more than 50,000 followers account for just 8 percent of the all Instagram users.

So, while our constant chatter about influencer marketing may make it seem like every mom you meet is an Instafamous mommy blogger, it’s just marketing.

The Benefits of Partnering with a Micro-Infuencer

Coming out the gate, a lot of brands and marketers gravitated toward the biggest influencers they could afford for their campaigns. Makes sense – if you want to reach the most people with your message you have to go wide. And targeting went by the wayside.

But marketers quickly figured out that even the most eloquent influencer campaign will fail if it’s targeting all the wrong folks.

So, the goal became finding ways to make influencer campaigns more effective at drumming up ongoing engagement.

There are a few things about micro-influencers that can really shape an influencer marketing campaign so it has more impact.

Micro-Influencers Have More Targeted Audiences

Micro-influencers tend to create content consistently about the same topic, whether that topic happens to be meatless recipes, special effects makeup, or being a #girlmom x4.

In fact, one of the key recommendations for anyone starting an Instagram account with the intention of growing (and possibly monetizing) their audience is to focus on a specific topic or vertical so followers know what to expect from you.

Ugh. What if I want to talk about other stuff?

Well, that’s cool, too. It’s not really about putting you in a box, BUT think about how and why you follow accounts on social media: You typically won’t follow an account with no profile picture, or no posts, or random images of women and seascapes or whatever. You follow accounts that make sense to you.

In social [media] situations, users want to understand the VALUE an account delivers BEFORE they will follow it. So, for micro-influencers (just like for small businesses), specializing in one thing helps you get really good at storytelling in that vertical AND helps people get what you’re about. Bottom line: You need to be relatable.

As influencers become more well-known and attract more followers, we’ve seen it where they’ll start exploring other topics (lifestyle influencers). But in general, people follow other people on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook to get a specific type of content.

For instance, I like @Zurifx because it’s fun to scroll through her pics. But most of the accounts I follow are either about business or about being a mom. That’s my language. Still, this is pretty cool.

There are cross-sections like that within the audience of every single influencer – people who think that one thing an influencer does is pretty cool, even if they are generally interested in something altogether different. I’m not super into special effects makeup, but I’m fascinated by Zurifx is able to create with it.

My thing is more topics that directly relate to moms of school-aged kids like home decor, healthy snacks for kids, working from home, successfully momming… those are the types of accounts that appeal to me. I’m also partial to hustle culture and marketing info. But here’s the thing…

Were a situation to arise in which I need this kind of makeup, Zurifx’s page would be my go-to for sourcing ideas, tips for creating different looks, and product recommendations.

Micro-Influencers Tend to Have Higher Engagement Ratios

Micro-Influencers with smaller follower numbers typically have higher engagement ratios than larger influencers who may have hundreds of thousands of followers. The primary reason for this is just what we talked about before – niche content.

Niche content draws a niche following of people who talk about the same things, are excited by the same things, and who can create dialogs within the community around a single post.

This post from @keto.nation_ generated more than 3500 Likes and 250+ comments about keto-friendly ice creams. But if you look at the type of comments made, you’ll probably get a better understanding of what I mean by followers creating meaningful dialog around a single post.

The larger an influencer’s following get, the more diverse the audience becomes. I’m not even talking about influencers who buy followers and how weird those audiences turn out to be. But for someone who has put in the work or someone who’s taking their existing following to Instagram or one of the other social media platforms, the larger that audience is, the more diverse and less targeted the audience will be.

Micro-Influencers Cost Less

One of the most obvious advantages to partnering with micro-influencers instead of larger influencers is the cost. A micro-influencer will typically charge less for the same type of content than macro and mega influencers.

Note: I made that distinction because different content types demand different rates – YouTube is going to be more produced and thus more expensive than Instagram Stories, for instance. And video will typically cost more than pictures.

Micro-Influencers Are UGC Machines

One of the most valuable products of any influencer campaign is user-generated content. We find that MOST of our clients include UGC as one of their campaign goals. When that’s the case, we will typically recommend using micro-influencers to give brands a wide variety of UGC from lots of different influencers. That variety is important, especially if brands want UGC to reuse across their own branded channels.

Why micro-influencers and not macro-influencers for UGC campaigns? Cost and output. For the amount of money brands would invest partnering with a single macro-influencer who would produce one or two pieces of content for the campaign, they can often use that same amount to bring in two, five, or even ten micro-influencers for the cost of a single macro-influencer.

It’s Easier to Get Content Rights

One of the HUGE things that a lot of brands don’t consider enough is getting the rights to their paid content. Now, Emily recently wrote a post on UGC rights and how important it is (and tough it can be) to get the rights needed to reuse your sponsored content on your own social media channels.

You may be surprised by the requirements and restrictions some macro-influencers will tell you about reusing content you’ve paid them to create. With micro-influencers, you are far more likely to be able to negotiate the right to use sponsored content across your own branded channels as well as in your PPC campaigns WITHOUT having to keep shelling out royalties to the influencer.

How to Vet Micro-Influencers

Finding the right influencer for your campaign is really about identifying the influencers who are most likely to deliver positive campaign results.

So, yeah… it includes stuff like making sure your influencer has good engagement and talks about the right stuff. But it also includes stuff like making sure the influencer you choose isn’t buying likes or blog traffic.

Of course, we’ve talked about this topic in a couple of different posts. Our Co-founder, Lauren deals with stuff like fraud detection, fake blog traffic, and fake engagement in the post she wrote How to Vet Potential Blogger and Influencer Partners.

So, let’s reserve this section for pointing out some of the qualities and assets your micro-influencer SHOULD have.

Influencer Is Posting Regularly

Like anyone, influencers get busy. Sometimes they take time off or will, for whatever reason, take a break from posting consistently. It’s not unusual to come across an influencer you like and discover she’s only been posting twice a month for the last few months. Happens.

But you want to make sure to partner with an influencer who is active on the platform where your campaign will be running. Remember… algorithms show posts from a platform’s users based on continued engagement. When people stop engaging with an account, it reduces the chances an influencer’s new posts will show up in everybody’s feed.

Engagement Ratio Tops 2 Percent

Look for influencers who maintain an average engagement ratio of at least two percent. For larger influencers, 1.5 percent is pretty standard.

I’ll be the first to admit, Instagram engagement isn’t what it used to be two or three years ago. As more and more users flock to the platform and Facebook pushes more to require brands to run paid ads to get the reach they need, it becomes less and less likely that droves of people will see branded posts.

But engagement is an important metric of actual influence because it gauges the responsiveness of both the influencer and his/her audience.

Brand Affinity Aligns with Your Target Demo

An influencer’s conversation on Instagram, Facebook, and other social platforms will tell you a lot about not just what the influencer likes, but also about the type of audience that your campaign will end up in front of.

So, you have to take into consideration not just which vertical an influencer occupies, but also which brands an influencer likes, which brands the influencer talks about, and which brands the influencer actually buys.

Take, for example, the screenshot below. The influencer on the left is hip and well-dressed, but her style of dress is edgier and will clearly appeal to a different demographic than the influencer on the right, who prefers a more professional style.

Successful Past Collaborations with Other Brands

While this isn’t essential, it can be a great way to gauge their suitability and professionalism. We recommend checking their feeds to see what posts they have marked with #ad or #sponsored and then review the content they created for these other brands. Is it the type of content you’d want representing your brand?

Positive Audience Sentiment

Earlier in this post I noted that people follow other people on social media for a specific type of content. One of my favorite micro-influencers on Instagram is @getupwithnards. I even had a picture of her on my pantry (where I keep all the carbs and foodstuffs) when I was trying to cut back my sugar and drop a little weight. Love her pictures and her advice.

I also follow

Best Campaigns for Micro-Influencers

I like this little graphic here because it highlights some of the most common goals for influencer campaigns. It also lets you know that influencer marketing isn’t just a one-trick pony designed ONLY to help you hype your brand.

Targeted Awareness Campaigns

I will say that in general, if you need to cover lots of ground (like get your product in front of a few million people), going with a few macro-influencers would probably be more effective than choosing to work with a dozen micro-influencers.

But if your goal is to hyper-target multiple different demographics with personalized messages, going with micro-influencers who have follower counts in the tens of thousands.

For instance, let’s say you’re launching a budgeting app and you’re trying to increase downloads.

To get in front of older social media users, you may partner with two or three mature micro-influencers over the age of 40 to grab the attention of Gen Xers and at least one blogger over the age of 50 to reach Boomers.

You could partner with an influencer like Lola Celotti (@lolacelotti) whose feed communicates warmth, confidence, and a bit of a carefree vibe. She seems familiar, like someone most people would probably feel like they know.

And then there are over-50 style influencers like Caroline Labouchere (on Instagram @carolinelabouchere), an over-50 model, runner, and speaker whose accounts are designed to inspire.

Both types of influencer would effectively target older social media users. And the brand message for our hypothetical budgeting app may be something like, “Everything you want to know about your finances in one click”.

Well, that same app would be useful for young adults just starting out and those in their early 20s. So, for that same campaign to appeal to younger app users, a brand could partner with a phD student who is also an influencer and a speaker, or maybe a young scientist who is also a style influencer. Someone who is young, relatable, aspirational and BUSY would be the perfect person to position the app as a way to “Connect. Automate. And live your life.”

I came across Sarah Habibi on Instagram while I was seeing what the #phDstudent hashtag had to offer. She’s on Instagram as @science.bae… which is enough to make me click all by itself.

But she’s also funny, verbose (she writes loooonnnng captions), stylish, and embarks on some pretty cool adventures. Plus, she’s a speaker. It’s just all wins here.

So, there’s one campaign, sure. But in this case, using micro-influencers for this particular brand awareness campaign allows for targeting very different groups within your core demographic of financial app users.

Micro-influencers really help when it comes to zeroing in on a specific audience and crafting messages that resonate with that group of people.

Seasonal Campaigns

Micro-influencers are good at spreading the word about sales. So, using them to promote different products available during seasonal campaigns can be a powerful sales driver. Choose micro-influencers on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter so your promotion shows up in audience feeds. Don’t forget to boost the most successful posts.

UGC Campaigns

Micro-influencers are great for getting tons of quality user-generated content when your goal is to build a library of social media content, marketing collateral and creative to use in paid ads.

Of course, you’ll get a lot more content AND DIFFERENT TYPES OF CONTENT by working with a virtual army of micro-influencers (as opposed to spending the same amount of money on two or three macro-influencers) to create content for YOUR brand that integrates the nuances of THEIR brand.

Let’s Wrap This Up

Can you believe it’s been seven years since influencer marketing became a thing? Of course, influencer marketing has a rich history and it existed years and years before we made a habit of posting pictures of ourselves taking pictures of… well, ourselves. But this current incarnation of influencer marketing – the social media-based one – is still relatively new, despite it feeling like we’ve been doing it forever.

Planning effective campaigns all boils down to goals-driven strategies. Working with micro-influencers is super-effective way to deploy strategies that will help you accomplish your marketing goals.

Brands and marketers have come to recognize the impact Memory Lane can have on our moods, the affinities we develop for people and things, and – here’s the big one – the actions we take. If you’ve noticed the old school vibe creeping into branded content, you’re not alone. Tying new, promotional content to an audience’s memories by cleverly weaving in old content, ideas, or ideals can be a powerful way to spread a brand’s message. And we call that nostalgia marketing.

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Before I get into the whys and wherefores of nostalgia marketing, let me tell you a little story about a kid from Harlem that will drive home the impact nostalgia can have on buyers in the real world.

In 1993, a cocky, 24 year-old college dropout by the name of Sean left his cushy job at an urban record company to start his own record company. His thought behind the label was to create music for college students, young adults, and the club scene. But he was launching his business at a time when gangster rap had sort of ruined everything already. Politicians were literally steamrolling over piles and piles of rap albums indiscriminately. Like… literally… they were steamrolling over albums. But Sean came from a marketing background, so he developed a game plan. To protect his burgeoning brand from the backlash surrounding gangster rap, Sean decided to skip the edgy East Coast rap sound and instead decided to lay raps (some of them quite gangster) over old dance tracks from the 70s and 80s.

Sean got the content rights (we talk a lot about content rights on this blog) to use songs that were not just hits on the pop charts, but more importantly songs that were cultural and national staples, frequently heard at backyard parties, graduation parties, wedding receptions, and holidays all over the country. These were songs moms and dads partied to in their youth, songs that evoked all the feels. The songs he chose included those made famous by the likes of Diana Ross, David Bowie, The Jackson 5, James Brown, KC & the Sunshine Band, The Police, The Trammps, Lisa Stansfield, Miami Sound Machine, Kool & the Gang, Duran Duran, Miles Davis… major, right?

The record company Sean formed and built on the foundation of making music that would make HIS FANS’ PARENTS forget they were listening to rap sold something like 40 million records in its first five years of existence (and made Sean one of the richest men on the planet)… at a time when a video views didn’t count as a record sold. Decades later, you can still hear Sean’s music around the clock playing on throwback rap stations that play nothing but rap hits from the 80s and 90s… many of them originally released by Sean’s company.

Bad Boy Entertainment is still one of the most successful rap labels of all time, according to Statista (yes, they absolutely have a chart on rap labels, too) and 26 years later, the company is consistently voted among the top five hip hop labels IN HISTORY among fans of the music. And don’t be surprised if you see your kid’s math teach delivering a flawless, although slightly tipsy, performance of Notorious B.I.G.’s Hypnotize at the local karaoke bar. Because it’s probably on the song list.

Now, that’s one of the most striking instances of using nostalgia to sell.

ijs

Why Nostalgia Marketing Works So Well (Here Comes the Brain Stuff)

“My bologna has a first name. It’s O-S-C-A-R.

My bologna has a second name. It’s M-A-Y-E-R.

Oh! I love to eat it every day, And if you ask me why I’ll saaayyy,

‘ Cause Oscar Mayer has a way with ________!!!!”

Were you able to sing the missing portion of this jingle? Of course you were! Now think about the way you felt as you belted out “B-O-L-O-G-N-A!” Somehow that feels great, right? That’s because most of us have a mental catalog of commercials and jingles we remember loving as kids!

Ahhh, the good ol’ days. A time that was more certain, more secure, and more comfortable (probably because these good days happened back when someone else was doing all the adulting for us – haha). But those types of positive emotions tied to SIGNIFICANT memories form the core of why nostalgia marketing is so effective.

The caption below this Gucci spot reads: Presenting #ForeverGuilty. Academy award-winning actor and musician Jared Leto is joined by multi-platinum singer songwriter Lana Del Rey in the new campaign by Glen Luchford.

Collective Memory

Nostalgia works on a couple of different levels – individual, familial, community, nationally, culturally, generationally….

You and the friends from your old neighborhood will have a different set of nostalgic moments than the ones you and your college friends share.

Gen Xers will harp on things like breakdancing… or that time Michael Jackson debuted the Moonwalk and broke everybody’s mind… or the Friends gang hanging out at Central Perk.

Source: On Instagram here’s @paulspulse sporting the fly Central Perk shirt.

Millennials will be more excited about Nickelodeon showing up on the scene, and boy bands… and crushing on the curly-haired boy on Mickey Mouse Club before he became a member of the group N*Sync and a big pop star. And before he (Justin Timberlake) became Branch (the grumpy troll) for your kids.

Source: Today.com – In this photo are Ryan Gossling, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake.

Nationally, we have things we treasure as well. If you were too young (or too busy not being born yet) to appreciate The Golden Girls back when the original episodes were airing between 1985 and 1992, it’s no matter. The Golden Girls are a national treasure. Old episodes still run on TV. And surprisingly, the actresses actually still grace the covers of magazines together, despite the fact that Betty White is the only surviving member of the ensemble that made up America’s favorite over-50 single roommates.

Source: Walmart

#shrug

We like what we like.

We Visit Our RESPECTIVE PastS More Than Any of Us Probably Realize

You may not think much about it, but the average person experiences nostalgia about once a week. Once a week? Really?!! Sure. Facebook will often give users the chance to repost some of their popular posts from years past.

And anyone who uses Twitter and Instagram have probably dug through their own photo albums (physical and virtual) to find the perfect pic for #throwbackthursday. We get nostalgic on purpose. The next point talks about why that is.

Nostalgia Feels REALLY Good

We trigger nostalgic moments as a self-soothing mechanism – our regular dose of feel-good to get through the week. Nostalgia actually lights up the brain’s reward center, which may be why we like talking about the good ol’ days.

Every single one of us has moments, periods, and times in our lives that we can look back on and say “Ahh! The good ol’ days.” Times when having a flip phone was still a luxury and overalls were all the rage (those days seem to have returned for the overalls). Times of amazing childhood days spent watching Beyblade and Pokemon, running in your flashy sneakers and feeding your virtual pocket pet.

(I mean…I actually killed my Gigapet but it’s a good memory, nonetheless.)

These recollections almost certainly bring a smile to your face, and that overlap between memory and emotion is unique to nostalgia. You might even forget for a while that 15, 20, 30 years has passed since you created these warm, seemingly not-so-distant memories.

Nostalgia Makes People More Optimistic

A University of Southampton study found that nostalgia makes people more optimistic about the future and increases resilience. Whether reading older song lyrics, hearing throwback jams, or just remembering a significant event from the past, participants in the study naturally integrated more optimistic words into describing their experiences than those who were exposed to current music or lyrics, or who were asked to remember or talk about regular events.

When Nostalgia Kicks In, People Are More Likely to Spend (Money, Not Time)

Science Daily reported that nostalgia compels people to spend more money. In a study conducted by the Journal of Consumer Research, consumers who were asked to think about the past were willing to pay more for a set of products than a separate group who were asked to think about creating new memories.

Interestingly – and this will probably be of interest to nonprofits as well – people were willing to pay or give more money to others after reflecting on a past life event BUT NOT MORE TIME. So for nonprofits, triggering those memories of old will help you get more donations, but not necessarily more volunteers.

Good Feelings Are More Likely to Be Well-Received

Raise your hand if you’ve ever gone on a Facebook hiatus for a spell to get away from the negativity.

While our human instincts make us want to hear bad news so we can stay out of harm’s way, the truth is most of us don’t actually WANT to be be loaded down with a bunch of bad news all the time.

Think about it: If you’re at a party, are you going to spend all night hanging out in a corner with Debbie Downer or get in that growing circle of laughs around Fun Bobby?

(Friends fans will get the Fun Bobby reference.)

Content that evokes positive emotions also triggers engagement. But there’s only a certain remnant of the population that will happily engage with content that incites rage, fear, or shame.

Brands That Have Used Nostalgia to Make Memorable Branded Content (And Tips for How You Can Use it In Your Next Campaign)

Two things about nostalgia marketing: First, it works because it instantly disappears the days, months, years to make you feel like no time has passed at all since your significant moment. Second, it helps brands create an instant connection with their audiences by tapping into a shared memory. So, creating an opportunity to tie your brand’s message to a fond childhood memory can help make your brand and your message more memorable.

Doritos

For this year’s Super Bowl, Doritos aired a 60-second spot promoting its Flaming Hot Nacho flavor by teaming Chance the Rapper with 90s boy band The Backstreet Boys. The spot, which opened with Chance the Rapper alone followed by a dance number in an airplane hangar with the rapper and the pop stars was sort of epic in that it served to kick off The Backstreet Boys’ tour. The campaign included a the branded hashtag #NowItsHot.

Source: Youtube

A Plan to Consider… Entertain Them

Sometimes the immediate goal isn’t transactional. Not every ad is meant to sell your product. But rather, to stay top-of-mind and create a memorable, positive experience for your audience. A good way to do this is by capitalizing on a collective memory that many of them will appreciate.

So, for instance, tying your brand to an old school pop culture phenomenon like the boy band craze of the 90s to grab the attention of Millennials… Maybe you can do something cool with a Kung Fu movie vibe reminiscent of the 80s for Gen Xers. Or take it back to the 60s (like that Gucci ad we included in the first part of this post) to appeal to Boomers.

These types of light-hearted entertainment breaks can make for highly memorable, highly shareable content AND create good buzz for your brand.

KIA

For Super Bowl LII, Kia ran a spot to promote the Stinger using Aerosmith frontman-turned-American Idol judge Steven Tyler. The spot featured 2018 Tyler hopping in a Stinger on a racetrack and speeding around the track in reverse to the band’s iconic song, Dream On. He drove so fast that he turned back the hands of time. A few seconds later, Tyler hops out of the car 40 years younger. Super-cool idea. And this ad will have cross-generational appeal.

Now, couple of things to note here:

First, Dream On was on the band’s first LP, released in 1973. The song was re-released and charted in 1976 after the band’s second album. It’s epic. It’s the soundtrack of a generation. It’s the template for every power rock ballad that came after it.

Next, the turning back the hands of time thing isn’t without precedent. If you saw the movie Superman (1978), you may remember a pretty emotional point in the film when Superman’s love interest, Lois Lane, died unexpectedly when her car is swallowed up in an earthquake. So distraught was the man of steel that his beloved was dead, that he flew off from the scene, off the planet a blind rage, and circled the earth so fast that he turned back the hands of time and essentially unkilled Lois (comic book reality, here… bear with me).

Same type of situation. Tyler drives so fast around the track that he actually turns back the hands of time. When he stops and gets out of the car as Young Steven, 70s-era fans come rushing toward him before the message, “Feel something again” is captured on the screen.

Source: YouTube

A Plan to Consider… Wow Them

This ad dreams up a concept that anyone over a certain age has considered before – turning back the hands of time. “If I knew then what I know now…”

Visually, it couples old school cool (Steven Tyler is all that) with new school innovation and keeps the audience’s attention because it’s always cool to see a Benjamin Button-styled age-down… This ad works because it gives the audience something they probably didn’t expect – a cool, imaginative car commercial that skips over all the regular car commercial stuff like the car, its features the safety rating, price, down payments, well-qualified buyers, lease options…

I don’t even exactly remember what the car even looked like, only that Kia did a really cool spot for the Stinger. Give the viewer something unexpected… even if the unexpected isn’t necessarily unprecedented.

Prime Wardrobe

Prime Wardrobe’s Try Before You Buy campaign is airing multiple commercials right now with the same general idea: aspiration

One spot features a studious, bespectacled man sitting hunched over at a bar, scrolling through his phone. He comes across a picture of a black leather jacket. The jacket triggers a kind of theme song in this guy’s imagination (K-Ci and Jo Jo’s All My Life) where he imagines himself sitting at that same bar, only this time he’s wearing the jacket and he’s not hunched over the bar with his back to the room. He has his back to the bar, nothing in his hands, and is glasses-free. He’s a cool, confident dude in that jacket.

In two other Prime Wardrobe spots, similar situations are presented and set to 80s rock hits, Eternal Flame by The Bangles and Is This Love? from Whitesnake.

A Plan to Consider… Inspire Them

Nostalgia goes hand-in-hand with optimism and inspiration. Appreciating the good times makes people feel like more good times are on the way. Find a natural way to make your product more aspirational by triggering inspiration (but not envy). FYI: Music is a fast and easy way to both set the tone of your content and inject much-needed nostalgia. #nostalgiamarketing

BP

If you ever get tired of watching this commercial, you’re crazy. The three truckers singing Backstreet Boys’ I Want it That Way together is an epic feel-good moment in ad history.

Now, BP has had a rough go of it since the big oil spill of 2010. The company released a rather sobering, “Our bad, we’ll do better” type of ad in response to the incident. BP ended up the butt of tons of late night monologue jokes and became the poster child for corporations’ need for more oversight and accountability. I doubt anyone will ever forget the images of all the dead fish and oil-slicked birds that flooded the web in the days and weeks following the incident. The entire ordeal was both an ecological and a publicity nightmare. A hard thing for any company to recover from.

So, this particular instance of nostalgia marketing was an emotional play both for Millennials who love The Backstreet Boys as well as anyone who’s ever been wholly committed to their red light vocal performance from the front seat of their car.

Source: YouTube

A Plan to Consider… Humanize Your Brand

Make your brand more relatable by putting a face on your brand and by connecting a positive vibe or mission to your brand. We talked about this pretty extensively in the social proof post. This strategy worked really well for Blendtec blenders when the company launched its Will It Blend? campaign. Blendtec boosted sales and created an enormous amount of buzz about the brand by using its industrial blender (with the super unsexy name) to grind up things like cell phones, baseballs, marbles, super glue (that one was cool), silly putty… the list goes on.

But you don’t have to blend a bag of marbles, man. This can really be as simple as showing your audience an unguarded, vulnerable moment (like singing in a car) that anyone can relate to… or it can be as complex as investing in a large-scale community development project.

iHeartRadio

Congratulations to the Class of late 1990-something or 2000-whateverrrrr!

iHeartRadio has a feature called Graduation Playlist (GraduationPlaylist.com) where users can type in the year they graduated high school, college, or whatever and stream music that was popular the year they graduated.

Each channel streams a set playlist, but users have the option to click away to hear specific songs in the playlist in a separate tab. Clicking away lets you hear your song choice, but also provides you the option to register for a free account (and opt in to receive emails) and of course, create custom playlists. If you choose not to create an account, you can go back to your graduation-year playlist, but it’s basically a just commercial-free radio station – you don’t get to call any shots.

A Plan to Consider… Lead with Value

Front-load value and ask for nothing (or very little) in return. This could be a very useful strategy for apps and SaaS companies. Find creative ways – like a graduation-year playlist – to tie nostalgia (and its positive vibes) into your value offering.

Geico

Before the Geico gecko, there were the Geico cavemen. The company has used a string of mascots in its commercials over the last couple decades (Mayhem, for instance). For those who grew up during the 90s and early 2000s, you may think back fondly on the cavemen. This spot in particular originally aired in 2006 with a KILLER song called Remind Me by Röyksopp (there are tons of mixes of this song… and yeah that pixel art thing is the real video).

Source: YouTube

What’s superb about this commercial is in 2018, Geico pulled this one from the archives as part of a campaign to get people to vote for their favorite Geico commercials and started airing it again. People love it!

AND they get to remember / rediscover the Royksopp video. Just adds another layer of awesomesauce because when the video first aired back in 2006, you had to know a record store geek to find out who the heck the band is. Now… a two-second YouTube search of the term “song from geico caveman commercial”… and you’re suddenly remix-rich

I love the internets.

A Plan to Consider… Pull Out the Old Archives

Nostalgia marketing works when brands remind customers of something cool from the past, but it also works pretty well when brands are willing to share their own memories and corporate histories. Doing things like re-running popular old campaigns or doing a mashup that combines your old, grainy training videos attended by ladies in long, wool skirts with new irreverent commentary from people young enough to be their adult kids can be a fun way for brands to nurture old connections AND establish new connections with their audiences.

Forever 21 x Pepsi

A trip into Forever 21 is like visiting the past. The store is pretty well-stocked with throwback gear. If you didn’t get around to buying it when it was hot in 1981, now’s your chance.

Source: A pic from my local Forever 21

A lot of the clothes you see at Forever 21 are heavily branded, whether it’s a jacket tagged with a bunch of USPS logos or a worn Van Halen graphic tee, Forever 21 is the place to go if you want to get a really cool throwback… anything, I guess (as evidence by the Three’s Company-esque Mr. Roper visor above that was spotted at the local Forever 21).

So, Forever 21’s collaboration with Pepsi is totally on-brand for the store – 80s/90s-inspired jackets and outfits heavily branded with the old school Pepsi logo.

A Plan to Consider… Overbrand The Heck Out of This Thing

Reappropriating old logos and marketing collateral in fun, new ways can really boost the impact of your campaigns. Think about that for a moment. What would it say about your brand if you blanketed a members only jacket (you may have to look that one up) or other clothing items and outerwear with your logo? The idea is to skip the ho-hum, corporate-y polo shirts this time around. What about corporate earrings that break the dress code… and people can’t really wear them to work? Or a leather belt with a big, gaudy logo’d belt buckle would probably KILL… and surprise the heck out of both your team and your customers. #nostalgiamarketing

Walmart

Last one. Nothing says throwback quite like a retro arcade game. Last holiday season, Walmart stores displayed a small selection of 45-inch, full-cabinet arcade games. It was shocking to see in-store. To promote these, one of the marketing tactics Walmart used was game reviews by someone who specializes in collector’s items.

Source: YouTube

Walmart is no stranger to retro video games. There’s a section of Walmart.com called Classic Arcade Gaming that hosts a virtual catalog of 6-inch games, tabletop arcade games, the four-foot game cabinets, and risers for the game cabinets. You can also grab the throwback Atari or Sega game consoles suped-up to work with even the smartest flat screen TV.

I came across a game review video from YouTuber Boogie2988 who published a review of an entire selection of arcade games just ahead of the Christmas 2018 holiday season. Arcade 1UP supplied the arcade games for him to review, and in the video description he also mentioned going to Walmart to pick up the games… that, and there was a guy in a Walmart t-shirt actually assembling the games… which leads me to believe the view review was a Walmart x Arcade 1UP collaboration for the holiday season.

A Plan to Consider… Partner with a Niche Blogger

Creating a high-impact nostalgia marketing campaign will niche-down your audience reasonably well but you can go narrower to really zero in on what your target buyer wants and what they actually need to hear from you to convert the sale.

What was super smart about this particular review was that this guy wasn’t just your typical Gen Z or Millennial gamer. There are plenty of young gamers who are interested in retro arcade games. Don’t get me wrong.

But…

Boogie2988 is older and played the original arcade games back in the day when they were out. So, he talked A LOT about one of the things older gamers will find MOST important – the similarities between the “feel” of the new games compared to the old arcade games. That’s going to be a BIG DEAL for people who spent their childhood and teen years in the arcade.

Nostalgia is all about being taken back to that time. Well, for gamers, going back means not having major differences (like a video game where the console is too small for two-player mode, or the joystick is too loose, or the buttons aren’t firm enough) that distract from the experience of going back. So, it was smart to go with a niche-gamer… someone who can give validity to the new games by comparing them to the many experiences he had with the old games.

That’s All, Folks!

Here’s the big takeaway… A personalized, compelling, relatable, and nostalgia-inducing message is an effective way to tie your brand to a positive memory or experience for your target customer.

More than just helping you makes sales, nostalgia marketing can help you make positive impact and help solidify the value of your brand in the minds of your target audience.

We want to help you link up with amazing creators who can help make your message beautiful, relevant, and effective. Click the button below to schedule a 30-minute demo with us and we’ll help you reach your brands expansion and development goals. Reach out to us!

It’s gonna be totally gnarly!

Is PPC the Key to Super-Charging Your Influencer Marketing Campaign?

Marketers are always looking for new and exciting ways to market products and services. But trying to keep up with the never-ending merry-go-round we know as digital marketing, is bound to send you into a dizzying whirl… sooner or later.

Not to worry though — this happens even to the best of us.

It’s not easy to stay on top of it all, especially when you’re always chasing trends. Most businesses have come to grips with the fact that social media is an important marketing tool for helping brands get in front of customers. And when changes happen across the social landscape, we adjust… for our own sake.

In this post, we’re building on some of the other topics we’ve discussed on The Shelf Blog that show you how to use influencer marketing as part of a larger overall marketing strategy that includes stuff like site optimization, improving search engine rankings, email marketing, and mastering the art of creating other visual content. So, we’re dedicating the second half of this post to using PPC to super-charge your influencer campaigns (and vice versa).

Talk Topics:

• Here’s How Social Media Marketing Was Awesome… Then Not So Awesome

• Influencer Marketing as a Substitute for Limited Organic Reach

• Why PPC Works to Amplify Influencer Campaigns

• Step-by-Step PPC-Influencer Strategy

Here’s How Social Media Marketing Was Awesome Then… Not So Much

Not too long ago, the only thing brands had to worry about was choosing the best social network for their type of business and available resources (i.e. team members who knew how to manage social media accounts).

Facebook Delivers Targeted Reach with Real-Time Analytics…

Not surprisingly, Facebook has reigned supreme when it comes to social media marketing. The platform boasts and unmatched 2.2 billion active users and allows brands to create branded pages by which to build online communities and boost brand awareness. Businesses can extend their reach and raise their voices above competitors pretty easily and quickly on Facebook. AND Facebook offers a cadre of suped-up targeting and analytics tools that allow marketers to reach very specific audiences to drive better engagement.

…. Followed by Havoc and Dream-Crushing Confusion

Needless to say, it was heartbreaking to marketers when Facebook organic reach went into a drastic decline between 2016 and 2017.

Source: Medium

Source: Facebook

In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Zero, the code name for the algorithm change that would now focus on drumming up more meaningful interactions for its users (i.e. way less branded content).

Didn’t read it? Don’t worry. The whole blurb just means the Facebook feed now shows you more content from friends and family than from brands.

(Emoji with heart eyes for individual users. Emoji with tears in its eyes for brands.)

This major shift affected every brand on the platform, pushing their posts to the outskirts of the web — in many cases never to be seen by their intended audiences. But it’s not just Facebook unleashing anarchy on brands — other networks are doing the same. For example, Instagram decided to switch to a chronological order feed to deliver fresher content.

Instagram also prioritizes content from the users you engage with most frequently on the platform. So, for brands who have figured out how to deliver quality content that engages their audiences then the chances your Instagram content will be seen by your intended audience increases.

That’s good news… but it can also be seen as just another hurdle for brands to clear.

(But… glass half full, guys.)

For a lot of brands, the fix for the algorithm issue is crafting smart influencer campaigns.

Influencer Marketing Did Save the Day

You can say the shift in brands’ ability to win with organic reach caused a gold rush for the next best thing — influencer marketing. Influencers are well-liked by their followers, so partnering with influencers automatically solves the problem brands have of creating content that compels engagement.

If a brand is able to get an influencer to talk about its product or service genuinely, that brand can reach thousands or even millions of engaged users. Influencer marketing provides businesses with a way around the roadblock a changing algorithm presents so they have a chance and boost visibility substantially.

And influencer marketing is growing a marketing tactic. Between 2016 and 2017, there was a 200% increase in search volume for the term “influencer marketing”.

Source: Google Trends

Once brands got a taste of how impactful influencers are, they went all out with their spending. According to Smart Insights, 85 percent of marketers use influencer marketing and an astounding 90 percent of them say it’s one of THE MORE effective forms of marketing. Within the next year, expect to see influencer marketing spend to surpass $8 billion.

But it’s not all sunny days in palazzo pants in the influencer marketing world.

A lot of marketers who came from PPC backgrounds into influencer marketing had a hard go of it making influencer marketing make sense. While both techniques deliver similar outcomes, they work differently. They were trying to make influencer marketing work the same way as PPC when the real power is in running PPC and influencer campaigns together as part of one big, butt-kicking digital marketing strategy.

The ROI Thing Still Trips Up Many Marketers

ROI. A lot of brands and marketers still aren’t sure how to measure the success (or failure) of an influencer campaign. About three in four marketers who run influencer campaigns say this is their biggest obstacle. (I don’t have the time to get into that too much here, but we just released a guide on this very topic that will demystify ROI for you. Download it by clicking this link right here).

Now, if marketers don’t understand how to measure the ROI of an influencer campaign, why would they put more money into something if they don’t know if it’s working?

Well, they know influencer marketing works to increase engagement and boost brand awareness. I think the problem is they aren’t sure how to shape campaigns to do anything else (again, download our guide on this), or how to build on the traction they’ve already gotten… and move customers further along in the sales funnel.

For instance, once the influencer campaign is over and all the numbers have been logged in whatever influencer marketing platform they used, how does the brand continue to stay at the top of their audience members’ feeds without having to keep running campaigns?

Like I said earlier, algorithm adjustments on Facebook and Instagram have made staying top-of-mind a little harder for brands… UNLESS brands learn how to consistently produce the type of content their audiences want to see (hello, UGC campaign).

So, is influencer marketing a one-and-done type of thing? No. It’s not. So, let’s get into the PPC part.

Why PPC May Be the Key to Amplifying Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns

If you’ve never used pay-per-click (PPC) ads in the past, then you may be wondering why you would include it in a social media campaign. You may even be thinking that people sorta hate ads so why on earth would you invest in content that clearly looks like ads. Well, do they really HATE ads? No.

People Don’t Deliberately Click on Ads Anymore, Do They?

Yeah. They do.

People don’t mind being sold something if it’s on their terms. Nearly 50 percent of people say they click on text ads, while another 31 percent say they click on shopping ads. And if you’re thinking users don’t click on ads in Google, stats show 63 percent of people do. Many ads even outperform organic search, receiving 65 percent of the clicks compared to 35 percent for organic results.

PPC advertisers typically earn $2 for every $1 they spend. And it’s not just search ads generating results. Roughly 80 percent of B2B companies acquired customers through LinkedIn paid ads. Seventy percent of social marketers are reaching their goals with Facebook ads.

And one of the key factors for getting people to click on your ads – at least for 57 percent of Millennials – is personalization. You have to make ads more relevant. (Keep that in mind when you develop your PPC strategy.)

PPC offers some very real, very measurable benefits for influencer campaigns. In fact, one of the main benefits of influencer campaigns for many brands is that it gives them lots of user-generated content to reuse in paid ads. Pay-per-click ads can deliver the same benefits as an influencer campaign:

• Increase your visibility and reach. With paid ads, you’re not subjected to being pushed to the bottom of the feed.

• Easily track and monitor your campaigns.

• Retarget specific audiences. Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn all allow you to target relevant audiences based on their location, gender, and interests then retarget them when they click on your ad but don’t complete the required action like schedule a demo, or complete a download or check out a cart.

• Reach more users. You don’t only want to attract those who know about your brand. With paid ads, you can get more exposure and reach audiences you wouldn’t have any other way. Even with the visibility of influencers.

Running PPC ads to supplement your influencer campaign fortifies the strength of your influencer campaign and vice versa.

How to Create a Sales Funnel Using Influencer Marketing + PPC

What makes influencer marketing + PPC such a great combo is how well they work together.

Set Campaign Goals

Your marketing goals can take a number of different forms. You already know that. A lot of marketers get a little turned around with influencer marketing, because they don’t really know how to structure campaigns to reach specific goals.

For instance, they don’t really know which social media platforms to use to reach different goals (Danielle actually wrote a post on that here… but there are a couple of really good infographics in that post you can refer to if you don’t have time to read the entire post). The point is there ARE specific types of influencer campaigns to run for different types of outcomes. So, know what outcome you want to see is the first step in planning your influencer campaign.

Get Really Picky About Your Targeting

When you’re managing a paid ad campaign, you target your audience based on factors like:

• Demographics (millennial, Gen Z, baby boomers, etc.)

• Industry (fashion, fitness, health, etc.)

• Platform (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc.)

• Geography (city, state, region, country)

The same is true of running an effective influencer marketing campaign. Campaigns have to be correctly targeted to work well. And we always suggest to our clients that they do deeper targeting based on the outcomes they want to see (which they can do on The Shelf platform).

So, in addition to the above list of criteria for filtering potential influencer partners, we further sort with criteria like family size, brand mentions, affinity, talent for storytelling, audience sentiment… In fact, here are just a few of the criteria we’ve created before vetting influencers through our database.

Test Your Messaging

The key to any type of marketing is to know what you want to see happen and continually optimize your campaign to make sure you can achieve your desired outcomes. And that means testing your messaging to see which posts resonate with an influencer’s followers.

Some influencers are better than others at creating content that “lands”. Some influencers rely on images, others create high-impact videos, others have a way of captivating followers with long-form text captions. So, part of rolling out effective campaigns is knowing how each influencer adds value to his or her audience and letting them find creative ways to share your message in a way that’s authentic to the influencer’s personal brand.

It also means you’ll have different types of UGC that you can repurpose on your own channels to reach potential customers. So, provide influencers with guidelines, let them create, and watch the numbers to see which posts perform best.

Promote What Performs, Trim What Doesn’t

For past campaigns, we’ve included PPC as part of influencer campaigns to make sure influencer posts and pins are getting as much traction as possible. This is a good strategy to use. Like, we could have a dozen influencers working on a campaign and the influencers whose posts perform well – like, exceptionally well, are prime candidates for getting the post boosted.

That’s why we position this as PPC being integrated into the influencer campaign, so you’re putting additional resources behind concepts that are already performing well.

If You Haven’t Already, Add CTAs to the Messages That Work

Add an action to the posts that are working. Let’s say you have a product that appeals to Millennials and Gen Z. This crowd is normally on Instagram and YouTube. So you reach out to influencers on Instagram and YouTube who also target this demographic. At the same time, you can create ads on Instagram, Google, YouTube (and even some in-app ads).

When the influencer’s Instagram followers see your product, they may go to Google to search for your product or brand, which takes them to your paid search ad.

Or maybe, they see your social ad on Instagram and decide to look for your product on YouTube (the place we all go to find out how stuff works), and they find the video posted by the influencer showing how your product works.

What you’re doing here is creating a funnel to drive leads towards a conversion. Plus, you’re widening your reach by directing more traffic to your influencer content.

By using paid ads, you’re able to measure the impact of your campaign across multiple channels. For instance, you can see conversion rates, click through rates, cost per customer acquisition, and your ROI.

Monitor Your Campaigns

The performance of your paid ads and influencers will help you to learn more about your customers and their desires, which can help you to improve future campaigns.

If you’re worried about learning which influencers are generating an ROI, then you can always implement custom URLs or unique discount codes per campaign. This will allow you to identify which influencer’s responsible for your increase in site traffic and sales.

You may find that influencers and social ads are the perfect tools for branding and discovery. You can use this to drive more searches and website traffic, which can then fuel your ad retargeting campaigns.

But there’s only one way to find out — experimentation and lots of it. Social ads are definitely on the rise, especially with the recent announcement from Instagram.

According to an Ad Age report, there will be a new ad format for brands to play with — “branded content ads”. This will allow you to sponsor influencers’ posts, promoting them like they were your own ad.

Before, when you compensated an Instagrammer to promote your brand or product, they had to include a visible hashtag like #ad or #sponsored.

Like this one.

Source: Instagram

Not hiding it in the mix of a hundred hashtags. Like this one.

Source: Instagram

There are FTC guidelines brands and influencers must follow to stay out of trouble (and keep your posts from being ghosted).

But no more worry about FTC woes. Now, all influencers have to do is tag the brand in their post and it’ll show “Paid partnership with…”

Like this influencer did.

Source: Business Instagram

Both and Instagram allow you to promote the content of the influencers you’re collaborating with (without needing access to their account).

Facebook has a branding tool you can use to keep track of the posts from the influencers you’re collaborating with. Once they tag you, you’re able to monitor their user engagement. And now that Instagram is allowing brands to create branded content ads, it’s going to take content promotion to the next level.

So make sure you’re ready. Meanwhile, you can start planning how you’re going to tie together PPC ads with your next influencer campaign.

Don’t forget — social and search ads can boost your influencer content and vice versa.

Wrapping Up

It’s time to stop siloing your marketing efforts and start linking them together. Hopefully, you can now see how PPC ads are golden pieces of the influencer marketing puzzle. This is especially true now that stunted organic reach is affecting both brand and influencer content.

Together, you can use PPC and influencers to magnify your reach, engagement, and conversions.

Bloggers may be clued in on something your brand is actually missing: Pinterest is an AMAZING product discovery tool. More, it’s basically a shopping list for about 55 percent of its active users. Pinterest itself presents a powerful marketing opportunity that can not only get your products in front of shoppers who have their wallets in-hand, but can also drive huge amounts of traffic to your website.

In this post, I’m going to help you build a Pinterest marketing strategy (you’re welcome) that will fortify your next influencer campaign.

Talk Topics for This Post:

• A Quick Overview of Pinterest

• Moms, Millennials and Men: Who Uses Pinterest

• User Behaviors That Make Pinterest a Digital Marketing Goldmine

• Tips for Making Pinterest Work for Your Business

A Quick Overview of Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual discovery platform where users can post (“pin”) their own visual content or repin (share) other users’ pins. post contains a title, description and a link to where the content being pinned lives on the web (usually a blog). Pinners must assign every pin a board (collection of pins) in order to pin it and assign any content they repin from another user to a board in their own collection.

So, for instance, with our Pinterest account we pin blog covers images to our board, From The Shelf Blog and pin our infographics to our Influencer Marketing Tips or Marketing Mojo boards. We may repin ideas we like from other pinners in one of several boards we have like Minimalist Bloggers, On the Streets, Summer Forever, or Weekend Style.

Imagine if Instagram and Google got together and had a digital baby. That’s Pinterest.

Pinterest is one-part social media platform, one-part search engine, and completely driven by visual content that can quickly travel across the site, and the world wide web to bring new visitors to your blog, website, or online store.

Pinterest Was Pretty Awesome Out the Gate

Pinterest launched in 2010 as a way to share cool ideas. When it first launched, it was invitation-only. Do you remember that – waiting to hear back from Pinterest and not even fulling getting what it was?

In spite of the invite-only setup, Pinterest ended up being the fastest site in history to reach 10 million monthly active users. Then, like now, it served as a great platform for the crafts and DIY communities, as well as various lifestyle verticals that are driven by visual content (and even lots of verticals – like personal finance – that aren’t super-interested in pretty pictures)..

Today, seven in ten Americans know about Pinterest. With more than 52 million mobile users, Pinterest is the fifth most popular social networking mobile app and the fourth most popular social network behind YouTube, Facebook and Instagram (third if you don’t think of YouTube as a social network).

AND you can find just about anything on Pinterest, from industry information – like how it’s overflowing with colorful marketing infographics like these…

…. to wedding ideas and wedding planning tips.

Pinterest isn’t in the top 10 as far as search engines go, but it may be of interest to brands and marketers that Pinterest is a popular search engine that 39 percent of female users and 48 percent of male users choose over more traditional search engines like Google or Bing, according to AdEspresso.

That makes sense to me. Here’s why…

If you were to search for “short blond pixie cut” on Google then perform the same search on Pinterest, different results would show. More importantly (for searchers), Pinterest filters the results a little smarter for stuff like this.

In the two screenshots below, check out the filter options along the top of each picture (and the fact that Google results INCLUDE Pinterest pins).

Pinterest also does a better job of integrating sponsored content a little more naturally with your actual results.

Actually, let’s try it for another popular Pinterest topic – home decorating. The search term is “small bedroom ideas”. I actually had to scroll down a bit because the first row on Google was sponsored content / products.

Now, it’s not that people don’t want to shop on Pinterest. The truth is actually quite the opposite. Pinterest is the social platform users are MOST likely to choose when they are ready to spend money.

Ninety-seven percent of Pinterest searches are unbranded searches, meaning users are open to suggestions from brands. In fact, 78 percent of Pinterest users say they want to see branded content, and more than half of shoppers name Pinterest as their platform of choice for finding and shopping for products.

Source: Statista.com

Moms, Millennials and Men: Who Uses Pinterest?

There is a much wider diversity in Pinterest’s audience than you might think. One in three U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 49 use Pinterest, and one in four adults between the ages of 50 and 64 use Pinterest, according to Statista. Not to worry, those stats change significantly for Millennial users.

• There are 265 million active monthly users

• There are over 175 billion pins currently uploaded to the site

• 81 percent of users are female

• Half of new user signups in 2018 were men

• 34 percent of 18-49 year old Americans use Pinterest

• Pinterest is as popular an app with Millennials as Instagram

Pinterest is popular among Millennials, and especially among Millennial women. One in two US Millennials use Pinterest, and 7 in 10 Millennial women use the platform – that trumps both Twitter and Snapchat. Seventy percent of US moms and one-third of US dads also use the super-charged scrapbooking platform.

And people use Pinterest for a number of reasons. Most people use Pinterest to look at pictures (60 percent) and find/shop products (55 percent). It’s also a popular place to share content (24 percent) and watch videos (15 percent).

Source: Statista.com

So…

A pinner can easily have 1,000 people following her Wedding Ideas board

And 500 other people who are only following her Shoe Lust board

And 2,000 people following her Blogger Tips board AND her Passive Income board

And 900 people following her Bible Verses board who ARE following Passive Income and ARE NOT following her Shoe Lust board.

The possibilities are endless, both for Pinners and for marketers.

Let’s Talk About the User Behaviors That Make Pinterest a Digital Marketing Goldmine

Take a look at the picture below . It was captured a few days ago by Sorilbran, the editor of The Shelf blog who came across the poster at her local McDonald’s.

In June, McDonald’s will be sponsoring the Women’s Expo in Atlanta, GA. In case you’re wondering, Atlanta is a global destination point, playing host to the busiest airport in the world. It’s home to a sizable entertainment industry hub, with countless television shows and movies being filmed here (think Avengers and other Marvel Studios movies).

The celebrity lineup for the Atlanta Women’s Expo is nothing to sneeze at – reality stars, social media stars, movie stars… these women are famous.

But it’s not just McDonald’s that will be involved. To give you a better idea of the scope of this event, other sponsors include luxury brands like Chanel, Coach, Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo and Dior, as well as retail heavyweights like The Home Depot, Walgreens, and Kroger.

Why am I telling you this? Because upon closer examination of the poster, you can see that one of the featured workshops for this event, which draws tens of thousands of women every year, is a Pinterest workshop. So, let’s talk about why that is.

Pinterest Has Cross-Generational Appeal

Whether Millennials or Boomers, adults love Pinterest. They love having a one-click storage place of awesome photos and cool ideas. They love having a place where they can build targeted audiences whose ideas and tastes align with their own.

Pinterest Time is Me Time

Pinterest is where people go to source and collect ideas to help them be their best selves. The fact that Pinterest is so heavily aspirational (with no PERSON in particular to be the target of anyone’s love-hate aspiration) keeps Pinterest from earning the same stigma as some of the other popular social networks. No reports of Pinterest-fueled depression or rage. It’s aspiration without the stigmas. It’s no real surprise (especially to anyone who actually uses the platform) that Pinterest users are twice as likely to think their time on Pinterest is time well spent.

Pinterest is a Positive Corner of the Internet

Pinterest gives all the feels. Pinterest is the platform that helps people feel more creative (73 percent), inspired (68 percent) and organized (62 percent).

Pinners are Planners… and They Plan Waaaay In Advance

Pinners are planners. While Pinterest users post about seasonal events year-round, there are noticeable spikes in engagement with holiday- and event-related content in the weeks before that holiday or event.

But if you notice, the posts start typically a few months ahead of the holiday. Pinterest users tend to start planning twice as early as people who use other platforms. Heck, Father’s Day ideas start circulating around the platform as early as March and interest in Halloween starts to spike in June.

Pinners also use the platform to plan life’s important milestones, like buying a new home, decorating your home, getting married, and going on vacation.

Pinners Are Purposeful

Pinterest users are more likely to use the platform for the intention of finding products and ideas, as opposed to just using the platform to kill time. Ninety percent of users use Pinterest to make purchase decisions.

Pinners Favor Mobile

Pinterest users heavily favor the app. Eighty percent of users access Pinterest on mobile devices and 85 percent of Pinterest searches are on mobile.

Pinners Use Pinterest to Source Ideas

Pinterest is the go-to spot on the web for people to discover new products and source new ideas, and part of the reason branded content is so effective is because Pinterest shows new content based on what people have seen and engaged with before. This personalization helps the platform naturally integrate product ideas and Promoted Pins in a way that doesn’t look like ads or make users feel like they’re being marketed to.

Pinners Can Buy Instantly

Most social media platforms are shoppable now. With Pinterest, every one of the images acts as a direct link back to the site, making it infinitely easier for companies with promoted posts to attract new followers and site visitors.

Half of all Pinners make a purchase after seeing a promoted pin. And, since so many Pinterest users are actively looking to make their next purchases, smart marketers can leverage the platform as a way to generate both traffic and revenue.

A Simple Process for Creating Your Pinterest Business Account

It’s true that you’re going to make a hefty front-end investment laying the foundation of your Pinterest marketing, but managing Pinterest is actually pretty easy (and a little addictive). Pinning and repinning takes up very little of your time, and in many ways, it’ll become second nature.

Here’s what you need to know about setting your Pinterest business account.

#1 Create a Business Account

You may have a personal account, but you still want to create a business account that you can use to run campaigns and monitor the performance of your pins. Pinterest is like most social media sites in that way – business accounts give you access to features you need to run successful marketing campaigns. Plus, you can start creating rich pins. More on those later – just know, they’re super important.

#2 Stay On-Brand

Once you’ve got a business account set up, you’ll need to get your branding in order. Of course, you’ll need the basics as well: A clear profile picture, business name, and bio are essential – just like on any other platform. You’ve got to put your best foot forward so people can see your awesome brand personality shining through.

#3 Create Keyword-Optimized Boards

Pins go on boards, so in order to add pins or repin anything, Pinterest needs to know where you want pins to go. This is a good thing because Pinterest is AI-powered, so it learns your preferences based on what you pin and repin and starts showing you more and more content like the content you’ve engaged with previously.

You’ll need to create keyword-optimized boards. For us, a lot of our boards focus on either blogger life or marketing strategies. So, you’ll notice we have tons of style and fashion boards, lots of infographics, a board that’s specifically to promote our blog posts, even boards on beauty trends and color combinations that look cool (we’re all about color).

Each board you create can be classified as either Public, Secret, or Group. Best practices indicate that creating 10 boards initially is a good way to start, with each board tailored to your target audience in order to attract them to your pins.

Pinterest serves two billion searches a month. As you can imagine, pinners will need a way to find your content. That’s where you keywords strategy comes in. Your keywords are going to be vital when naming and creating your boards. Choosing which topics to focus your boards on should be based on the keywords you think are most important to your brand.

#4 Design and schedule pins

Next, you’re going to need some pins creating for your content so you can get sharing, and start growing your audience. Canva is an easy-to-use tool that will help you streamline this. The platform is free to use (or you can upgrade to a paid plan) and it comes with templates… for the design-challenged pinner.

Pinterest is a visual platform, so creating pins that are eye-catching colorful and easy to read / understand is important for growing your audience. As soon as someone sees your pin, he or she should know exactly what the webpage you’re leading them to is all about.

To make sure your pinning strategy is as effective as possible, make uploading your pins a regular part of your content distribution schedule. Using a scheduling tool like Tailwind is a good way to do this, and also gives you access to Tailwind Tribes, where other users will also share your content to increase your reach.

#5 Make Pins That Convert

Possibly the most important factor in a successful Pinterest marketing campaign is how you build and design your pins. The huge focus on aesthetics on this platform means you need to be on top of your game when it comes to this side of the platform. We know how intimidating creating any kind of visual content can be if you’re not a graphic designer by trade, but Pinterest doesn’t have to be as difficult a task as you might think. I’ll walk you through it.

Let’s start with covering the basics of pin design. Without having these fundamentals down, no matter how fancy your design skills are, your marketing is going to fall flat.

Dimensions

Each of your pins should be vertical images, and according to Pinterest themselves, the ideal dimensions are 600×900, or any 2:3 ratio image

Image Style

Images that are high quality, light, and surprisingly, without faces receive more repins on average than others

Plain Image vs. Text

Depending on your target market and brand style, you may want to include text on your pins instead of just plain images. Both are viable options on Pinterest, and choosing which one to use should depend on your audience.

Of course, when it comes to design, there are a million and one ways you can go to make your pins stand out. From cool fonts to striking imagery, your pins are your chance to express your brand, so don’t be afraid to go a little wild.

Before We Wrap Up, I’ll Share Some Pin Design Ideas

When appearance really is everything, you need to be spending time designing the perfect graphics for your pins. So, for those who aren’t exactly the visual content type, let me show you some of the different ways you can go when building your own Pinterest designs.

Image only

If you have the ability to stage and capture stunning photographs or have an entirely visual product, then image only pins can be the best thing for you. People use the platform to create dream collections, so having high-quality images they can swoon over is perfect. Just remember to avoid including any faces, and keep your images as bright as possible for maximum impact.

Text over image

If you’re using pins to help promote blog posts or special offers on your site, then including a text overlay on your image is the perfect way to go. Having titles like the ones above on your pins helps to inform viewers exactly what they will see when they click through to your site.

Just make sure that your text is as easy to read as possible. The best way to do this is to place a solid shape underneath it so that it’s not affected by your background image. Also, take some time to experiment with fonts and see which styles and sizes are easiest to read both on a desktop and mobile view.

Infographic

One of the most popular forms of pin design is the infographic. These images educate and inform the viewer, allowing them to complete a project or plan a trip with added ease. People love to share images like these for future reference so can work as continual traffic for your site.

You have so much freedom with your design choices here as well, you don’t need to stick to the usual cookie-cutter style of infographic. If you take a look at the examples above, they all work in different ways, with very different styles. You can tailor yours to your audience and brand.

Rich Pins

If you’re linking your Pinterest strategy to a product, article, or recipe on your site then you need to be using rich pins. These special kinds of pins show more information on your pins to help inform viewers about what you have to offer. Not only do they look better than regular pins, but Pinterest will also sometimes amplify the reach of these pins so even more people will see your great content.

To make rich pins, you need to apply through Pinterest – this is entirely free to do, so every account can take advantage. Once your site has been approved, every pin you create, with the necessary data, will be shown as a rich pin.

Final Tips for Making Pinterest Work for Your Business

As with any social media site, the way the general public uses Pinterest, and the way businesses use it differ greatly. You can’t simply expect to put up a few boards, pin a few images to them, and suddenly attract loads of web traffic. You have to do things differently to get the best results.

Add Pinterest Save Buttons to Your Site

You want to be sure that it’s not just you pinning your content on the site. You want your followers, customers, and potential leads to be doing it as well. The best way to this, is to make it as easy as possible for them to share your content. By including a pin button on your site, you can increase the amount of content pinned from your site by up to 5x as much.

You can install permanent pin buttons to each image, or use hover buttons that only appear when a user moves the cursor over an image. The latter can often look cleaner and allow your pictures to maintain their visual integrity. But, by having a permanent button, you’re making it easier and more obvious for users to take advantage of the option.

Pin Consistently

Dumping all of your pins in one go is not recommended. Instead, you should aim to pin at least once a day, ideally in the evenings or at weekends if you’re working with the U.S. market. Spread your pinning throughout the day and week to help keep a consistent schedule going. As with any marketing – consistency really is key.

Plan Ahead for Holidays

When it comes to holidays or special event marketing, plan to start pinning around 45 days in advance. This gives your pins time to get traveling around the site and attract more attention.

Make Your Pins Accessible

For many of us, it’s easy to forget that not everyone who uses social media can consume the content in the same way as us. Pinterest is a highly visual platform, so this can be severely limiting for those with visual disabilities. There are ways you can make your content more accessible, helping to expand your audience even further.

For instance, if someone needs to use screen readers to access visual content online, text over images won’t register as text to them. This means that you need to incorporate proper pin descriptions to really make your pins work for you. Also, make sure that any fonts you choose to use are as clear and easy to read as possible. Finally, don’t forget to be conscious of your color choices. If you take the time to use color contrast ratios, not only will it make your content easier to read, it will also make it look more appealing in terms of design.

Promote Your Pins

If you have a marketing budget for social media, you should definitely consider plugging some of that cash into a Pinterest strategy. There are two different options when it comes to spending money on marketing your pins – promoted pins and shoppable pins.

Promoted pins work in pretty much the same way as promoted posts on any other network. You pay money to have Pinterest show your pin to people who you select through targeting. How many people see it will depend on your ad budget. They identify these posts with a small “promoted” button on the bottom of your image, and viewers can select that button to see more information about who promoted it.

The difference with using these promoted pins on Pinterest though, is that once a user pins your pin to their board, they begin to act like organic pins. This is why promoting on Pinterest can really help your budget travel further. In fact, according to Pinterest, brands who launch ad campaigns on the platform received an average of 20% more organic clicks.

Promote Your Pins

These pins are ideal for when you have multiple items to promote in each image. They appear pretty similar to promoted pins, but they have little dots over each product that you can click through and buy.

Pinterest recommends that you include between 4-6 buyable items in each pin to get the best results. Each link should go directly to the object when possible to make it easier for users to engage with.

It pretty much goes without saying, but these pins are optimized for generating sales, so if brand awareness is your goal, you’d be better sticking with the traditional promoted pins.

TL; DR – Pinterest is Effective AF

Pinterest is one of those great online tools that you can really get results from, even without spending a dime. It is still extremely underused by many businesses, so now really is the time to capitalize on the opportunity and get ahead of your competition.

Pinterest is visual discovery platform where users go to dream, get inspired, and perhaps most important to brands… users use Pinterest to plan purchases. More than half of active users open their apps in the store to use as a shopping list.

When it comes to your Pinterest marketing strategy, you can’t really phone it in. The returns will be better if you can get in there and do the work. Spend the time nailing your Pinterest marketing strategy. Design great-looking pins, schedule them out across the week, and build your boards around the best keywords for your brand. Do all this, and you’ll be winning.

Images can be powerful communicators. They have the capacity to evoke emotion, convey a message, and tell an emotional story… which is why images are integral to your digital marketing strategies.

More than just prettying-up your posts and emails, images elicit emotions. You can use them to strategically put your followers, readers, and visitors in certain states of mind, to push them toward certain actions, whether it’s downloading a content offer or purchasing one of your newest products. You can even use images to tell your brand’s story.

While it’s true that images can be a driving force in digital marketing, you have to know how to use them if you want to maximize their power.

In this post, we’re going to run down a list of ways to put your images to work for you ESPECIALLY if you’re paying for stock photos or partnering with an influencer to create UGC for your social feeds.

A Few Expert Tips for Using Images in Emails and Across Social

#1 Correctly Format Images for Social Media

Social networks like Facebook and Instagram are awesome platforms for showcasing your brand with visual content. To get the most mileage with your visual content, it’s important to upload that are formatted correctly for the platform you’re using.

Here are the recommended upload sizes of the different images seen on Facebook.

FACEBOOK

• Cover photos – 800 x 312 pixels

• Profile photos – 180 x 180 pixels (although the maximum display area is 160 x 160 pixels)

• Shared images – 1200 x 630 pixels

• Shared links – 1200 x 628 pixels

• Event photos – 1920 x 1080 pixels (with a (16:9 aspect ratio)

Meanwhile, Instagram recommends these image sizes.

INSTAGRAM

• Profile photos (1:1 aspect ratio) – 180 x 180 pixels

• Feed photos – 1080 x 1080 pixels

• Thumbnails (1:1 aspect ratio) – 1080 x 1080 pixels (Instagram automatically crops photos with higher aspect ratios)

Now, when it comes to choosing the right image size for email, things get a little trickier. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t always make for great formatting.

Take a look at this above-the-fold screenshot of KeVita’s home page (with my screen zoomed to 90%) compared with the way KeVita’s home page shows up on an LG with a 6.2-inch screen.

Source: KeVita.com

To get the best results for using images in emails, just keep in mind that most desktop devices today have a resolution higher than 1024 x 768 pixels.

But more than half of email opens occur on mobile…

So, you also have to consider how your images scale for mobile devices.

#2 Make Your Images Contextually Relevant

Regardless of the kind of campaign you’re running – whether it’s asking your audience to help you support a worthy cause, informing customers of updates in your business, or promoting a new product – it’s important to choose images that fit the overall context of your message. In essence, the image you use has to be related to your specific campaign.

Let’s say you want to promote your restaurant’s new menu. If your goal is to entice customers in to take a look at this menu, a good way to do that is to include in any emails you send to subscribers a grid of high-resolution pictures that best represent the appeal of your new menu items.

If you’re announcing the new menu lineup on social media, you could run an influencer campaign that features pictures of a handful of local micro influencers enjoying some of those new menu items at your restaurant, OR just post great-looking pictures of the new menu options. #foodporn

Uhh… is that fancy ramen or is that fancy ramen? Source: The Flatiron on Instagram

Of course, you dont’ want to use pictures of food that aren’t on your menu. You probably know what it’s like to go into a store to buy something the store advertised only to find out the product is sold out. Or worse, that the store never actually had it.

Don’t be that guy.

The takeaway here is a time-tested marketing tactic is to show a product in action. A great picture can help you do that.

#3 Use High-Quality Images That Support Your Brand Story

For your audience to fully appreciate the beauty of your images, you have to get great-looking photos. Not only should they be high-quality images, but it’s also a good idea to let your images tell your story.

We included Kate and Jade’s Instagram feed (@panaceas_pantry) in a recent roundup of health food influencers, and one of the things that was pretty cool about that feed (other than the high-quality food photography) is that their overall feed had purple threaded all through it.

What comes to mind when you see purple food? Probably sweets? Rich, indulgent, decadent flavors.  A really smart idea for a feed that’s full of healthy vegan desserts and treats.

Source: on Instagram @panaceas_pantry

People spend way too much time looking at screens to want to see anything blurry. Trust us when you say, you’re going to IMMEDIATELY lose your audience if they’re having to fight to make sense of your picture.

Low-quality images are just going to turn your customers off, causing them to unfollow you on social media or unsubscribe from your newsletters.

#4 Use Pictures of Faces. We Just LOVE Pictures of Faces!

If you’re trying to drum up engagement, nothing trumps featuring people – and specifically faces – in your post. We love looking at one another.  According to a study of more than one million photos on Instagram, images containing human faces received 38 percent more “Likes” than those without. Furthermore, the images with faces were 32 percent more likely to get comments from viewers.

If you use Instagram and have liked or followed an style-related accounts, the chances are pretty good that you have seen the Shapermint ads. Most of the ads are content from Shapermint users. They video quality isn’t always great, but they are always high-impact, in large part because they feature videos of regular women.

The data gathered in the study may have been isolated to just Instagram, but the logic applies to other social media platforms and even email as well. This is because email and social media share a common goal: to drive engagement with audiences.

So if you want to engage with your followers or subscribers, make it a point to use images with human faces.

#5 Personalize Your Images So They Resonate with Your Audience

Stock photos are everywhere in the marketing world. But you don’t really HAVE to use stock images just for the sake of having an image, especially if your stock image options suck or are outdated.

Hey, folks… stock images can get outdated! Images communicate messages, and the conversations going on in the business world 10 years ago are very different from the ones going on in the business world right now. SO stock images have an expiration date.

Remember these kinds of stock business photos? This one has been optimized for the search terms “Men employees suit work greeting” …

: /

Stock photos are only as effective as their ability to “speak” to your audience. And the only message I’m getting from that picture above is “stock photo”. But, if you just search a little longer…

…. Work pictures like this one from the LinkedIn Sales Navigator look a little different, a little more interesting, a little more relatable, a little more current.

Personalizing images like these can make them more relevant to your audience. Doing so not only helps humanize your content, but it also makes your customers feel like you’re talking directly to them.

By “personalizing”, we mean basing your image choice on the type of subscriber data you have.

For instance, if you run a travel and hospitality website, you can survey your most frequent customers and ask them which places they’d like to visit next. You can then send them images of those places the next time you send them offers.

#6 Add Alt text to Your Images to Support Your SEO Efforts

Images can and should be optimized. Google image searches account for one-third of all Google searches. That’s 1.1 billion image searches a day. Just on Google.

So, using alt tags to optimize your images can go a long way toward helping your content, brand, and products get found online.  Not only that, but it’s important in email marketing as well. Images in your email can be blocked by certain email clients. Including alt text in your images solves this problem, because it provides context for the image.

You’ve seen these little gray boxes in your email, I’m sure.

If a subscriber’s email client blocks images, using alt text to describe what your images are will encourage the subscriber to turn off image blocking. This enables them to see your images and have a more positive experience reading your emails.

(Source)

Regardless of what email service provider (ESP) or content management system (CMS) you use, adding alt text to images is pretty straightforward. Just look for the “Alt text” or “Add alt text” on the platform you’re using, and type in the appropriate alt text. Simple, isn’t it?

Wrap Up

No matter what digital marketing campaign you’re running, images are an important part of it. By using high-quality, relevant, and well-positioned images, you can improve engagement with your audience, encourage social sharing, and even boost your revenue.

Follow these tips, and leverage the power of your images.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kaitlin Westbrook is a Content Specialist at Campaign Monitor. She is also a film aficionado and has written several screenplays.

How To Do Blogger Outreach, From A Blogger’s Perspective

Updated May 2019

When it comes to influencer marketing campaigns, blogger outreach is the first (and most important) step, but it can also be the trickiest to navigate. If you’re taking your blogger campaigns seriously, you’ll likely be vetting and reaching out to a ton of bloggers. And since finding the right ones to work with will make or break your campaign, you’ll want to master the art of blogger outreach right from the get-go.

As a blogger myself, I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of blogger outreach. While some brands and agencies do a wonderful job of communicating, others blast full speed ahead without really thinking about it. Copy, paste. Copy, paste. Copy, paste. Most bloggers see right through this so, I don’t recommend this quick and dirty strategy. It just won’t garner the responses you’re after.

If you’re guilty of blasting every blogger with a cold, templated email, it’s time for a new approach…and I want to help you. Let’s dig a little deeper and see what the good, the bad and the ugly look like…and how you can master the art of blogger outreach and win bloggers over, pronto!

Just to give you a little context, my name is Sabrina, and I’m the blogger behind StreetScout.Me, a Vancouver-based street style and fashion blog.  I’ve seen all kinds of pitches from brands and PR agencies come through my inbox: some really awesome ones and some not so good ones. I’d love to pass this knowledge onto you so that you can have raving success with your own blogger outreach!  

The Good (Use This Template)

First, let’s review an outreach email that really caught my attention. It was personalized and to the point, plus it included all of the necessary elements for me to understand what the brand was looking for.

The Bad (Don’t Even Think About Using This Template)

Here’s an example that was not down-right terrible, but it lacked personalization, which is key when you’re communicating with bloggers. Most receive too many pitches to spend time reviewing the ones that lack personalization.

The Ugly (You Call Yourself a Template?)

This one was just terrible. When emails sound cold like this, the response rate is going to be very low. No one likes a cold email.

Now, I COULD get into even uglier. I was once asked to come along for a horror book tour…so basically be a ‘groupie’ or as I like to call it a ‘bookie’. I’ll save that gem for another blog post though.

The main takeaway is that you should put yourself in the shoes of the blogger. Think about how you’d like to be approached and what type of email would catch your attention. And if that doesn’t help you enough…I recently stumbled across this super crazy-good roundup post that contained advice from 37 bloggers on how to do the most effective blogger outreach. And these 37 tips were actually whittled down to the very best (out of her original list of 300 bloggers originally approached about this)!

Tips for Cold Email Outreach to Recruit Bloggers for Your Campaign

Research

If you scan someone’s blog for even a few minutes you’ll get a good grasp of the topics they cover. Go through their navigation bar to see if you can identify categories, such as fashion, travel, food, lifestyle, or whatever it may be. Read at least a few blog posts to get a sense of the writing and style. Reference a previous blog post that you loved. If you can tie it back to your brand, great. If the blogger covers similar brands, she will most likely be interested in yours, so feel free to bring that up. For example:  “I saw that a number of your looks have a real vintage flair. I especially liked your last post about that Modcloth denim jacket. We have a number of items that would look great with that very jacket.”

Targeting

Blasting out every blogger on the planet won’t bring you the results you’re hoping to achieve. You’re better off using your time to properly vet the right bloggers to reach out to. While some bloggers might be interested despite the fact that your products don’t match her style, most will either turn you away or not respond at all if they don’t see a match. It’s always worthwhile to do a little research upfront so you don’t find yourself working with bloggers that have zero fit with your brand.

Personalization

Always address the blogger by her first name. If you don’t know it, you can usually find it on an About Us or Contact page. If it’s not there, click into a blog post and scroll down to the bottom. Look for either a bio or a signature. You also might find it at the top of the post where there’s usually a date and an author name. And if you still don’t have any luck, check her Instagram. Her name DOES exist somewhere online. However, if you want to avoid playing Where’s Waldo, our influencer marketing platform, The Shelf can really help you out! Our site does all the research for you so you never have to go on these wild goose chases while assembling your outreach spreadsheet.

Flattery

It goes a long way. Don’t be afraid to tell the blogger how much you LOVE her site…and why. This might sound a little cheesy but you chose that blogger out of the millions of bloggers out there, for a reason. What was that reason? Do you like her photo style? Do you like her personalized approach to writing for her readers? Do you like her personal style or outfit pairings? Do you like the posts where she includes her dog, kids or husband? You get the idea.You know why you chose that blogger, so just take a few more minutes to let her know the reason why!

Credibility

Bloggers get bombarded by pitches so it’s important to establish credibility right from the start and even provide a little backstory. For example, we’re the husband and wife duo behind [brand name]. We sell very high-end luxury goods that are sold online and at luxury retailers, such as Nordstrom and Holt Renfrew. Our handbags have been seen on high caliber bloggers, such as [insert names] and we think you’d really love our brand as well.

Clarity

Be clear on why you’re emailing the blogger and don’t make it difficult for the blogger to understand what you want from her or how she should even respond. If you want to be somewhat vague in your first email, that’s okay, but at least make it clear that you want to work together. Oftentimes pitch emails are way too vague or just lack a call to action all together.

For example, I once received a pitch from a PR agency that detailed how much they loved my blog and that I would love some of the brands that they represent. Unfortunately, there was no call to action beyond telling me they loved my blog. For this reason, it was very unclear if they wanted to collaborate, do a campaign, or perhaps gift me items. It would have been helpful if they included more info from the get-go.

Benefit 

How will this collaboration benefit the blogger, not just YOU. All too often brands and PR professionals go into great detail about how the blogger will help them raise awareness, add credibility to their brand or improve their ROI. But, have you taken the time to outline why this collaboration will benefit the blogger? What’s in it for her? Will you be sharing her sponsored content across your social channels, thus exposing her to a new audience? Will the collaboration add credibility to the blogger’s portfolio? It’s just like a job interview in the sense that if you’re pitching a collaboration you need to show the benefit to the blogger as well.

A/B Split Test

Once again, don’t just blast out the same email to every blogger. Test out two different subject lines to see what gets a higher open and/or response rate. You can track this with a tool like Yesware, or when using an outreach tool like ours!  Perhaps try one subject line that is super clear versus one that is more vague and intriguing. Once you’ve established which one works better, you can do an A/B split test on the message too. Do note, personalizing at least the opening paragraph of your email is ESSENTIAL.

Bonus Points

if you take the time to follow them on Twitter or Instagram and engage with their content. Get on their radar! This tactic can be used before and after you send your cold email.

Wrapping It Up

Through my own experience I’ve noticed a lot of brands and PR agencies blasting out a whole bunch of emails to see who bites. Power in numbers, right? Not exactly. The challenge is that this is much less targeted so the hit rate is also much lower. To that end, usually the bloggers that respond to cold, untargeted emails are not of the caliber that will help you grow your brand. I have blogger friends that receive 200+ emails a day. 200 A DAY! That’s a lot! So, with that said, you need to make sure your email is personalized and stands out among a sea of cold ones that they get every day. If you don’t give bloggers the time to personalize an email, they certainly won’t give you the time to respond to it either. Don’t underestimate how busy bloggers really are!

An addition thing to consider is what other variables might be affecting your outreach. Here’s a great infographic on ecommerce emails that walks through the ins-and-outs of what to tweak when it comes to email campaigns.

If you’re getting ready to get started with your blogger outreach, and you find yourself in need of some help, SCHEDULE a 30-MINUTE DEMO! Our site streamlines each part of influencer marketing. You’d start off with our search engine in order to find bloggers that mention brands that are similar to yours…or bloggers who mention your competitors…or bloggers who talk about certain terminology that is relevant to your brand (e.g. “vegan leather”). After that you can do all of your necessary research, followed by sending out your targeted emails.  We’ll give you info about what posts to mention within these emails so that you can really plow through your outreach in a quality and personalized way. And remember: don’t be afraid to work in a little flattery, so they know you’re interested in THEIR blog, not just any blog. This is so highly personalized that it not only makes the blogger feel great, but it also ensures you find the perfect bloggers for your campaigns.

What tactics have you found work well with blogger outreach? Let us know in the comments!

Download the Blogger Outreach PDF Checklist

If you’d like to download a PDF of the Blogger Outreach Checklist, just fill out the form below.

SCHEDULE A 30-MINUTE DEMO

Or click below to call

(212) 655-9879

Social media ROI. It’s one of the great mysteries of life for many brands and marketers. How the heck do you calculate the ROI of a single tweet? Or the ROI of using Instagram for your business over, say, Twitter? Or determine which platform brings in the most revenue for your company? Despite knowing how impactful social media can be, being able to quantify that value gets tricky.

Even the marketers who know they need to focus on this area are often held back by business-minded higher-ups who tell them that without clear evidence of ROI, they can’t invest money into a tactic they know works.

So, in this article, we’ll take a look at how you can measure, track, optimize, and understand social media ROI, and choose which platforms will bring the best results for your business.

What is Social Media ROI?

Let’s start with the basics. The return on investment (or ROI) for any campaign is a crucial metric to track for marketers. It lets you know what’s working and what’s not. If you’re pouring time and resources into a marketing strategy, you need to make sure that you’re getting the most out of it.

When it comes to social media marketing though, marketing teams often struggle to quantify the ROI of a campaign. This is because social media goals are not always based on revenue.

Much of time, social media marketing goals are focused on things like brand awareness, customer engagement, and website visits. These are not necessarily metrics that easily convert to ROI statistics. But, that doesn’t mean they aren’t important. If these are the kinds of goals you’re aiming for, you can still use them to measure your ROI on social media.

How to Measure ROI on Social Media

We’re working on a big post on goal-setting and ROI for social media (specifically influencer campaigns), so be looking for that in the next few days.

But just so we can get to the “which platforms” part of this article, I do want to run down a bit of the goal-setting and ROI info for you since something like 60 percent of marketers agree measuring ROI on social media is one of their biggest challenges.

Let’s take a look at some business goals, the cost of running campaigns, and the actual things that matter when it comes to social media ROI.

Count the costs of “doing” social media

We know what you lose by not investing in social media. But there are costs associated with even the day-to-day management of social media. Before you can calculate how effective your campaign has been, you need to have a clear picture of how much you have invested in your social media marketing. While posting to social media networks, in general, is a free endeavor, there are other factors to consider as investments from your business.

TOOLS

If you’re investing money in scheduling tools, improved analytics, photo or video editing software, research tools, or anything else that helps you build your social media posts and strategy, these costs should be taken into consideration.

For instance, MeetEdgar is a social media scheduling tool. It keeps a virtual inventory of your social media content and automates the publication of your posts based on a post category schedule that you create provide.

So, for instance, every Wednesday, we have blogger roundups scheduled to go out to our networks on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Daily at 9AM, we publish blog posts from The Shelf Blog, and around 11AM, we share posts from some of our favorite blogs. Every day. Without fail.

So, if you’re not using third-party tools like MeetEdgar or Buffer (which we use as well) in your social media marketing, you should definitely check some out and consider them. The value they can bring to your marketing campaigns far outweighs the initial costs you must spend to get started (plus, most of them offer free trials to front-load value).

ADVERTISING COSTS

If you’re including things like boosted posts, PPC ads, or other paid advertising as part of your social media strategy (and you probably should be) these costs also need to be factored into your overall investment cost to calculate your ROI.

STAFF

Hiring designers to create marketing assets, specialists to create ad campaigns, influencers to promote your brand, or freelancers to help manage your presence on social media are all great ways to improve your marketing. But they all come with a cost, and this cost will impact your ROI.

TIME

The one resource you can’t replace… time. If you and your team spend 20 hours a week managing Facebook, but only 10 hours a week managing LinkedIn, each platform will have a different investment amount to include.

There’s a monthly subscription fee for MeetEdgar… but the tool literally saves us about 10 hours a week of social media scheduling time… or something like $200 to $300 a week just in scheduling and curating our social media feeds.

Add all of these costs together and you’ll have your total investment for social media.

Set goals and objectives for each campaign

Goal setting is an important part of any marketing campaign. Without setting clear goals early on in your campaign, you’re setting yourself up for a frustrating cycle of wondering how well your efforts are working… and what they are actually doing for you.

Goal setting isn’t hard, but it does need to be practical. If you’re rolling out a new software system, having people click through to see or schedule a demo is a much better metric of how well a campaign is working than would be, say getting sales. Getting sales is important, but the reality is social media users aren’t on social to find a new piece of software. So, a legit win would be getting them to click through.

Yes, people are growing more and more comfortable with buying online, but many are buying as a result of the positive experiences they are having online with different brands. So, I’m definitely not saying that sales isn’t a solid goal to set. What I am saying is before focusing on converting customers, you need to focus on getting their attention long enough to sell them.

Here are some goals social media are great for:

BRAND AWARENESS

Brand awareness is probably one of the most important yet least understood of the SMM goals but increasing your brand’s awareness is the first step in every marketing / sales funnel. People have to see you to do business with you, so knowing how to effectively market your brand across social media helps spread the word about your company, team, culture, brand and product (because social media success is about way more than talking about your product).

In a brand awareness campaign, reach becomes really important. So, if you’re going to partner with influencers to announce a new product launch, a new store, the spring line… you want to target larger influencers because they will be able to reach the most people with the announcement.

A successful brand awareness campaign will result in greater visibility, which will lead to more brand mentions, engagement, more followers, and more people sharing your posts with the people in their own networks.

For its Spring 2017 marketing push, Donald J Pliner launched the #ArtofFun campaign on social media to get eyes on its inventory of edgy mid-priced shoes. This was a brand awareness campaign, meaning DJP wanted to get the word out to as many potential customers (not just random people) as possible about its shoes.

So, we (The Shelf worked on this particular campaign) enlisted a set of confident, fashion-forward Millennial macro-influencers who had the influence, the follower numbers, and the engagement needed to help Donald J Pliner get the attention of people who were most likely to “get” DJP’s vibe and want to get in on the extra-ordinariness. These were people who invested in their shoe game.

The campaign produced some really great posts. They were colorful, creative, stylish, and a bit out of step with the typical Instagram posts you see.

UGC AND CREATIVE ASSETS

We’ve done several posts on the topic of user-generated content…

The benefits of UGC

How to drive sales with UGC

How to get amazing UGC in your campaigns

Examples of cool UGC campaigns

Getting the rights to sponsored content

That’s because user-generated content – the posts created by users that get published to different platforms – are the lifeblood of social media and influencer marketing.

For brands, UGC is a powerful word-of-mouth endorsement from key opinion leaders of targeted demographic segments. When presented in the right way, UGC carries more sway than any other type of branded or brand-owned content.

So, we get lots of clients that are looking to get loads of UGC from their influencer campaigns that they can reuse across their own branded social media feeds, in paid ads. Basically, they can use UGC as a creative asset in any way they see fit.

You may not immediately recognize the name Alex Brands… but you know the company’s products. Alex Brands sells some of the most well-known brands in the toy market, like the Slinky and Hot Wheelz bikes for kids. There’s even a National Slinky Day at the end of summer.

Until recently, the company’s primary method of distribution and their way to get new products into new markets was through Toy R Us stores. In early 2018, their #AlexBrandsPlays social media campaign was all about boosting visibility by having kid influencers create tons of UGC Alex Brands could use on their own branded social channels.

Source: on Instagram

ENGAGEMENT

Speaking of engagement, this is another popular goal for social media marketing. This goal is focused on encouraging your customers and followers to interact with your brand online. This can take the form of liking, commenting, sharing, messaging, or tagging you across social media platforms.

This is a great goal for brands who are focused on a slightly younger audience, as brands appearing authentic and “human” online is a big deal for them.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

With younger audiences fast becoming the majority of spenders across the board, having top notch customer service online is no longer simply an option for brands. Platforms like Twitter are perfect platforms for quick responses and public discussions that show how much you value your customers.

Measuring this can take the form of response times, response rates, and the resolution of problems via social media.

Which Social Media Networks Will Deliver the Best ROI for My Campaign?

The real reason you’re reading this is to determine which social media networks provide the greatest ROI, right? So let’s dive into some platform-specific analysis to see where your business or brand can get the most bang for your buck.

I do feel like we need to reiterate that interpreting the results of any social media campaign always goes back to the goals you set. Your goals also determine which social media platforms you use to accomplish your goals. while one platform may bring in amazing results for one brand, it may not do the same for you if your goals do not align.

For this reason, we’ve organized the top social media networks by the goals they are most likely to help you reach.

Facebook

For Brand Awareness

With over 2 billion users, Facebook is the largest social media network in the world. So, it is highly likely that your target audience is spending time here. Facebook can be a great platform for those who have placed brand awareness as their number one goal on social media.

Facebook’s algorithm shifted in 2018 to favor personal content over posts by business pages, and this definitely put a thorn in marketers’ sides as their reach was slashed. But, a shining light came in the form of Facebook groups and the platform’s new feature that allows pages to post in groups, just like individual accounts.

If you’re leaning toward paid ads on Facebook, “Brand Awareness” is also a campaign goal that you can access in the dashboard of your Facebook ads manager. You can choose ad recall as a goal, you’re working towards “Ad Recall” to ensure people remember seeing your ad two days later. Marketing is about more than just reaching lots of people; it’s also about sticking in those people’s minds.

If you have money to spend on advertising on Facebook, you’re going to see even better results. According to research by the social media scheduling tool Buffer, Facebook ads can bring in some pretty great ROI. Their experiment saw the average price on Facebook for a thousand impressions was $0.59, compared with $3.50 on Twitter – a big difference.

For Building Community

Facebook is also a great platform for building a branded or industry-specific group. And if you do that, you’re in luck because Facebook favors group posts more than anything else right now. A Facebook group will enable you to get your content in front of a group of people who have already demonstrated an interest in your content.

Brands can also join and participate in groups as a business page, so social media managers don’t have to worry about their personal brands being overshadowed by their professional brands on Facebook. They can remain separate.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the home of professionals on social media. There are 40 million decision makers on the platform, so it’s the place to be if you want to establish yourself as a knowledgeable professional, do targeted B2B marketing, and attract new clients to your business.

For Establishing Authority

LinkedIn is the place professionals go to connect with, talk to, and hear from other professionals. For brands, LinkedIn presents a moderately captive audience who is checking in for one reason and one reason only – to find professional opportunities. Those opportunities could be sharing an interesting post they read, sharing an idea they want to spread, sharing information about their company and culture…

All these little bits of information will come together nicely to help people establish credibility and build authority in their specific area of expertise.

For Website Traffic

Let me share some really interesting stats I found at Omnicore.com.

Of the 500 million LinkedIn users, 3 million of them share content weekly and 1 million users actually create articles for LinkedIn. But here’s the thing: 91 percent of marketing executives peg LinkedIn as the best place to find quality content. It is currently THE #1 platform B2B marketers use to distribute content and LinkedIn makes up half the traffic to B2B websites.

For Generating Leads

LinkedIn leads the pack when it comes to using social media marketing to generate B2B leads. LinkedIn accounts for 80 percent of B2B lead generation while Twitter and Facebook account for the other 20 percent.

Sponsored InMail allows users to inbox personalized messages to other users, whether regardless of whether there is an existing connection on the platform.

Brands use Sponsored InMail to facilitate trust with new potential leads, send out invites to webinars or in-person events, or to pitch their services to business owners.

InMail isn’t the only advertising option at your fingertips though, LinkedIn offers a range of different ways to reach new customers.

Sponsored Content – In the same way you can on Facebook, you can plug some investment into existing posts you’ve sent out from your company page to help them reach more people. This should be reserved for your best performing posts.

Display Ads – These appear in people’s LinkedIn feeds just like Facebook Ads. You can use text, images, and video to attract people’s attention.

Dynamic Ads – Display ads on steroids. These are shown to people based on their activity, making them hyper-targeted compared to the usual fare.

It almost goes without saying that this platform is great for B2B brands, or those who have services that would benefit busy professionals. This is probably the most niche of all the social media networks, and not everyone will be able to benefit from advertising here. So, make sure you fit the LinkedIn mold before going forward with a campaign here.

Instagram

For Product Launches

Instagram is my absolute favorite platform for engaging and connecting with customers and influencers alike. It reached 1 billion users in 2018 and is only going to get bigger. Thanks to it’s visual nature, content on Instagram is much easier to digest and engage with as it require less concentration and shorter attention spans.

For Customer Engagement

Instagram gives you a number of ways to reach your audience on their platform – all of which encourage engagement and interaction. Because the site is accessed almost exclusively on mobile devices, it’s a place that is ever-present in many of our lives. The platform is key for engagement based goals as it brings in 10 times more engagement than Facebook does, despite not having as many active users.

Thanks to the “Explore” page and the power of hashtags, discoverability is much higher on Instagram than other social networks, which helps brands to connect with more people. This also means this can be a great platform for reach as well, but you’ll have a more limited demographic than you would on Facebook, which is why we positioned it in this way.

There are two ways to post on Instagram – in the main feed, and in your stories. Both offer different advantages, and both should be undertaken simultaneously for maximum impact. Unlike other platforms where engagement is limited to likes and comments, Instagram offers users a number of ways to interact with your content.

If you post to Instagram Stories, viewers can interact in the following ways:

• Swipe up – if you have a following of over 10k and are operating on a business account (which you should be), you can include a link in your story that viewers can access by simply swiping up. Other than this, the only way to include a clickable link is in your bio on your profile. This is an incredibly useful tool for businesses looking to drive web traffic through social.

• Questions – If there’s something in particular you want your followers to tell you about, then you can post a question on your story. With this feature, you’re actively encouraging engagement by giving your followers the chance to speak directly to you. You can then share their answers on subsequent stories to further increase their effectiveness.

• Polls – Polls on Stories are pretty self-explanatory. You pose a question to your followers with two possible answers and all your followers have to do is click one, and there’s your engagement.

Combine all of these with the usual options of liking, commenting and direct messaging, and you have a catalyst for huge levels of engagement that you just won’t find anywhere else on social media.

Twitter

The final of the big four is Twitter, and this is the place to be if you want to focus on customer service across social media. Thanks to the fast pace of the online world, we are no longer content to sit on hold for hours with customer service teams (not that we ever liked it in the first place), so businesses need to be able to respond quicker than ever.

For Talking with Existing Customers

That’s where Twitter comes in. The fastest-moving of all the social networks, it’s the ideal place to keep up with customer requests. Because it’s such a public way of dealing with customer requests, many people love to use this in the hopes of receiving a speedy and positive response, as they know that others will be watching.

This means you need to be quick off the mark, and prepared to help diffuse any situations as soon as possible. But, providing awesome customer service isn’t just limited to direct questions sent your way. Keeping your eye on brand mentions on the platform is another way to make sure your customers stay as happy as possible.

(https://twitter.com/unbounce/status/935567576423325696)

See how Unbounce responds to a brand mention to help their customer, as well as turn the situation around in their favor? This is the kind of quick thinking that helps keep your customer service in tip-top shape.

For Getting Clicks

So, this last one is really from our personal experience. On the word of Gary Vaynerchuk who said during a keynote or fireside chat or something last year that Twitter ads were under-priced, we leveraged the reach of Twitter to promote a downloadable guide to rolling out an influencer campaign ahead of last year’s holiday season.

The response was phenomenal. Within a span of about two weeks, we saw more than 1,000 downloads of the guide.

Here’s the thing though: Because we weren’t nearly as focused on list-building as we were on testing Twitter’s fire and getting the guide in people’s hands, the landing page for the guide gave visitors the option to opt-in or not. What I mean is they could download the guide and skip town for all we knew. Despite not NEEDING to opt-in in order to get the guide, about 1 in 10 did.

So, when it comes to promoting content to get clicks and traffic back to your site, Twitter is a really affordable way to go.

For Getting Shares

Whether you’re Marvel promoting the next Avengers movie or Daquan spreading the next great meme, your Twitter network is key. Because so much of your reach on Twitter comes from engaging with and sharing other users’ content, creating content specifically to grab the attention of your Twitter followers can help you grow your network and build your reputation in the process.

Final Word

We have to agree with those who claim that measuring ROI on social media really does differ from case to case, but having a firm grasp on your campaign goals is the first step in making sure you get the most out of your marketing.

By understanding our goals, you can understand where to place your efforts on social media. Social media is a great way to bring in customers, engage with your fans, and keep on top of customer service – if you do it right.