The emergence of a global pandemic has led brands and companies to pause and evaluate their marketing strategies, from traditional advertising to influencer marketing. Now is the time to consult your digital marketing company and carefully assess where you will invest your marketing budget.
Social media usage among consumers has seen a sharp increase during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to data from Kantar, social media engagement “in later stages of the pandemic” increased by 61% compared to normal usage rates.
The use of video platforms is also steadily increasing, and we are seeing celebrities and brands taking advantage of Instagram Live to entertain and interact with their audience. In March alone, TikTok saw a 27% increase in downloads compared to February, with 6.2 million downloads.
During this unprecedented pandemic, trusted social media influencers remain a reliable source of information and an effective and authentic way to communicate with your audience. In the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: The Brands We Trust, we found that 63% of people aged 18 to 34 trust what an influencer says about a brand more than an advertisement. We also know that influencers gain trust, advocacy, and sales for brands.
However, influencer marketing is only the right path to take if your company is doing it for the right reasons and managing trustworthy influencers.
Working with reliable voices has always been important, but now it is critical. The decisions you make now will have long-term effects on your brand. In fact, 71% of respondents to the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer: Special Report on Brand Trust and the Coronavirus Pandemic agreed that brands and companies that are perceived to be putting profits ahead of people during this crisis will lose their trust forever.
So how do you know if defining a marketing strategy with a new influencer—or continuing with the existing one—in a world marked by Covid-19 is the right decision?
Is influencer marketing the right strategy for your company during the Covid-19 pandemic?
Before deciding to reallocate funds or withdraw marketing funds from influencers, consult with your team and your digital marketing agency on these difficult but important questions:
- What is the goal of my influencer marketing strategy (the proposed or current one)?
- How does my influencer marketing strategy solve a problem or add value for my target audience?
- Am I conveying information that will be perceived as valuable in the current scenario?
- If I were someone who has been deeply affected by this pandemic, how would I react to seeing this influencer campaign? Could it be perceived in any way as insensitive or opportunistic?
- How are we providing value to the community and our audience outside of influencer marketing? Are we donating meals, money, or time to help our community?
After deciding to move forward, make sure you have a good plan in place, with contingency measures for each stage.
How to execute an authentic influencer marketing strategy in the world of Covid-19
Audience integration
Take extra care to ensure you are choosing the right influencers and partners who identify with your brand’s voice and values, fit your budget, and reach your target audience on the right platforms. The wrong influencer can cause even the most inspiring campaigns to fail.
Ask yourself
who is the audience I am trying to reach? What do I want the audience to do when I reach them? What type of influencer makes the most sense for my campaign—micro-influencer, top-tier influencer, celebrity?
Intelligent vetting
We know that partnering with reliable influencers is more important now than ever. Ensure you are making a real impact on your target audience through intelligent vetting. Use influencer marketing tools and take the time to manually review potential influencers to evaluate and analyze metrics such as engagement, follower spikes, audience geography, comment quality, percentage of fake followers/likes, and social history for offensive content, competitive partnerships, and their approach to Covid-19.
Co-creation
Creating content is essential. Influencer content cannot be directed or created out of thin air by the influencer or brand alone. The most impactful influencer marketing campaigns will be the result of genuine collaboration between the brand and the influencer, resulting in compelling and engaging content that leaves a lasting impression on the target audience.
Real impact
Your influencer strategy is only as successful as your measurement plan. If you are not accurately analyzing or measuring your influencer campaign, there is no clear way to understand its impact. Spend time developing a measurement strategy, setting KPIs, to ensure that your influencer marketing strategy is generating the desired effect.
In addition to measuring traditional KPIs such as impressions, engagement, and link clicks, make sure you are analyzing audience sentiment in the context of Covid-19.
Influencer marketing plays a key role in your overall marketing strategy, but it requires careful strategy and planning based on specific goals in order to be cost-effective. As this situation continues to change, we must develop our work in real time to best respond to the ever-changing needs of our customers.
EDC is Edelman’s Affiliate Partner in Portugal. See the original Edelman news item here.
