Digital Marketing | Social Media Marketing | Content Strategy and Marketing

Influencer Marketing is far more effective when brands adopt an 'Always on' approach.

The existing model of Influencer Marketing is creating little value for brands. It alienates brands from a very significant part of the influencer ecosystem- micro and peer level influencers.

What are the shortcomings in the current model of Influencer Marketing?

The key shortcomings are mentioned below:

1. Tip of the iceberg mindset.
We typically see brands investing in the top 100 influencers, alienating the primacy of ‘micro and peer level’ influencers.

2. The prevalent model is laboriously slow and recalcitrant when it comes to scaling.
Protracted content creation and prolonged approval cycles that go from content creator to agency, agency to marketing team and then feedback moving slowly back through the same channel goes against every acceptable norm of digital marketing that is built on scale, speed, agility and measurability.

3. The Big Black Box.
The current Influencer Marketing model is not entirely measurable. Reach and frequency are hinged on baseless assumptions. The current Influencer Marketing model is not 100% transparent making attribution a challenge.

4. Cost ineffective.
The current model is costly and is obstinate when it comes to scaling. The rack rates/ fixed fees offered to top influencers cannot be justified.

5. Bi-annual activity at best.
The prevalent model being costly, difficult to scale limits the scope of encouraging 'Always on Influencer Marketing'.

6. Inconsistency in brand messaging.
With each content creator having her/ his own creative manifestation of the brand narrative, managing message consistency becomes challenging.

Influencer Marketing Turning it on its head

The persuasion power of peer and micro level influencers is many times that of larger influencers. These individuals have a far greater influence, hold and sway over their community of fans-n-followers than mega influencers.

Approach to Influencer Marketing

Define the role of Influencer Marketing in your digital marketing roadmap? Lets look at a few reasons to invest in influencers:

Reach relevant audiences.
Association with a particular influencer and the values ascribed to this influencer for e.g. youthful irreverence, edgy and bold etc.
Brand Engagement.
Innovative content built around your brand or product proposition.
Frequency building.
Become a Trending topic.

We believe the two most important reasons to invest in Influencer Marketing are:

Reaching relevant audiences, who might be interested in your product or service.
Brand engagement.

Let's look at these two attributes:

Marketing in an age of precision targeting is a lot about reaching niche and relevant audiences who have an inclination to appreciate your product or brand proposition. What’s important, is that Influencer Marketing if planned and executed in the right way for the right reasons can help your brand reach these niche audiences.

Engagement is elusive: but that’s the raison d’etre for brands being on social media in the first place. This can more often be achieved off your brand page and on a less formal environ like that of an influencer’s handle. Micro influencer communities have a sense of belonging and tend to engage more.

Tapdance Digital Approach to Influencer Marketing

We believe that Influencer Marketing cannot be restricted to a once or twice a year activity and that it has to be 'Always on'.

Having several brand advocates or influencers talk about your brand all year round. These micro influencers engage relevant niche communities around your brand narrative.

The ability of your brand to reach such audiences at a controlled cost all year round, can become a sustainable competitive advantage for your brand.

We trust the power of the persuasive micro influencer, who does have sway over her/his community. The ability of such an influencer to get her/his fanbase to engage with your brand message is critical for any influencer program to work. In our model an influencer is being compensated for enabling active engagement i.e. clicks, which our platform tracks real time for you.

Influencer:

Picks a campaign of choice and liking.
Uses campaign assets and tweaks messaging a bit to add his/ her unique style.
Is compensated for clicks to a unique URL.

Marketplace Model:

Advertiser:

Uploads a brief on a specific campaign on the platform.
Uploads campaign assets.
Pays only cost per click for click throughs to website/ campaign landing page/ unique URL.