Paying per post or performance isn’t the only way to compensate an influencer for their time and efforts. Fortunately, influencer marketing is structured such that every collaboration can become a win-win scenario. Now, businesses can team up with influences to build an audience without running their wallets dry.
In this article, we’ll cover whether sponsor social influencer marketing posts work, which social media platforms are best to promote influencer posts, and seven ways small businesses can pay for social influencer marketing posts. In addition, we will also share how to find local micro-influencers, the benefits of influencer marketing, and how much it costs.
ARE SPONSORED MARKETING POSTS EFFECTIVE?
Sponsored marketing posts are not much different from an advertisement, yet doesn’t feel like one. Businesses pay influencers to fit their brand promotions into their content and market it to the audience through reviews and recommendations. In contrast to other marketing tactics, it is much more effective as it naturally promotes a product or service.
Per Linqia’s The State of Marketing Report (2020), 84% of digital marketers plans to launch an influencer marketing campaign, while 66% of marketers plan to raise the budget for influencer marketing campaigns. These stats indicate the recent change in trends in the digital world. Businesses prefer influencer marketing because it is more cost-effective and provides a high return-on-investments.
Naturally, sponsored marketing succeeds because it is a modern-day word-of-mouth promotion. A product preferred or recommended by a credible influencer helps change buying behaviors of their audience and drives sales.
However, the success rate of sponsored marketing posts also relies upon the chosen influencer and their audience. Selecting an influencer whose audience shares an interest in your product or service is a game-changer and can significantly boost your campaign’s success rate.
In numbers, promoting sponsored content from a credible publisher results in a 50% better brand lift than sharing content on your own.
WHICH SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM TO SPONSOR SOCIAL INFLUENCER MARKETING POSTS?
All top social platforms have influencers in abundance. The key is to select one that is apt for your niche and entails a big chunk of your target audience. Here are the four best social media platforms to promote influencer marketing posts:
Facebook
Undoubtedly, Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform and a breeding ground for influencers. Content creators and influencers on it can reach a much larger audience than Facebook’s own sponsored marketing campaigns.
Due to its algorithm, brands can market their products to people beyond influencers’ reach. Every like or share pushes the content in front of a whole new audience, helping the brand get maximum exposure.
Instagram
Next to Facebook lies Instagram. The image-based social site is another exceptional platform for influencer marketing posts. Nothing less than a powerhouse in the digital world. It is considered more fun and interactive than Facebook and offers better engagement.
Instagram entails millions of Gen Z and Gen Alpha users and is best for businesses and brands targeting a younger audience. As per recent stats, Instagram’s influencer marketing industry is worth over $1 billion. The main reason is that its user interface is more welcoming toward sponsored posts.
YouTube
Marketing a product or service requires putting a face to the voice. YouTube helps brands do exactly that. Videos work much better in boosting engagement. It is the reason why brands often work with YouTube influencers. The video-sharing platform helps brands share more information creatively, leading to more exposure and sales.
Though Twitter is less common than others, it is still popular among influencers. As per a recent survey, about 50% of Twitter users rely on influencers for product recommendations. Moreover, short tweets and concise posts make the influencer’s job easy. As a result, influencers on Twitter charge relatively less.
7 WAYS SMALL BUSINESSES SPONSOR SOCIAL INFLUENCER MARKETING POSTS
Businesses can pay social influencers in more than one way. All it needs is a little bit of market knowledge and creativity. Here are seven ways to sponsor social influencer marketing posts:
Gift-Only Collaborations
Gift-only collaboration is a cost-effective and fun way to partner with a social influencer, especially in the trial-and-error phase. Both brands and influencers need a little preview before heading into a long-term deal. A gift-only collaboration provides what the two need.
Gift-only collaborations don’t often work with macro and mega influencers. However, they are ideal for teaming up with micro-influencers who are searching for exposure and hunting for brands interested in signing up for the long run.
Trip Attendance or Comped Event
Trip attendance or comped events are perfect alternatives to cash payments. Rather than paying an influencer per post or performance, businesses can sponsor their trips to vacation destinations or provide them with a free pass to an event. Influencers travel to the location, live in a resort sponsored by a brand, or attend an event in return for promoting it online.
This form of promotion is ideal for travel businesses or brands in the hospitality industry. It enables them to market their resort, event, or service without incurring additional costs.
User-generated content is among the most credible ways to market a product. An influencer applying or wearing your product creates a buzz unlike anything else. While planning a social calendar for your brand, paying influencers licensing fees for UGC is a time-tested ploy to increase awareness.
Businesses can license UGC through common influencer partnership platforms or by using a third-party platform. The license fee is to give you the go-ahead to use the content on your website or social media to build credibility and market your product.
Store Credits
Sponsoring an influencer through store credits is similar to sharing gifts in return for promotion. However, store credits are even better than gifts. How? In most cases, influencers must disclose their partnership with a brand with #gifting or #ad. However, the conditions seldom apply to store credits.
Like gifts, store credits work primarily with micro-influencers and small businesses. Most mega or macro influencers do not accept a store credit from a big brand with the capacity to pay for the promotion.
Pay Per Post Promotions
Unlike common beliefs, pay-per-post is not only a valid promotional tactic when working with mega influencers and celebrities. Small businesses can also promote their product or service through pay-per-post promotions. In reality, it is one of the cheapest ways to market online. Given you choose the right platform.
In 2021, $25 was the average cost per post for 1,000 followers. YouTube comes second with an average of $20 per video for 1,000 subscribers. Instagram comes at number three with a price of $10 per post, and Twitter is by far the cheapest costing only $2 per post for 1,000 followers.
In contrast to number 5, this sponsorship tactic rewards results. Here, influencers don’t get any money merely by promoting the product. Instead, they get a percentage each time someone buys the product through their post.
In this type of partnership, the result is not necessarily a purchase. A business can also strike a deal for reservations booked, accounts created, newsletters signed up, content downloaded, inquiries raised, and subscriptions made.
Performance + Fixed Rate Sponsorship
This tactic enables businesses to team up with prominent influencers. Number five and number six tactics are less appealing individually. In tandem, they become a win-win for both parties. The influencer gets a little share for promoting the product and a percentage share for results.
As for businesses, the ploy helps them spend less upfront than pay-per-post campaigns and work with influencers who are not interested in collaborating solely on performance-based campaigns.
HOW TO FIND LOCAL MICRO-INFLUENCERS?
Finding local micro-influencers gets easy if you know how. Here are four easy tricks to search for the best influencers online:
Examine Your Followers
Chances are you may already have a few local influencers among your followers. People who have eyes set on your brand and already working with brands like yours. Hunt them down and lure them into sponsoring your product through one of the seven ways described above.
Use Third-Party Tools
If you cannot find a suitable influencer among your followers, try using third-party tools. Tools like BuzzSumo, Klear, and FollowersWonk also work well in finding influencers near you.
Connect with Bloggers
Bloggers are a kind of influencer, and other influencers read what bloggers post. Chances are they know people who share expertise in marketing your product or service. Use local blogs to raise awareness about your product and attract influencers to you.
Use Hashtag Research
Finding a local influencer is not beyond your capacity. At times, a simple hashtag search is all you need to hunt down local influencers. Conduct research through Instagram and Twitter and pick influencers who use similar hashtags, as the chances are their interests align with yours.
BENEFITS OF USING INFLUENCER MARKETING TO MARKET SMALL BUSINESSES
Influencer marketing is a time-tested promotion tactic for small, medium, and large businesses. From tons of different options, you can pick an influencer that perfectly represents your brand voice and values. Teaming up with a public figure brings about a lot of incredible parks. Here are seven benefits of using influencer marketing to market small businesses:
Influencer prices depend upon multiple factors like the platform they use, the type of post, and the number of followers. On average, Nano influencers with less than 10K followers charge anything between $10 to $200. In contrast, micro-influencers with followers between 10K to 50K charge between $1K to $2k per post.
As for commissions applicable for performance-based campaigns, an influencer may request anything between 5% to 30%. Again, the rate depends upon the factors described above.
WRAP UP
As described in this article, there is no shortage of ways to sponsor social influencer marketing posts. Even for small businesses short on cash, there are multiple ways to strike fruitful partnerships with influencers on social platforms. As these collaborations often bring gain to both parties striking an accord is relatively easy. To learn how to collaborate with influencers like a pro, read How To Make Influencer Collaborations Effective and Successful For Your Brand.
Karina Gandola was born and raised outside the city of Charleston, in the beautiful mountain state of West Virginia. Karina loves writing about the influencer marketing space and an area she is passionate about. She considers her faith and family to be most important to her. If she isn’t spending time with her friends and family, you can almost always find her around her sweet yellow Labrador retriever, Poshna.
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Paying per post or performance isn’t the only way to compensate an influencer for their time and efforts. Fortunately, influencer marketing is structured such that every collaboration can become a win-win scenario. Now, businesses can team up with influences to build an audience without running their wallets dry.
In this article, we’ll cover whether sponsor social influencer marketing posts work, which social media platforms are best to promote influencer posts, and seven ways small businesses can pay for social influencer marketing posts. In addition, we will also share how to find local micro-influencers, the benefits of influencer marketing, and how much it costs.
ARE SPONSORED MARKETING POSTS EFFECTIVE?
Sponsored marketing posts are not much different from an advertisement, yet doesn’t feel like one. Businesses pay influencers to fit their brand promotions into their content and market it to the audience through reviews and recommendations. In contrast to other marketing tactics, it is much more effective as it naturally promotes a product or service.
Per Linqia’s The State of Marketing Report (2020), 84% of digital marketers plans to launch an influencer marketing campaign, while 66% of marketers plan to raise the budget for influencer marketing campaigns. These stats indicate the recent change in trends in the digital world. Businesses prefer influencer marketing because it is more cost-effective and provides a high return-on-investments.
[Unsplash]
Naturally, sponsored marketing succeeds because it is a modern-day word-of-mouth promotion. A product preferred or recommended by a credible influencer helps change buying behaviors of their audience and drives sales.
However, the success rate of sponsored marketing posts also relies upon the chosen influencer and their audience. Selecting an influencer whose audience shares an interest in your product or service is a game-changer and can significantly boost your campaign’s success rate.
In numbers, promoting sponsored content from a credible publisher results in a 50% better brand lift than sharing content on your own.
WHICH SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM TO SPONSOR SOCIAL INFLUENCER MARKETING POSTS?
All top social platforms have influencers in abundance. The key is to select one that is apt for your niche and entails a big chunk of your target audience. Here are the four best social media platforms to promote influencer marketing posts:
Facebook
Undoubtedly, Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform and a breeding ground for influencers. Content creators and influencers on it can reach a much larger audience than Facebook’s own sponsored marketing campaigns.
Due to its algorithm, brands can market their products to people beyond influencers’ reach. Every like or share pushes the content in front of a whole new audience, helping the brand get maximum exposure.
Instagram
Next to Facebook lies Instagram. The image-based social site is another exceptional platform for influencer marketing posts. Nothing less than a powerhouse in the digital world. It is considered more fun and interactive than Facebook and offers better engagement.
Instagram entails millions of Gen Z and Gen Alpha users and is best for businesses and brands targeting a younger audience. As per recent stats, Instagram’s influencer marketing industry is worth over $1 billion. The main reason is that its user interface is more welcoming toward sponsored posts.
YouTube
Marketing a product or service requires putting a face to the voice. YouTube helps brands do exactly that. Videos work much better in boosting engagement. It is the reason why brands often work with YouTube influencers. The video-sharing platform helps brands share more information creatively, leading to more exposure and sales.
[Unsplash]
Twitter
Though Twitter is less common than others, it is still popular among influencers. As per a recent survey, about 50% of Twitter users rely on influencers for product recommendations. Moreover, short tweets and concise posts make the influencer’s job easy. As a result, influencers on Twitter charge relatively less.
7 WAYS SMALL BUSINESSES SPONSOR SOCIAL INFLUENCER MARKETING POSTS
Businesses can pay social influencers in more than one way. All it needs is a little bit of market knowledge and creativity. Here are seven ways to sponsor social influencer marketing posts:
Gift-only collaboration is a cost-effective and fun way to partner with a social influencer, especially in the trial-and-error phase. Both brands and influencers need a little preview before heading into a long-term deal. A gift-only collaboration provides what the two need.
Gift-only collaborations don’t often work with macro and mega influencers. However, they are ideal for teaming up with micro-influencers who are searching for exposure and hunting for brands interested in signing up for the long run.
Trip attendance or comped events are perfect alternatives to cash payments. Rather than paying an influencer per post or performance, businesses can sponsor their trips to vacation destinations or provide them with a free pass to an event. Influencers travel to the location, live in a resort sponsored by a brand, or attend an event in return for promoting it online.
This form of promotion is ideal for travel businesses or brands in the hospitality industry. It enables them to market their resort, event, or service without incurring additional costs.
[Unsplash]
User-generated content is among the most credible ways to market a product. An influencer applying or wearing your product creates a buzz unlike anything else. While planning a social calendar for your brand, paying influencers licensing fees for UGC is a time-tested ploy to increase awareness.
Businesses can license UGC through common influencer partnership platforms or by using a third-party platform. The license fee is to give you the go-ahead to use the content on your website or social media to build credibility and market your product.
Sponsoring an influencer through store credits is similar to sharing gifts in return for promotion. However, store credits are even better than gifts. How? In most cases, influencers must disclose their partnership with a brand with #gifting or #ad. However, the conditions seldom apply to store credits.
Like gifts, store credits work primarily with micro-influencers and small businesses. Most mega or macro influencers do not accept a store credit from a big brand with the capacity to pay for the promotion.
Unlike common beliefs, pay-per-post is not only a valid promotional tactic when working with mega influencers and celebrities. Small businesses can also promote their product or service through pay-per-post promotions. In reality, it is one of the cheapest ways to market online. Given you choose the right platform.
In 2021, $25 was the average cost per post for 1,000 followers. YouTube comes second with an average of $20 per video for 1,000 subscribers. Instagram comes at number three with a price of $10 per post, and Twitter is by far the cheapest costing only $2 per post for 1,000 followers.
[Unsplash]
In contrast to number 5, this sponsorship tactic rewards results. Here, influencers don’t get any money merely by promoting the product. Instead, they get a percentage each time someone buys the product through their post.
In this type of partnership, the result is not necessarily a purchase. A business can also strike a deal for reservations booked, accounts created, newsletters signed up, content downloaded, inquiries raised, and subscriptions made.
This tactic enables businesses to team up with prominent influencers. Number five and number six tactics are less appealing individually. In tandem, they become a win-win for both parties. The influencer gets a little share for promoting the product and a percentage share for results.
As for businesses, the ploy helps them spend less upfront than pay-per-post campaigns and work with influencers who are not interested in collaborating solely on performance-based campaigns.
HOW TO FIND LOCAL MICRO-INFLUENCERS?
Finding local micro-influencers gets easy if you know how. Here are four easy tricks to search for the best influencers online:
Chances are you may already have a few local influencers among your followers. People who have eyes set on your brand and already working with brands like yours. Hunt them down and lure them into sponsoring your product through one of the seven ways described above.
If you cannot find a suitable influencer among your followers, try using third-party tools. Tools like BuzzSumo, Klear, and FollowersWonk also work well in finding influencers near you.
Bloggers are a kind of influencer, and other influencers read what bloggers post. Chances are they know people who share expertise in marketing your product or service. Use local blogs to raise awareness about your product and attract influencers to you.
Finding a local influencer is not beyond your capacity. At times, a simple hashtag search is all you need to hunt down local influencers. Conduct research through Instagram and Twitter and pick influencers who use similar hashtags, as the chances are their interests align with yours.
BENEFITS OF USING INFLUENCER MARKETING TO MARKET SMALL BUSINESSES
Influencer marketing is a time-tested promotion tactic for small, medium, and large businesses. From tons of different options, you can pick an influencer that perfectly represents your brand voice and values. Teaming up with a public figure brings about a lot of incredible parks. Here are seven benefits of using influencer marketing to market small businesses:
[Unsplash]
INFLUENCER COMMISSION RATES
Influencer prices depend upon multiple factors like the platform they use, the type of post, and the number of followers. On average, Nano influencers with less than 10K followers charge anything between $10 to $200. In contrast, micro-influencers with followers between 10K to 50K charge between $1K to $2k per post.
As for commissions applicable for performance-based campaigns, an influencer may request anything between 5% to 30%. Again, the rate depends upon the factors described above.
WRAP UP
As described in this article, there is no shortage of ways to sponsor social influencer marketing posts. Even for small businesses short on cash, there are multiple ways to strike fruitful partnerships with influencers on social platforms. As these collaborations often bring gain to both parties striking an accord is relatively easy.
To learn how to collaborate with influencers like a pro, read How To Make Influencer Collaborations Effective and Successful For Your Brand.