Influencer marketing is the best thing to happen to brands since the internet. It may seem like an exaggeration but the days of banner and on page ads are long gone. More than two hundred million people installed ad-blockers on their computer or mobile device over the past year in the U.S leaving brands to find more creative ways to get their message to their audiences. Influencer marketing saves the day by using popular niche social media users as content and brand promoters.
Marketing Automation For All
Everyone loves automation! With all of the small tasks required in an ongoing sales and marketing strategy we love the ability to set some things on autopilot. This works great for social media posting. You can curate and schedule content in batches. It does not work well for something as personalized as influencer marketing because:
- Each influencer has their own niche and restriction on what kinds of content they will produce or brands they will work with.
- A relationship with an influencer needs to be developed to ensure your request stands out from the rest. An influencer is less likely to sign on to you campaign if they don’t feel like you identify with them or fit into their brand. A custom introduction email is most effective.
- Social Media Platforms like snapchat and instagram are blocking programs like influencer marketing automation software from accessing their site.
Automating Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing automation software promises to take the leg work out of the process. They use software like program bots to crawl social media platforms and populate their database with influencer information. They provide subscribers with dashboards that allow them to find influencers in a particular niche, influencers they are courting, and the status of courtship. They also add email marketing with automated campaigns, template triggers and auto responders. This cuts down on time but also on personalization and ultimately campaign success.
Traditionally this process is handled by boutique agencies like LMS and social media firms with departments to broker the relationship between influencer and brand. Instead of scouring the internet for influencers yourself, these agencies would utilize their relationships and in house databases to develop a brand’s influencer marketing strategy from the ground up. This is still the most effective way.
Instagram Strikes Back
Instagram was caught up in a frenzy when they updated their logo. The icon change was only one part of the update that had users and brands on edge. Instagram changed the algorithm of the news feed from showing posts in order of time to some system with no clear rules. It’s really based on what they think you want to see. This prompted people hounding their followers to turn on post notifications. A change that slipped under the radar was to the API, aka the access to external apps and programs. As of June 1, 2016 all external apps/programs using instagram’s data or services had to change their MO to fit.
- Bots can no longer crawl the site to gather information about users.
- No app can copy or sync the instagram feed
- Apps like Gramfeed, Mixagram, Fastfeed and Padgram have all stopped working because they no longer have access to the API.
What Influencer Marketing Automation Companies Won’t Tell You
- Many of them use the same databases of influencers without having any established business relationship with the them.
- They don’t work with the influencers so it can be hard to figure out who is worth working with and who will accept product or fee without delivering.
- They provide software and leave you to learn influencer marketing, set up and manage your own campaigns.
Out with the new, in with the old?
Influencer marketing and tech automation is off to a rocky start. To get the benefits of the relationships influencers have with their followers it is best to develop relationships with them. This is something no software can ever achieve. You can’t automate natural interaction.
Other social media platforms will follow suit with Instagram. After all, they are owned by Facebook. No user wants their data trolled by outside apps or bots. I mean didn’t you see iRobot?
Check out LMS for a highly effective influencer marketing campaign all conducted by a team of people, not codes. We have developed personal connections with influencer that have led to millions of social media impressions, thousands of partnerships and hundreds of successful influencer marketing campaigns. We’ve done the hard work for you!
Let us develop and manage your next campaign!
Contact us for a free consultation.