The Price of Social Influence

As social media networks have increased in size and profits over the years, the value of a strong social media presence has also increased. Websites and communities, such as Influenster, have developed all which focus on using the power of trend setters with high social worth to promote brands.

When planning campaign, it's important to consider the power of social media influence. Reaching out to bloggers and vloggers with large followings can be extremely beneficial to your client's campaigns. Bloggers and vloggers, along with creating their followings, have also established a trusting community of consumers who trust and rely on the blogger/vlogger's opinions. There is definitely value in that kind of community, but how do you put a price on it?

Currently, the ball is largely in the court of the influences to determine the worth of their influence. Bloggers and vloggers can name their own ad rates, and most have a standard price for sponsored posts or content. But that doesn't mean that brands and their representatives don't have bargaining power in these situations.

Before investing money in social marketing, consider these factors:

Followers don't equal engagement. 
Engagement will always be worth more than the number of followers someone has. Rather than ask for a sheet of numbers, ask how many times a day the influencer is mentioned, retweeted, or shared on other platforms. These are the numbers that will make the money you invest worth it.

You need a system to measure ROI.
Tracking your website traffic or the number of social media followers you gain (or lose) are both great ways to tracking the return on investment of working with social influencers. Create a system that shows growth (or lack of growth) to help determine if the money spent was worth it and should be spent again.

Don't create greater competition.
Because social influencers are in such a high seat of power, there are many brands ready and willing to work with them. Before agreeing to become another one of these brands, do your research to see who they currently work with, or who they've worked with previously. Don't create a campaign that increases the competitive struggle by placing your posts or content alongside that of your competitors. Push for exclusivity.

Have you worked with social influencers to develop your campaigns before? What research did you do prior to creating the campaign?

The Power of Suggestion

Public relations professionals spend a lot of time studying their target audiences to figure out how to best appeal to its wants and needs. We conduct focus groups, send out surveys and engage them on social media to try to best tap into their heads, and meet them on their level. But now, markets are changing, and often the audience that you're targeting isn't looking for a word from you. More and more, we are seeing the trend of purchase or engagement by recommendation rather than self discovery.

Take, for example, websites like Luvocracy, which allows users to shop based solely off of recommendations by "taste-makers" that they trust. It cuts out the step of researching and analyzing what is being presented to you by allowing a friendly and familiar face do the hard work for you. Consumers today are still knowledgeable of buyer beware, but would rather spend their time enjoying their product rather than spending hours scouring the internet for reviews and descriptions.

The power of friendly suggestion cannot be denied as a major force when it comes to PR and marketing campaigns. As PR professionals, it is important to keep in mind that we are not the only ones influencing our target audience; other groups have much more access and influence than we do.While we may not be targeting these influencing groups, it is still important that we know what they are saying and HOW they are saying it. Leaving these groups un-monitored leaves us vulnerable to lose control over the image that we are shaping.

Knowing these groups is just as important as knowing our target audience. By studying how they get their information, you will be know how to reach them, and how to market your client or product!