Expert marketers recognize that influencer marketing is more than just paying someone with millions of followers to take a photo with your product. There are a lot of strategies, tools, examples and information out there to help marketers create smart, successful influencer marketing programs.
This article brings together a diverse list of top resources that will help you own influencer marketing like a boss for your brand.
1. Influencer Marketing in Real Life: Unlock Insights from 24 Top Brands
What do Salesforce, Oracle, and Microsoft have in common? Besides being among the major players in tech, these brands also practice influencer marketing—and have a strong opinion about it. That’s why we interviewed 24 top brand marketers and influencers to reveal real-life insights into achieving success, with regards to both sides of the influencer marketing coin.
2. The FTC and Influence Marketing: The Crackdown Begins
Influencer marketing through social media burst onto the scene a decade ago and has continued to grow in complexity and popularity since then. It has taken some time, but the FTC is catching up, and every marketer should take the time understand the new regulations. Although it is not the sexiest part of our jobs as marketers, it is a necessary one - you do not want be the cause of a fine or lawsuit. In addition to the article linked above, here are some things that brands and influencers can do to ensure they are complying with guidelines.
3. Influencer Marketing Failure: Why Paid Endorsements are Doomed
Find out what happens when influencer marketing goes terribly wrong. With some of the largest brands increasing their investment in the practice by 10x year-over-year, most marketers still lack the expertise to be effective. This article helps to dispel the myth that paid endorsements and influencer marketing are one in the same. Besides the fact that failure to disclose paid endorsements for influencers is illegal, learn seven reasons why deceitful paid endorsements are doomed for failure.
4. Plan Your Resources to Estimate Your Influencer Marketing ROI
In order to really kill the influencer marketing game, you must define your goals, determine what activities to prioritize and how to scale them throughout the year, and allocate your resources (e.g. staff, technology, and influencer spend). And, most importantly, you need to estimate your return on influencer marketing efforts. That’s why we created a framework to help you account for growth and estimate your potential ROI.
5. Understand the Influencer Marketing Technology Landscape
As your influencer marketing program grows and technology is needed to streamline processes, you will quickly realize how many different solutions there are in the market. This guide defines clear categories of solutions and the use cases and customer profiles that each is most suitable for.
6. Top Marketing Podcasts
Podcasts are a particularly entertaining and effective way to advance your marketing skills. Take a look at this list of top marketing podcasts for a diverse choice of shows including those focused around: conversations with CMO's, branding, leadership, influencer marketing, product design and content creation.
7. Master All-Things Influencer Marketing to Become an Expert
Understand influencer marketing and why it matters. By enrolling in the Academy of Influencer Marketing's first course, Setting Sail on an Influencer Marketing Program, you’ll learn to plan, build, execute, and measure an effective strategy. You’ll be equipped for total influencer marketing domination.
8. Seven Pillars of Solid Influencer Marketing Programs
Shonali Burke shares some guidelines on why the way brands structure influencer marketing programs is becoming increasingly critical for success. Shonali’s blog is full of meaty resources to help you become a better marketer, and this post really hits the nail on the head. This content covers how-to’s that address content collaboration, when to compensate influencers, and the basics of influencer communications.
9. Own Influencer Marketing: Don’t Let it Own You
In this Huffington post interview with Nicolas Chabot, VP EMEA of Traackr, you’ll learn how your brand can benefit from influencer marketing. Gain a better understanding of the full potential of influencer marketing, learn to elevate your own expertise with the practice, and know why influencers are the future drivers of consumer behavior.
10. Influencer Marketing: 10 Strategies for Getting it Right
Sujan Patel, Co-founder of ContentMarketer.io and contributor to the Marketing Insider Group blog, wants us to face the facts: influencer marketing is not that easy. Getting the most out of influencer marketing means more than picking a handful of influencers and sending your products to them. Sujan delivers actionable insights to help you set goals, be relevant, be realistic, build a relationship first, and, most importantly, relinquish control.
11. How Influencer Marketing Managers Do it
When one person manages all influencer relationships for a brand, the biggest advantage delivers consistency and relationship building. When ownership to manage influencer relationships is dispersed between multiple team members it results in miscommunication and potentially damaged relationships. Discover what our very own Influencer Marketing Manager learned during her first 30 days on the job, and how you can apply her tips to manage influencer relationships with ease.
So there you have it: 11 of the best influencer marketing resources to keep in your back pocket. Next up, check out some success stories in action. Learn how SAP approaches influencer marketing to reach its audience, and see how Travelocity works with experts to advance the art of travel.
Out of the posts we curated, which ones do you find to be the most helpful? Did you learn something new? What did we miss? Leave a comment below to provide your feedback.