A “successful” brand on social media doesn’t achieve its “success” with one perfect, fail-proof plan. You’ll notice I put quotes around the words “successful” and “success”. That’s because in the case of social media, success can mean many things. Is your brand trying to increase engagement or awareness? Is your goal to attain a certain number of followers? Are you trying to drive traffic to your website to increase sales? You may answer yes to many, or even all, of these questions. One thing is for certain, here; no matter your goal, utilizing social media influencers will help you get to where you want to be.
We hear the word “influencer” a lot these days in the social media marketing world. If you’re not familiar, here is a quick definition: a social media user who has established credibility within a certain industry and can influence a specific audience to take action by virtue of their authenticity and reach. If you’re on Instagram, chances are you’re seeing influencer posts every hour. Whether this person is simply sharing a testimonial for a product or service, or offering a discount at your point of purchase (oftentimes both at the same time!), he or she is doing so because a brand contacted them to aid in increasing awareness. What influencer marketing can you think of off the top of your head? Have you ever taken action on any influencer posts?
Recently, I was able to implement an exciting social media influencer program for one of our clients, Milano’s Pizza, Subs & Taps. Every March, the Dayton-based restaurant hosts an event for students at the University of Dayton called Blue Beer Day. The name of the event speaks for itself—it is a day when Milano’s dyes their beer blue and the party lasts all day long! It has become a beloved tradition for students and we knew we needed to step up our social media strategy in order to make this a record-breaking sales day for our client.
Milano’s viewed this as a successful campaign not just because of the increase in sales and foot traffic (they set a new record for one-day sales!), but because Instagram engagement, awareness, and following grew more within that 24-hour period (32%!) than from any other campaign previously executed. We’ve already taken steps to implement more ideas for this influencer campaign next year and just might include mini influencer campaigns throughout the whole year for other Milano’s promotions!
What we learned: influencers don’t always have to be celebrities! As long as your influencer has a large enough following deemed appropriate for the brand’s goal and shares engaging content with the right target audience, influencer marketing is an effective way to achieve “success”—by whatever metrics you define it!
