Instagram Influencer Marketing: Strategy, Cost & Different Platforms To Look Up

Everyone doubted Facebook's choice to purchase Instagram way back in 2012, with a hefty price tag of $1 billion. Looking at it now, almost eight years have passed, and you and I both know how successful Instagram has become since then. If you still have no idea how big Instagram currently is, have a look at these statistics:

• User engagement with brands is a lot higher than other brands
• Ten times higher than Facebook
• 84% higher than Twitter
• Most used hashtags are nearly entirely branded

Instagram is currently thriving in the social marketing landscape, and just in a couple of years, it will dominate all other platforms when it comes to social marketing. There's a drawback to this though, as famous Instagram becomes for businesses, the harder it will be for Brands to get noticed in the crowd. Engagement will also become incredibly hard to sustain. However, as things get worse for businesses, there's good news for influencers. Presently Instagram is flooded with active users, and now these brands will have to look towards influencers to promote their products or services. Influencers will be the key for brands to reach the right audience. Why is Instagram Influencers important? Every brand and business is trying to get into the spotlight and gather attention from an audience, but since there are so many of them, people have started to look away, having no idea who to trust. Users are now overwhelmed with all this and are deploying ad blockers and other ways of staying away from social media. Consumers going this far to avoid seeing ads means brands will have a much harder time keeping up with the digital landscape. Seeing all these problems, what should an honest businessman like you do? If you are having a hard time reaching your desired audience, then you should look towards someone who already has the audience's attention. In other words, what you need is an influencer. Reasons why you should go for an Influencer Here are some stats which will tell you why going for an Influencer will give you the sales you need.

• People of this age, especially millennials, only 1% of them trust ads. On the other hand, 33% of them show trust towards product reviews either by videos or blogs.
• 40% of people only bought a product after they saw the product being used by an influencer they trust on either Twitter, Instagram or Youtube.
• Even 71% of influencers think that this work is an honest way to promote the desired content while keeping their audience engaged.
• Tomoson conducted a study and found out that when you invest in influencer marketing, every dollar spent gives you back $6.50 in return.

It's quite clear why influencer marketing is booming, but the question here is, how could you capitalize it? Read further below to know how successful influencer marketing is going presently and how to come up with your own influencer marketing strategy. How to Build Your Influencer Strategy Goal orientation is the key whenever you think of building a successful influencer strategy. You must know each path and have the destination in your mind with utmost clarity, otherwise, how would you know which way provides the least resistance, is the most cost-effective, and comes up with the best results, To achieve that, the influencer landscape must be understood by you, with consistent effort. Moreover, you also need to establish your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and goals.

1. Document Your Goals and Key Performance Indicators.

Influencer marketing can feel almost like a gamble when brands invest for the first time; There's no guarantee whether you will or will not get your ROI generated. The problem here is that in many cases, it certainly is a gamble because people often don't invest in all the necessary resources that are essential in testing it adequately as a viable channel. Another reason why it feels like a risk is that many businesses fail to establish their goals and work out the proper metrics that are crucial to meet those goals. Goal Setting and Key Metric Tracking Three big goals revolve around influencer marketing. They are: Building Brand Awareness A track of brand awareness can be planned by looking at your likes, counts, engagement such as comments, shares and use of your hashtags. Attracting A New Target Market To keep your brand awareness at the top, you need to hit new target audiences and markets. Reaching a new target market can be done by getting influencers that can drive targeted traffic and create buzz Facilitating Lead Generation. More sales are where everything leads to. Customers and more leads can be easily measured with sales and conversions, but when it comes to sources, things can get tricky. It's difficult to track each influencer unless they have landing pages or specific codes. Once you have your goals clear in your mind, then you will need to pay attention to how the ROI of your influencer marketing campaign will be measured It's important to know which partnerships are working out and which aren't, to have an effective influencer strategy. To determine whether your influencer marketing has an ROI which is worth continuing, compare the results with other marketing channels, and you will get the idea on whether this direction is right for you.

2. Understand the Influencer Landscape.

A trusted relationship with an appropriate influencer is a fundamental component when you are looking to have an effective influencer marketing campaign. The influencer should be someone who can meet the desires of your audience and one where the audience comes first when they are about to make a purchase. Expand Your Reach Beyond Instagram Your fundamental goal here is that you need to find out influencers based on audience demographics and topics of influence. Additionally, they must be able to meet on all the essential engagement metrics. It'll be useless to go for an influencer who is quite successful but not aligned with your brand's vision. You need to go for influencers whose interests and vision are in line with your own. Instagram is the first place to go whenever people need to discover the best influencers. Right now, the #1 platform for influencers is Instagram with an astonishing share of more than 90%. Although Instagram is thriving when it comes to influencers, it's essential to know that the landscape is always changing with all of the social platforms offering new opportunities. So be sure not to spend all your money on Instagram and look towards influencers on Twitter, Facebook. Snapchat, YouTube and Pinterest. The plus point here is that influencers on other platforms will be far more easily approachable and cost-effective compared to influencers on Instagram.

The Rise of the Micro-Influencer

As influencer attention gathering competition is proliferating all over the world. People are expecting a great deal of uniqueness and diversity among the influencer targets, which means they're hoping to see the influencers at other levels, depending on their followers. Some influencers have a different class of followers attach with them ranging from high to low gathering attention from brands. Similarly, brands expect to be specialized in the field diving into the micro-influencers catering to the particular niches and different market segments. It isn't any secret that more significant influencers show less engagement towards their followers and only work on a specific field. Like the influencer with 1000 followers typically gain the 8% of likes of the all-time posts while the 10 million follower influencer just earn 1.6% of likes. The best point within the entire situation is to find the influencer between 10 to 100k followers. Regardless of the tracking, it is also important to keep an eye on the quality of followers and their relationship, with the influencer and overall engagement between them. Influencer marketing is the best and most prominent marketing of the field, and that's why many assessment tools and software are being launched in the market.

Finding and Reaching Influencer By Leveraging Tools

According to a survey, 78% of professionals stated that determining the ROI of the influencers marketing program is the initial and most tremendous challenge of all time. Around half of the influencers, providers cope up to the problems breaking down the right tools to leverage. Once you've mentioned the list of influencers, you have to get their contact details with can be a daunting task as you have to predict a marketing strategy to deal with them.

Deal Behind Influencer Marketing Cost

Many people think of social media influencers as a money-making machine. They believe (which is although true) that once you're a social media influencer, you can have the liberty to be accessible and more brands can get associated with you. Social media influencers are not only paid well by the brands but are also given additional rewards and gifts to stay connected. Brands make use of social media influencers to bring awareness among their targeted audience for their latest or existing products so that more people can get associated with the brand. That's why social media influencers are sort of a living advertisement for brands all over the world. The social media platform, which is known as the hub of social media influencer marketing is Instagram. Instagram influencers are the prominent member for marketing as it is a developing platform with many people getting linked through it with each passing day. But, the question that rose in many people's mind is what were the initial charges demanded by the Instagram influencer to promote a brand.

How Much Does Instagram Influencer Marketing Cost?

To ease these questions, many different studies have been carried out. According to the latest studies, social media influencers on average charge based on the popularity and reach of their particular platform. As we all know, Facebook and YouTube are relatively older platforms for social and business promotion; that's why influencers are working their charge around $20 to $30 per 1000 followers. While Instagram influencers due to the increasing reach of followers can't demand much and are stuck under $20 with a chance of progress with the progress in Instagram influencer marketing popularity. However, it's just a rough estimate as no one can detect the exact amount as influencers aren't supposed to leak their fee to the public. Marketers on Instagram usually use the method of one cent per follower rule to engage influencers. This rule is not only tempting to the influencers but benefits marketers on a tight budget. However, there isn't any specified rocket science behind the rule as it can be moulded depending on the marketer's budget and influencer's demand. It can also provide a great starting point setting a common budget to the beginner influencers. The budget is in the hands of marketers as some have enough to afford Kim Kardashian, who charges around $500,000 for an Instagram post or a typical 5k-follower influencer who charges $500. There is a common room to adjust when it comes to pricing depending upon the objective of the brand.

Influencer Earning Calculator

Most influencers make use of tools to calculate the price demand of each project. The most common of these tools is the Instagram Influencer Earnings Calculator by Influencer Marketing Hub. It can be helpful for both influencers and marketers deciding the common and agreeable value to charge. It divides the pricing ratio depending on different categories including influencer's number of posts, follower count, earning estimate per post, number of comments, number of likes, which can be very helpful in building up the engagement rate.

Factors Depending on Instagram Influencers Marketing Cost

The charges of Instagram influencers vary highly depending on the following elements:

• Engagement ratio per post
• Followers and fan-following of the influencer
• Number of posts required for brand/product promotion
• Suitability of the influencer with the brand and audience
• Post type (image, video, audio, etc.)
• The effort needed from the influencer
• Publishing and promotion platforms of advertisement.

Trends Of Instagram Influencer Marketing

As the marketing industry is flourishing with each passing day. Many new improvements can be seen in terms of marketing as it developed from door to door marketing to platforms to platforms. In Instagram influencer marketing, many latest trends are adapted by the influencers to please the development ratio of the brand, products, and platform as well. Even SaaS Products are leveraging its power. Here are some of the major Instagram influencer marketing trends followed and appreciated by the influencers worldwide:

Investing in Influencers Who Use Video.

The most adaptive type of content easily grasped by every age is the video content. You can sell easily through it without even considering the age of the targeted audience or even the knowledge of using social media platforms. Video production and tutorials are the highly followed trend nowadays, and if you haven't dived into the channel, then you're already behind in the game. When considering targeting millennials, many of them prefer video content when carrying out research about buying a particular product. As the popularity of video content is evolving, many brands suggest their influencers to record numbers for the promotion. This gives the influencers a creative edge giving an opportunity to talk other than the scripted lines. There are a few considerable examples of the type of video used by the influencers for promotion, yet not sounding like it. These include unboxing videos, product teaser campaigns, and exclusive reviews from key influencers. This strategy helps a lot to hype up the audience prior to the release of the product so that the sales ratio of the product can be crushed only after for the initial release of the product. In Instagram, influencers usually use Instagram Tv or live stories for promotion. It is an essential channel for key influencers to show content with longer duration to their massive followings.

Creating Useful Content Instead of Ads.

All over the world, people expect honesty and authenticity when looking for product advertisement, which is the most challenging approach for content creating industry. Advertisements have the element of brag and boast, which is often caught by many people, and that's why they prefer word of mouth instead of an ad. According to studies, 90% of people worldwide prefer buying a product recommended by their closest or favourite person. Keeping in mind that the consumers are fed up with advertisements flooding radio, TV, magazines, and billboards, marketers brought people out of them to suggest things to buy. Marketers want their influencers to balance between the promotional content and recommending content so that the follower viewing their advertisement look at their content as a piece of advice which can lead to try and buy that product. If the follower detects the slightest element of mistrust or fakeness, then, the trust fades and so their influence and followership.

Increased Transparency.

Most of the times, brand forget to keep their idea transparent and clear to at least the workers. In a letter sent to FTC, there was clearly stated that the relationship between the employee in the industry had caused major disruption. It also gave an official warning to the influencers and brand to reveal the working relationships more clearly. Major platforms and brands are employing additional efforts to reveal their sponsorship and paid partnership. This way, their audience will be fully aware of the sponsor reaching them, which can keep the trust of the consumer higher, pulling your opponents off the track. The easiest and most accessible way to reveal to your audience that influencers are being utilized to promote your brand is to use hashtags and mention them on the posts. Instagram has taken this feature a little forward, allowing you to tag your business partner and brands by which you can easily reveal your post sponsorship.

Instagram Influencer Platforms

Being an Instagram influencer not only requires followers and fan-following, but it also requires necessary tools to increase the popularity ratio and boost the advertisement quality. By using the tool influencers improve their video quality and feature set, strengthening the management and making the account strong enough to attract some well-known marketers of the industry. Here are some top-notch Instagram influencer platforms, which can improve your level of promoting brands, helping you engage more clients:

• Upfluence
• Aspire IQ
• NeoReach
• Creator IQ
• Hypr
• Open Influence
• Julius
• Dovetale
• Takumi
• Scrunch
• Tapinfluence
• Hypetap
• Onalytica
• Famebit
• Tribe

Some of these Instagram influencer platforms are described as follows:

Upfluence

A self-service platform for influencers discovery which directs different influencers on the main channel, including Instagram is known the Uplfluence. It is a low-cost platform comparing to its opponents. It is quite helpful for medium and small business to attract more influencers for promotion purposes. Upfluence is suitable for small business, yet it has many big names on its client list, including PayPal, AZA, Ralph Lauren, Microsoft, and many more. It is undoubtedly a search software, but it does something more than just searching. It allows you to have the most preferred influencers on your list. The services provided by this software are:

• Third-party analytics
• Influencer search
• Relationship management
• Campaign management

AspireIQ

One of the highly used platforms for increasing Instagram influence marketing platform is the Aspire IQ. It has particular tools for influencer management to strengthen the strategy and can be strong enough to engage high-end clients and brands. It has all the relevant tools for different stages of influencer marketing. These tools include campaign lifecycle management, campaign creation, product tracking, digital term sheets, content collaboration, trackable sales link, creator performance spreadsheet, content collaboration, campaign analytics, payment management, and product tracking. It provides tools for all stages of an influencer marketing campaign. These include Campaign It is one of the most detailed management tools available to enhance influencer search engine and processing games. Here are services provided by the Aspire IQ to the marketers and influencers:

• Influencer search
• Relationship management
• Influencer marketplace
• Campaign management

NeoReach

The idea of NeoReach came in order while the founding member of the platform. The main objective of the creation of this platform was to link brands with the struggling influencers. The idea flourished automatically as every brand was in need of an influencer marketing campaign. So, brands can get their needs relieved by paying an annual fee for NeoReach making great and productive changes to their brand. It targets prominent brands with considerable marketing strategies. It uses a systematic algorithm to find the influencers which dig different Instagram to find the relevant data. This way, influencers don't need to sign up, they'll be found out by the tool depending on their popularity. Here are a few services offered by NeoReach:

• Influencer discovery
• Campaign management

CreatorIQ

The cloud of influencer marketing strategies for any type of business is the CreatorIQ. It is an enterprise creator cloud which is designed, especially for expanded business as the influencer market is flourishing and can't be taken lightly. It focuses on showing the influencer marketing strategy to some prominent brands. It uses the highest technology to not only simplify the process of influencer marketing but to solve the routine challenges that can disrupt the industry. It can detect the follower scamming, inauthenticity, inflated reach numbers showing brands the real following and image of the influencer. The algorithm used by the CreatorIQ is powered by Artificial Intelligence which observes and locate over billion accounts to check everything based on their criteria. The services offered by Creator IQ:

• Solve Challenges
• Influencer Search
• Influencer Report

Hypr

If you are investing in key influencers for the distribution and creation of content for your brand, then you are bound to know all the possible information about the audience targeted by your brand. For that purpose, a platform has been brought to the market known as Hypr. The major target of Hypr is the large business type offering four different levels of pricing. It has a built-in database of millions of influencers with entire demographics of the data of followers. You can do searches using keywords and demographic factors as well. It also provides you with complete detection of fraud converting your attribute. So, whenever any influencer is using the wrong means of increasing followers, it will keep you updated. By using hypr, you can hire influencers from all over the world, as it gives you the opportunity to play in global mode. Here are the services offered by Hypr:

• Influencer outreach
• Influencer discovery
• Engagement performance
• Tracking audience with demographics
• Conversion attribution
• Global mode of payments
• Fraud detection
• Audience analysis

Read about the best music influencers.