5 Influencer Marketing Mistakes You Should Never Make

There are some recurring mistakes made in the Influencer Marketing industry that need to be addressed. In the rush to get the campaign launched in time, the simple details tend to get overlooked. While no one wants to make a mistake and everyone is hoping to launch the greatest, award-winning campaign, forgetting to strategically dot your i’s can prove to be a big disadvantage toward winning your award and achieving your campaign goals. 

The 5 Worst Influencer Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

From unclear objectives at the get go to untracked metrics during the final report, there are a lot of mistakes you can make. Here is a collection of the top five worst mistakes of the Influencer Marketing industry. Don’t worry, we’ll tell you how to avoid them as well. Ensure your Influencer Marketing plan is free from all of the following errors before you start your next campaign. 

Influencer Marketing Mistake #1: Unknown Influencer Marketing Objectives

The first mistake is not knowing the objective of your Influencer Marketing plan. Influencer Marketing is a leading marketing tactic, but that alone doesn’t mean it will be successful for you. Unless you know why you are using influencers as a marketing activation, you’re not going to see the results you want. 

Influencer Marketing can help you achieve many goals. It can strengthen your brand credibility, increase awareness for your brand, get people talking about your brand, drive conversions, etc. However, unless you know what you want it to do, your time, energy, and resources are going to be drained very quickly without a high ROI. 

Your objectives will drive your entire Influencer Marketing plan throughout the year, as well as help each campaign succeed and hit the key goals. Influencer Marketing campaigns that are executed without clear objectives never have clear results. 

Before you do anything else, make sure you and your team know exactly what it is you are working to achieve with your Influencer Marketing strategy. Then, start creating a plan that will help your campaign reach its goals. That’s how you create campaigns that prove a high ROI. 

Influencer Marketing Mistake #2: Incompatible Influencers 

The second mistake is partnering with influencers who aren’t compatible with your brand or your objectives. Partnering with the right influencers is key to getting the results you deserve. Vetting for influencers is a long—sometimes exhausting—process, but if you don’t partner with influencers who are going to provide you with the results you are looking for, it won’t do your campaign any good. 

Here are some don’ts to prevent spending time and resources in a place that doesn’t drive results:

• Don’t partner with influencers just because they have a high following. Remember people can buy followers on social platforms, so a high follower count shouldn’t be the only thing that determines the best influencer for your brand. 
• Don’t partner with influencers just because they have low rates or are willing to work in exchange for product. While low rates are awesome for your budget, unless the influencer is reaching your target audience and providing you with the content you are looking for, those low rates could still be better spent somewhere else.
• Don’t partner with influencers who aren’t reaching your target audience. For example, if you have a high end product that gets sent to an influencer who shares frugal tips and tricks, their followers are not going to relate and will unlikely turn into potential buyers.  

Instead, vet for influencers that reflect your brand personality and image. Are they producing assets that you can reuse? Are they engaging their audience in a conversation all about you? Do they authentically care about your brand? Check out these seven ways to identify the right influencers for your brand. 

While everyone in the Influencer Marketing world will agree it takes time to find the best influencers, it’s more than necessary to make your campaign successful. Take the time and invest the budget into partnering with influencers who will truly grow your community and strengthen brand credibility. Need help? Talk to us here. 

Influencer Marketing Mistake #3: One and Done Campaigns

The third worst mistake is the attitude of a “one and done” campaign. This attitude looks something like this: get the influencers to post and done! Or, the campaign reached a lot of people and hit the benchmark KPIs, so we’re good! This attitude is not going to bring you to the top of your industry. With a perspective like this, you are likely losing incredible potential to create award-winning campaigns. 

To avoid a “one and done” campaign, have a plan for repurposing your creator’s content. The first step is to engage with your influencers’ posts. If someone, especially someone with a high following, is tagging you on social media, be sure to talk back and engage with the content. Comment on their posts, share their posts, and engage with them and their audience. Many brands don’t plan for these conversations or have their social media team ready to engage in the conversation. It doesn’t need to be a long response. Even something as simple as, “Hey! Thanks for mentioning us!” will push the post to more people, attract more people to visit your brand’s page, and strengthen the relationship with your influencer. 

The second step to avoiding “one and done” campaigns is to have a plan in place for using the creators’ assets after the campaign. Creators are providing you with new images, videos, blog posts, quotes, reviews, etc. It would be a shame to only let that content be used once. Therefore, make a plan to push these assets to your own channel. You can turn them into digital ads or even use them as website or print material. 

Influencer Marketing Mistake #4: Little Creative Freedom

Mistake number four is not allowing your influencers the creative freedom to stay true to their personality. Things do get a little tricky here because of course you want to give your influencer key message points and creative guidelines. Providing your influencers with information about your brand and giving them examples of what you would like them to do is perfectly acceptable and welcome. The partnership should benefit both the brand and the influencer. 

The danger comes when influencers are given such tight guidelines they come off as inauthentic or almost like they’re reading a script. If you vet your influencer correctly and know the type of content they produce, you shouldn’t be worried. They should be allowed to use their creativity to promote in a way that will relate with their audience. Influencers know the type of content that will get the best results. Work with them to create a campaign that will come across as authentic.

Influencer Marketing Mistake #5: Untracked Metrics

All of this talk about seeing ROI and results by avoiding mistakes leads us to our last huge mistake. The final mistake is not tracking campaign metrics. If you are not tracking your results, you’re not going to know the value of your Influencer Marketing or how to improve it. This is one of the biggeest Influencer Marketing mistakes. In order to consistently see growth and value, you must track your results. 

Pick one or two key objectives you are going to track from the beginning of your campaign. Determine your benchmark KPIs, and what metrics would prove ROI for your brand if reached. Then, track those metrics throughout the campaign. 

Looking at the results of each campaign, analyzing your ROI, and comparing them to previous campaigns is going to help you know where to improve. 

Wrap It All Up

A lot of mistakes stem from just wanting to get a checkmark on the paper saying the campaign engaged influencers as part of the strategy. If you invest your resources into doing it right, your brand will excel in your industry. Many brands are simply happy to be working with influencers. They don’t think too much about the why or the who. This means they are working with unknown objectives and incompatible influencers. Other common mistakes include working with the “one and done” campaign attitude, allowing little creative freedom to the influencer, and not tracking metrics. Avoid these mistakes and watch your Influencer Marketing efforts and partnerships produce higher results than ever before. 

What mistakes are you going to work on avoiding?