6 Ways to Do Facebook Influencer Marketing That You Haven't Thought of Before

Today’s fast-paced, dynamic social media environment might intimidate some brands. Despite the clamor around newer platforms like TikTok, you need to meet your target audience where they’re at. For consumers, this means Facebook. You may have read our previous post on how to choose the best social media platform for your next influencer marketing campaign. And maybe you’ve got a great group of influencers lined up. You may have even run a few campaigns, trying video, contests, and Facebook Live, like others have recommended. Amazing! You’re doing great! But, would you like to stay ahead of the game while driving a huge return on investment (ROI)? If so, try these 6 ways to leverage Facebook in your next Influencer Marketing campaign.

This Post at a Glance

Why Implement Facebook Influencer Marketing?

Facebook is still where the majority of most companies’ target audiences spend their time. It is interesting that, despite a string of controversies, Facebook continues to dominate the online landscape. The Pew Research Center reports that Facebook has 69 percent of adult users, just behind YouTube at 80 percent. The next highest competitor is Instagram, which has 40 percent of the market share in comparison. This could be due to Facebook having been around longer than the other platforms. Or maybe it’s because posts in that platform aren’t as limited by character length or aesthetics as the other platforms. It could be because of its ad boosting and targeting capabilities. Who’s to say? Regardless, if that’s where your audience is spending their time (and they trust influencers more than they trust brands), then that’s where you need to focus your brand’s Influencer Marketing efforts.

Facebook Marketing Challenges

I imagine these two things are keeping you up at night when thinking about your next Facebook Influencer Marketing campaign:

Facebook’s algorithm has changed, causing the organic reach of many brands’ own Facebook pages to fall sharply. You know that Influencer Marketing is where it’s at if you want to connect with your target market and drive conversions, but …
You’re unsure of how to distinguish your next Influencer Marketing campaign from the ones that are already becoming somewhat commonplace. You’ve seen the unboxing videos of your competitors, the sponsored posts, the giveaway contests, the Facebook Live stories, etc. You know about cross-promotion. You need to stand out in order to get high reach and engagement, as well as a big ROI.

Don’t you worry. Read on for ways you might not have thought of before to leverage Facebook Influencer Marketing.

6 Ways to Leverage Facebook in Your Next Influencer Marketing Campaign

1. Go Broader and More Granular

We often talk about knowing your specific goals before starting your campaign to measure KPIs when the campaign has ended. In our free ebook about vetting and managing influencers, we help you identify the criteria by which you’ll measure your potential influencers to help you reach those goals. This means looking not just at follower counts but also at engagement rates, aesthetics, and whether or not their overall vibe meshes with that your brand.

For this, it can be helpful to make a Venn diagram. Put the demographics and qualities of your ideal buyer persona in one circle. In the other circle, add the demographics and qualities of each influencer’s typical follower (as provided by them in their media kit). The demographics and qualities that are similar are where the two circles overlap. The more each influencer’s circle overlaps with yours, the more likely it will be that you should work with them on your next campaign.

It may be easy to say “I’m going for professional women ages 30-50 who are typically on Facebook in the evening and live in the Midwest,” and only go with influencers whose follower base is the same. But can you get broader—or more granular—than that and still have success?

Yes! Sprout Social reports that Adore Me, a lingerie brand, leveraged a rich network of Facebook influencers to promote body positivity around Valentine’s Day, instead of the usual couples fare. Its campaign invited users to submit content—product shots of women wearing the lingerie—and share messages of empowerment and body positivity. This really resonated with their influencers’ other followers. Equally as important to the campaign’s success was how Adore Me used Facebook’s advertising products. They segmented content by influencer tier and provided slightly different message points to each tier. Tiered messaging, UGC, and more targeting meant Adore Me’s Valentine’s Day 2021 campaign resulted in 226% more purchase conversions than the brand’s 2020 campaign. This also came at a 6% lower cost per acquisition. Try getting creative, like Adore Me, with the messaging points you want to use and the way you work with your influencers.

2. View Videos and Influencers in a Different Way

Speaking of getting creative, Crayola took a risk when they partnered with the influencer, Your Everyday Canadian, whose vibe is less parenting blogger and more rough-and-tumble guy. Or, maybe they knew exactly what they were doing when they asked him to help promote their then-new air sprayer marker via video on Facebook. His spin on it was that the marker helped him earn money for pizza, garnering 577,000 views and almost 800 engagements. In today’s almost-anything-goes social media environment, this isn’t surprising.

Going outside of traditional criteria may seem daunting or too risky for brands, but you don’t have to go it alone. We’re here to help you vet influencers according to their history of working with brands, their vibe, and your precise criteria. We can find you just the right influencers to put unique spins on your campaigns AND get you the ROI you need.

3. Run a Facebook Blitz

Influencers posting videos to Facebook is obviously not new. But influencers posting and then promoting their Facebook posts all at the same time is unique. By having influencers send out shares all at once or in a short amount of time, you can reach a lot of people and increase your engagement. Facebook blitzes are most helpful when you’re trying to create a lot of awareness all at once or during a short amount of time.

For example, we coordinated an Influencer Marketing campaign in which eight influencers raised awareness for Milk Life about the importance of including milk in a high protein breakfast. They each created videos that were published in their blog posts and then promoted during a Facebook Blitz that garnered a reach of over 11 million. Their combined power accomplished much more than they each could have alone.

4. Test Branded Content Ads With Influencers

Facebook reports that Vuori, a performance apparel brand, ran a three-cell split test to compare a personalized ad featuring the influencer wearing the apparel on three different Facebook handles.

The influencer’s content on Vuori’s Facebook and Instagram brand handle
The influencer’s content on her personal Facebook and Instagram handle
A sponsored branded content ad from the influencer’s handle

The test showed that content to a broad audience of US women and to Custom Audiences through Facebook’s Ad Manager. It used automatic placements to allow Facebook to deliver ads across all Facebook apps and services based on which placements were most likely to drive the best campaign results at the lowest cost, and automatic advanced matching to accurately attribute online sales back to specific purchasers. Their strategy resulted in a 25% decrease in cost per purchase with the branded content ad, compared to other influencer marketing tactics.

How do you do all that? With Facebook Ads Manager, which gives you myriad ways to test and target.

5. Run Paid Social Around an Event

We ran a campaign with Avocados From Mexico in which 25 bloggers joined the hype around a big football game by sharing their most delicious and fun game day recipes. As part of the campaign, the 25 bloggers and 10 Instagram influencers created ad promotions on Facebook and Instagram. The paid social campaign garnered 86,944 clicks and formed part of a larger campaign that garnered far more than the contracted reach.

Is there a game or other event coming up that you could leverage to build awareness and excitement about your product or service? It doesn’t have to be directly related to your product or service. It just needs to be something that’s on a lot of peoples’ radars. Be creative! Think upcoming national holidays, sporting events, movie releases, gaming tournaments, conferences, and more. Then think about how your product or service could be used in relation to that event. That might even be the funnest part. Got a nice pen? Use it to take notes at an upcoming conference. Need to launch a new children’s toy? Suggest, in your messaging points to your influencers, that they show how the toy can be used to entertain their kids while watching the big game.

Better yet, let your influencers be creative in how they relate your product to the event. That is, after all, what they’re really good at doing.

6. Use E-Commerce

Social Media Today predicts that Facebook’s new-ish e-commerce capabilities, which launched in 2020, will definitely become more of a thing in 2022. We agree, especially because this means more shoppable posts, streamlined payment processes, improved product discovery, more alerts for buyable products in-stream, and live shopping. What does this mean for Influencer Marketing? It means you’ll have an easier and more direct way to measure ROI as your influencers’ audience members make purchases in-platform.

Wrap It Up

The year 2022 may seem daunting due to the turbulence of a pandemic-rocked economy and the pressure to produce results no matter what. But, you’ve got this. Truly. You know where your target market’s at online, you know Influencer Marketing works, and now you know some new ways to leverage Facebook to your advantage: