It’s fair to say that influencer marketing is becoming more popular by the day.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given all the amazing benefits it brings, like boosting brand awareness, reach, engagement, and even sales.
However, with so many advantages, everyone wants a piece of the pie, so influencer marketing campaigns are gradually becoming a norm in digital marketing.
So, how can you differentiate your brand from the competition?
By using authentic influencer marketing.
To give you a helping hand, we’ll cover everything about what this influencer marketing strategy is, why it works, and how you should apply it to get the best results.
Let’s dive in!
What is Authentic Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is a digital marketing strategy where brands partner with social media influencers to promote their products and services.
An influencer is a social media user with a large follower count that people trust and form genuine connections with.
Due to this meaningful connection, influencers can influence users' purchasing decisions and drive a brand’s product sales.
In fact, according to a 2024 Influencer Marketing Report, 49% of consumers make daily, weekly, or monthly purchases based on influencer recommendations.
However, none of this would work without authenticity.
Authenticity in influencer marketing means creating user-generated content (UGC) that is perceived as trustworthy by the influencer’s audience.
In other words, the influencer content should match the influencer’s style, voice, and interests, and the image and values of the brand they advocate for.
But why is this so important?
Find out next.
Why is Influencer Authenticity Important?
Authenticity should be the cornerstone of your influencer marketing strategy because of its two main benefits:
Building trust with followers through genuine content
Truth be told, consumer trust in brand messaging has dropped significantly in recent years, especially for younger generations.
According to Qualtrics data, only 28% of Gen Z consumers trust the brands they buy from.
However, Matter Communications has found that 69% of consumers trust recommendations from influencers, friends, and family more than a brand’s own recommendations.
This means that consumers are fed up with overly promotional and often misleading traditional advertising and are looking for authentic content.
Moreover, they are better equipped at spotting fake or insincere content, which means they won’t automatically trust an influencer either.
Thus, you need to find social media influencers who are true to themselves and their followers and passionate about the content they share.
For example, if a makeup influencer regularly posts product reviews, makeup tutorials, and Get Ready With Me videos showcasing a brand’s products, their audience will, in time, begin to trust both the influencer and the brand.
This genuine connection will gradually increase engagement rates, ultimately leading to more conversions and sales.
Likewise, if you’re just getting into influencer marketing, you can work with an experienced creator whose followers already trust their recommendations.
This will make it easier for your brand to gain the followers’ trust.
Increasing organic reach with audiences
One of the biggest advantages of successful influencer marketing campaigns is their ability to boost brand awareness and reach.
Regardless of the type of influencer you choose to collaborate with (nano-influencers, micro-influencers, macro-influencers) they all have significant follower counts and will expose your brand to a new customer pool.
However, if you check out some of the best TikTok influencer marketing examples, you’ll notice that numbers are not that important after all.
Why is that?
Because high-quality, relevant, and authentic content can go viral even if it’s posted by an influencer with a small following.
The secret is to give influencers the creative freedom to come up with unique, attention-grabbing UGC that resonates with the audience.
For instance, influencer content can use shocking facts, personal stories, or humor to engage social media users.
On top of that, you should look for influencers whose audience demographics and interests align with your brand’s target audience.
This will give you immediate access to social media users who are already interested in what you’re selling.
For example, if your beauty brand specializes in anti-acne skin-care products for young adults, you can maximize your marketing efforts by partnering with a beauty influencer whose audience consists of women and men between the ages of 18 and 24.
That’s all well and good, but is authenticity really necessary?
The answer is yes!
Let’s see why.
What Are The Risks Of Inauthentic Content in Influencer Marketing?
If the benefits of using authentic content in your influencer marketing campaign don’t convince you to try it, the risks of not using it surely will.
Here’s what can happen if your influencer content is inauthentic:
- Loss of trust. As we mentioned before, consumers can spot inauthentic content.
Thus, the moment followers notice that their favorite influencer starts to share content that doesn’t match their previous style or beliefs, they’ll lose trust in the influencer and the brand they represent.
- Drop in followers. Unfortunately, the loss of trust causes a chain reaction that results in a drop in followers for the influencer and your brand.
- Worsening brand reputation. Once users realize that an influencer doesn’t actually like or use your brand’s products and endorses them only for monetary compensation, this will reflect poorly on your brand.
What’s more, the audience can turn on you and inform other users that they shouldn’t trust your brand, hurting your reputation even more.
- Fewer sales. When the audience loses trust in your brand, they’ll no longer buy or recommend your products.
- Legal and ethical concerns. In the worst-case scenario, inauthentic content can be perceived as false advertising, subject to legal consequences.
According to the New York City Bar, victims of false advertising can file lawsuits against sellers.
As a result, you can end up paying damages and your brand reputation will suffer a big hit.
By now, you’ve probably made up your mind that authentic UGC is the best approach to influencer marketing.
So, it’s time to give you some tips on how to put it into practice.
Authentic Influencer Marketing Best Practices
If you want your authentic influencer marketing efforts to produce the desired results, you should follow these best practices:
Know your Influencers
Before you start searching for content creators, you should familiarize yourself with the types of influencers and what they bring to the table.
Then, you can make an informed decision about the type of influencer collaborations that best fit your brand.
Social media influencers fall into three categories:
- Nano-influencers usually have less than 10,000 followers, mostly consisting of friends and colleagues.
However, due to their genuine connection with their followers, they have very high engagement rates.
Plus, they are more affordable than any other type of influencer, which makes them perfect for small brands with limited budgets.
- Micro-influencers typically have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers and are often viewed as experts in their niche, which makes their content trustworthy.
What’s more, according to Meltwater, micro-influencers generate 60% more engagement than other influencers.
Given these benefits and the fact that they are quite affordable, we believe that micro-influencers are the safest bet.
- Macro-influencers have over 100,000 followers, sometimes even millions (celebrities).
While these influencers have a big reach, they are very expensive, which means only big brands can afford them.
On top of that, according to LinkedIn, macro-influencers are seen as less relatable and trustworthy than micro-influencers.
Focus on Consistency
Social media users can follow their favorite influencers for years, which means they grow accustomed to the type of UGC they share.
Therefore, if the influencer’s voice and style suddenly change, you can be sure followers will notice and start losing trust.
To avoid this, you should give your influencers creative freedom when creating UGC.
Of course, you’ll still discuss your brand values and marketing goals with the influencers, so you’re all on the same page, but you shouldn’t impose too many limits regarding content creation.
This will allow them to stay true to their style and voice and promote your products more authentically.
Give Relevant Product Details
You should also give influencers creative freedom when it comes to product details.
While you can offer them a generic description of your products, use influencer gifting to encourage creators to test the products themselves and come up with their own descriptions.
This way, their messaging will sound more genuine and relatable to their audience.
Don’t Try to Hide the Bad
If you want your influencer collaborations to succeed, seeking honest product feedback is important.
Encourage influencers to share their true feelings about your products with their followers.
It might sound scary, but it increases influencer authenticity and can build trust in your brand.
After all, consumers usually check negative reviews before buying a product, so a bit of constructive criticism from your influencer will simply show you’ve got nothing to hide.
Emphasize brand & influencer alignment
Partnering with an influencer whose values, style, and goals align with your brand is essential for successful influencer marketing campaigns.
This genuine connection will translate into the influencers' UGC, and the audience will recognize its authenticity.
Just think about it for a moment, when you listen to someone talking about their favorite book, you can feel their enthusiasm and it rubs off on you, making you want to read it too.
The same goes for UGC when the influencer is passionate about your brand.
Now, let’s see how you can create authentic influencer marketing campaigns.
How Do You Create More Authentic Influencer Marketing Campaigns?
To make things easier for you, we’ve prepared a short step-by-step guide to creating more authentic influencer marketing campaigns.
Let’s take a closer look.
Set Clear Goals
Before you start planning your campaign, you must set clear goals to help you stay on track.
Unfortunately, if your end goal is to build consumer trust, measuring the success of your campaign will be quite difficult as you won’t have any metrics to track.
So, it’s better to set more specific and measurable goals using the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) framework.
For example, your goal can be to increase reach for your newly launched product (specific and achievable), in the next two months (time-bound).
To see if your campaign is working, you can track follower growth, engagement, and conversion rates (measurable).
Find Trustworthy & Passionate Influencers
Once again, we must emphasize the importance of finding the right influencer for your brand.
Here, you have two options:
- Use social media listening to look for influencers who already advocate for your brand and promote your products for free.
These users are truly passionate about your brand and will be able to create authentic content for your campaign.
The only downside is that this strategy is very time-consuming and unreliable.
After all, anyone can post a video raving about one of your products without being an influencer or having good social media and content creation skills.
This means you must carefully study each user’s account, content, followers, and interactions.
- Use an influencer marketing platform, like Insense, which gives you access to over 20K vetted and experienced content creators.
With our Creator Marketplace, you can narrow your search by social media platform, industry, audience and influencer demographics, price, and more.
Likewise, you can use our Creative Brief to provide a few details about the campaign you want to launch and the type of influencers you’re looking for, and we’ll find the right match for you.
Yes, it’s that easy!
Provide clear guidelines and expectations
Communication is extremely important in influencer collaborations.
Before you launch a campaign, explain to the influencer what you expect of them and your marketing goals.
However, while you should provide clear guidelines regarding dos and don’ts, don’t be too restrictive.
Remember to offer influencers creative freedom if you want them to create genuine content.
The good news is that Insense offers a Direct Chat feature that allows you to communicate efficiently with all your collaborators whenever an issue occurs.
Foster Collaboration
Fostering collaboration with your influencers from the very beginning can help you build and maintain long-term influencer partnerships.
This is very important because, in time, influencers will become more familiar with your brand and products, making it easier for them to create authentic content.
To foster collaboration, you should constantly keep in touch with the influencers and monitor the content they share.
Give influencers honest feedback about their UGC and seek their feedback about your campaign so you can both improve.
Ultimately, if you’re pleased with an influencer partnership, make sure you hire them for future campaigns as well.
With Insense’s Relationship Management feature, you can keep track of all your past collaborators and work with them again whenever you want.
Track Performance, Analyze, & Optimize
Tracking the performance of your influencer marketing campaigns is the only way to identify their strengths and weaknesses and optimize accordingly.
For example, by tracking key performance metrics like reach, engagement, and conversions, you can identify the best-performing influencers and form long-term partnerships with them.
We don’t want to brag, but Insense can also help with its Performance feature, which provides comprehensive analytics on influencer campaign performance. 😉
Ok, that’s enough theory for one day.
It’s time for you to put it into practice.
Over To You!
With all we’ve covered here, it should be clear that if you want your influencer marketing campaigns to succeed in 2024, you must focus on authentic content.
It will increase reach, build trust in your brand, and ultimately drive sales.
However, for this to work, you need to partner with the right influencer—and that’s our specialty.
Book a demo with Insense, and we’ll explain how it all works.
Then, we’ll find you the perfect match!
