The modern day influencer isn’t just posting enviable photos, or clever hashtags, they have evolved into trust brokers; leveraging personal brands and online presence to shape audience perceptions, spark conversations and drive behaviour. Through a mix of authority, perceived ‘authenticity’ and audience intimacy, they create another avenue of credibility for the brands that they align with.
In an age where audiences are acutely aware of #ad culture and the commercial underpinnings of influencer lifestyles, the key to making these campaigns land lies in persuasion that feels personal, not promotional.
- 75% of people use social media for purchasing advice - LinkedIn
- 61% of users trust an influencer's recommendation - Morning Consult
- 42% of customers use ad-blocking – Backlinko
- 76% of users intended to purchase based on a social media post - Pew Research
The right fit
Finding the right partner isn’t all about the number of followers, it’s about influencing the right audience and delivering genuine engagement. Some of the biggest brands have learned the hard way. Take Pepsi’s Live for Now commercial featuring Kendall Jenner. Despite her huge following, the utterly tone deaf campaign fell flat and did significant reputational damage to all parties. Audiences criticised the campaign as poorly timed, ill-judged and lacking an authentic meaning to the message.
L’Oreal faced a similar issue when enlisting an influencer to promote a new mascara. Turns out, it was clear the influencer had false eyelashes so the content was deemed misleading, the trust in the brand was lost and interestingly, the false eyelash brand, Ardell, gained 25k followers as a result.
On the other side of the coin, you can take a look at England Golf’s influencer campaign. To increase participation with golf amongst a highly specific audience - namely women across varied socioeconomic backgrounds, ages and ethnicities - England Golf partnered with selected influencers to reach new audiences and induce real change within the community. Partnered with effective community management, it went beyond posting content, focusing on starting conversations. Find out more about how the team achieved change in online audiences for Get into Golf Week.
Credibility, transparency and relevance are essential if you want to resonate with your audience - miss these out and your efforts will unravel quickly.
So, what makes influencer campaigns work?
- Working with the creator to produce content that feels authentic to their audience
- Selecting an influencer that has shared values with your brand and wants to engage
- Consistent communication and clear expectations
- Fostering long-term connections
And what should you avoid?
- Poor brand alignment
- Poor research on the content and audiences of the influencer in question
- Over-prescriptive briefing
- Saturation effect of a particular influencer taking on too many campaigns
- Underdeveloped strategy
Once you’ve nailed the campaign, what does good look like? Well, metrics such as likes, shares, and reposts may not tell the full story. It’s prudent to not expect an immediate ROI, it takes time to build that trust with the influencer and brand partnership. You can use social listening tools to understand how people felt about your collaboration but crucially before the campaign begins, you should have a clear understanding of what ‘success’ looks like to the business.
If you’re looking to create an influencer campaign that works you must:
- Define your KPIs
- Identify the right influencers
- Develop a clear brief
- Launch, monitor and engage
- Analyse the results and optimise
This is what lies at the heart of the influencer formula. It is more than just aligning audiences or brands between the organisation and the influencer. It's striking the balance between shared values, clear goals and tight briefs, whilst also allowing the influencers’ creative freedom to foster the relationships they have created in a way that feels genuine to the audience. If you avoid overpolished content and leverage influencer marketing in the right way, you can create a campaign that fosters true connections. Ultimately, the most effective campaigns are those rooted in authenticity, clarity, and consistency. When the partnership feels real, the influence is too.
If you’re looking to explore how partnerships could support your objectives, let’s have a chat.