Looking to make the most of your social presence and level-up your Instagram video game? This is Part two of a two-part series from Later founder Matt Smith, where he shares his top tips for making every moment count. Subscribe to our industry newsletter for the latest influencer marketing trends, collaboration ideas, and up-and-coming bloggers.

Set Goals For Your Instagram Influencer Video Marketing Campaign

It can be a challenge to find the right influencer for your Instagram video campaign, however a clear set of goals can help.

Think about the action what you’re hoping to inspire looking for in the influencer’s audience to do as a result of your partnership. Are you looking to gain followers? To increase sales? Build brand awareness? 

These are all great things to consider when determining the value of a potential influencer marketing partnership.

Be Clear About Your Goals 

According to Later’s report, 79% of businesses rank engagement as the most important factor when evaluating who is an ideal influencer, followed by quality of followers (70%) and industry or niche (67%). 

It’s important you spend more time thinking about your strategy and campaign goals before getting started on your Instagram video campaign. Setting up crystal clear goals will drive initial planning decisions and help you determine the best fit for your partnership. 

Nailing Down The Details: Discussing Partnership Expectations

Media kits and contracts are an important part of scoping out your campaign expectations and requirements and should be included in all influencer marketing agreements, like any other business partnership. 

Businesses have become familiar with paying teams of photographers, creative directors and producers to build out their digital campaigns in the past, and should look at influencer marketing in the same light. It’s important to remember you’re not only paying influencers for their following or engagement rate, but often times for their ideas and content production. Today’s influencers have become pros at concepting, shooting and executing mini-campaigns for brands and should be compensated accordingly. 

While there is no “one size fits all” rate when it comes to influencer marketing costs, setting clear guidelines and objectives from the get-go can help you better prioritize your budget.

Whether you are organizing the video production or the influencer handles it with their team, make sure these are all details that are discussed before getting started on your influencer Instagram video campaign. 

Choosing the Right Instagram Influencer for Your Instagram Video Campaign

Now that the Instagram’s algorithm is making it harder for businesses to reach users organically, Instagram influencer marketing has become a key strategy in promoting products and brands on Instagram. 

According to Later’s free report, The State of Instagram Marketing in 2018, only 22% of businesses currently partner with Instagram influencers, but it could grow to over 40% in 2018.

Choosing the right influencer for your Instagram video campaign can feel overwhelming. While there seems to be thousands to choose from and so many factors to consider, how do you know which is the best fit for your Instagram video campaign? 

Here’s a few questions you can ask to help make your decision: 

Is Their Audience a Good Fit For Your Brand?

It goes without saying that you should be aligning your business with influencers who have “pull” with your target audience. 

For example, if you’re a fashion brand, it makes sense to partner with influencers who share a similar audience to your ideal customer.

@basebodybabes x New Balance x Refinery29 

Do They Have An Authentic Following and High Engagement? 

These days, it’s incredibly easy (and cheap) to buy followers and likes. So how can you identify fake influencers and find authentic ones? 

A quick way to make sure an influencer has an authentic following is to check their engagement-to-follower ratio. Since you don’t have access to their impressions data, the best way to check this is to see how many likes and comments their posts get, relative to their following. 

Businesses should check around 10 of their posts to verify their average engagement. The number of comments and likes should reflect how many followers they have. Generally, you’ll want to see an engagement rate of 2 to 3 percent. 

Of course, with the Instagram algorithm constantly changing, engagement rates are plummeting and these numbers are looking lower than normal. While the algorithm changes should be taken into consideration, these numbers are still a good general guidelines. 

Another thing to pay attention to is the comments on an influencer’s posts. Comments like “nice!” or “great post!” are often a result of comment bots. Look for legitimate sentences, questions (with answers from the influencer) and comments specific to the post. 

The recent New York Times article, The Follower Factory, discusses ways users can spot a “bot”, and dives into the dark side of social media. The article claims about half of social media followers are real, while the other half is made up of fake accounts. Many of these influencers purchasing fake followers are looking to cash in on their social currency, making it crucial for businesses to look at numbers beyond their follower count. 

While there are many things that can affect these numbers, such as a post going viral or the algorithm changes, make sure you are getting a well-rounded look at your influencer’s numbers, content and past work to get a clear view of what you can expect for your potential partnership. 

What Has Their Work With Brands Looked Like In The Past?

The easiest way to gauge what you can expect from a potential influencer partnership is by taking a look at the work they’ve done in the past. Look at their Instagram as a “portfolio” and see what type of content they’ve produced for brands. Did these posts perform well? How did their audience respond? Is their voice a good fit for your brand? These will all be great indicators that can help you make your decision. 

@theblondeabroad x Herbal Essence 

Should You Work With a Micro-influencers or Macro-Influencers?

Deciding whether you should partner with a macro-influencer (influencers with over 100K followers) versus a micro-influencer will again depend on your overall Instagram video campaign goals. 

By partnering with a large influencer for your Instagram video campaign, you gain access to a huge following and an enormous amount of reach. However if you want to work with influencers in the 100k+ range, you should be prepared for the hefty price tag that comes along it.  

Micro-influencer marketing, which has shown to yield great results for businesses, is expected to see major growth in 2018! Because micro-influencers are often “real people” with a much smaller following, they may be limited by their initial reach, however they offer brands unique value. 

Micro-influencers are often viewed as a “trusted voice”, appearing as a recommendation from a friend. These influencers may not come with a large following, however they typically have a much more niche and engaged audience.

For example, if you’re trying to increase your brand awareness, it may make sense to go with an influencer with a large following and reach. If your goal is to increase brand engagement, a micro-influencer might be a better fit for your brand as they tend to have a smaller following, but more engaged and niche following. 

Organise Your Instagram Video Marketing Campaign and Scheduling Posts

Planning your posts for your campaign and scheduling them ahead of time, will leave you time to focus more on engaging your audience, replying to comments, and promoting your campaign once it’s launched!

Scheduling out posts for your Instagram video campaign will give you a better ‘big picture’ perspective of your Instagram feed and campaign as a whole. 

Using a free Instagram scheduler like Later can help you make sure your Instagram video marketing campaign runs flawlessly: 

This will also save you a lot of time (and sanity), leaving you plenty of extra time to focus on other important areas of your Instagram video marketing strategy!

If you want to take the guesswork out of collaborating with influencers, Shopping Links can help, from choosing the right influencer from our personally vetted network of 14,000+ bloggers, to managing strategic product seeding and gifting collaborations. To request a demo, or to contribute to any of our future stories, contact us at hello@shoppinglinks.com or follow us on Instagram at @shoppinglinks