Dec 14, 2019
Instagram has a huge influencer market size – around $2 billion! Brands have started heavily investing in it since it was set to reach to Generation Z or millennial audiences. Appearing too attractive not only for brands but for ordinary users as well, the Instagram influencer market is supplemented actively. The job of an Influencer is the dream job for so many young people around the world, that to appear in the view of brands, they determine to cheat over both the social network and businesses by buying fake followers and engagement. This artificially inflates their clout. Generally, all influencers are constantly suspected of buying fake engagement. However, this is typical mostly to small or micro-influencers. But don’t brands differentiate users with real following from those who use bots? Can anyone become an Instagram influencer overnight? We are going to find answers to these questions right away, in the blog of InstaBF – an Instagram and IGTV provider you can apply to whenever you need!
The Experiment Set
To find out whether it’s possible to secure brand sponsorship deals for accounts with fake following or not, Mediakix set an experiment. The service created two fictitious accounts with completely fake following. They also bought engagement (comments, likes) for the accounts before applying them to campaigns on the influencer marketing platform. The first account was for a fake fashion Insta model while the second one “belonged” to an adventure and travel photographer. Here are the steps that Mediakix undertook:
Generating Content
For the fashion model account, the service hired a local model and had a one-day photoshoot to fill the account with lovely images of a pretty girl. For the content of the second account, meanwhile, Mediakix used stock images. Those were mostly landscape images from popular travel destinations including Maui, Paris, and Yosemite. Additionally, as the account was titled “wanderingggirl”, they also added images of a blond girl from behind (again from stock images).
Buying Fake Followers
Once the accounts were set and posts were made regularly, they started buying 1k followers per day. Companies selling Instagram followers and engagement demanded from $3 to $8 peer 1k followers. For the first account of a model they bought 30k followers, while the second one was filled with 50k followers.
Buying Fake Engagement
After collecting the necessary number of followers for each account, the service ordered likes and comments (from 500 to 2,5k likes and from 10 to 50 comments per each photo). Generally, the prices for 1k likes range from $4 to $9 while a comments costs 12 cents on average.
Heading to Influencer Marketing Platforms
There are various influencer marketing platforms most of which require at least 10k following for signing up. After hitting the threshold, Mediakix registered its two fake influencer accounts and started applying for new campaigns every day. As a result, the fashion account secured two deals – one with a national food & beverage company and the other with a swimsuit company. The next account, in the meantime, secured a deal with the same food & beverage brand and one with an alcohol brand. Both fake influencers were offered free products and monetary compensation.
So you see that even brands are often mislead and can’t say which influencer is true and which is fake. This is, definitely, a huge problem for the entire industry.
Aug 17, 2019
Are you in a search for a new creative way to promote your brand on Instagram? Have you considered organizing an influencer event? This may cost a bit more than a simple collaboration with an influencer since you have to invite several of them, yet the effect is tremendously more impressive, too. So, if you are thinking about it, there are some considerations to take care of before you organize an influencer event. How much it will cost you, depends on the type and the industry of the required event. In all cases, be ready to set aside a significant budget.
InstaBF, a known IGTV and IG provider, has prepared some tips for hosting a glorious influencer event. Here they are:
Having a reliable WiFi connection for your influencers is mandatory. Do never leave that to their unlimited mobile data plans, since you may never be confident on the roaming tariffs. At the end of the shooting day, your influencers must have a credible and fast internet connection to upload the sponsored post to Instagram, typically at specific times.
Another important point is to have a precise plan for your influencers. Flying your influencer ambassadors abroad is half the job. You must also have a clear itinerary for them. On the other hand, you shouldn’t be too constrictive, either. Otherwise, they will feel as only on the job and the shoots won’t appear natural.
What do you think about Instagram giveaways? After an influencer event, they could go on giveaways to deliver more exposure to your brand. If you are inclined to establish long-lasting relationships with your influencers, you’d better involve giveaways in your marketing campaign.
Location can either bring success or failure to your influencer event. You don’t have to fly your influencers to a tropical resort. Instead, you just need to find out what your target audience wants to see and make use of that. You see, gamers sitting the whole time in front of computers have as much impact on their followers as beauty influencers posting photos from Tahiti.
How You Can Plan Your Influencer Event
For a successful Instagram influencer event, you also need to carry out accurate planning. Here are the main points to take into account:
- Get your audience in mind;
- Make it stand out;
- Remember about the hashtags.
How to Invite Influencers Come to Your Event
The major rule in inviting Instagram influencers to your event is paying a larger sum of money than for ordinary collaboration. There’s no point in inviting small influencers since they provide great ROI. Contact them through their email addresses or Direct Messaging.
Once they have approved their attendance, foot the bill for other expenses. These include flights, hotels, food and drink, photographers, stylists, as well as a short excursion tours for your stars (the latter is optional).
You see, organizing an influencer event isn’t a cheap thing to do. Such events are mostly headed by bigger brands, those which can afford big expenses. But 2019 promises more events organized by brands from different segments.
Aug 16, 2019
Up to today, we have been familiar with the basic techniques that brands employ in influencer marketing. No matter whether it’s a push on a special day or a long-term collaboration, brands are in a constant search for one-of-a-kind campaigns to stand out in the crowd. InstaBF is a popular provider of likes, comments, views and followers for Instagram and IGTV accounts. Besides that, this company constantly makes useful posts for starting Instagram businesses and ordinary users. Today we are going to speak about Influencer events. To learn more, just keep tuned.
What Is an Influencer Event?
Year over year, brands increase their budgets dedicated to influencer marketing. Not to waste time on the same strategies, they seek new ways of expanding their campaigns. One of such ways is organizing influencer events. Here major influencers of the same niche are brought together to getaways, gatherings, or mainstream events to promote a certain service/product by the brand. What makes such events so powerful is that they are led by influencer A-listers gathered in one place to brands in a search of maximizing the potential reach on Instagram.
Influencer Events Types
Let’s go over the main types of influencer events by category:
Beauty Influencer Events
Among the best-established influencer events, are those of the beauty industry. Makeup brands often gather mega influencers in the beauty niche around the same post to get an extra bang for the spent budget. Such events are usually held in an extravagant style. For instance, Tarte Cosmetics organizes influence events and presents them with luxury all-expenses-paid trips to Hawaii, Bangkok or any other exotic resort. During these trips, they create content not only for Instagram but also get some video content for YouTube channels.
Fashion Influencer Events
Fashion influencer events are mega-popular and are led in a luxury style. As a bright example, remember about such a huge event as Revolve Festival at Coachella. This online retailer rented out a whole hotel that hosted as many as 140 influencers. This is not the only case. They are used to sending influencers all over the world to take grandiose fashion shoots.
Fitness Influencer Events
The art of influencer events has broken into the fitness industry, too. One of the most impressive events is regularly organized by GymShark brand. They gather the biggest stars of the industry and pay them to act as their ambassadors. Unlike fashion and beauty brands, gym brands such as GymShark, Myprotein, Lululemon, etc., often involve challenges or meet-ups of influencers in the public.
Blogger Influencer Events
Many Instagram influencers don’t necessarily fall into a certain category. And some campaigns seek particularly such ones as they have a wide appeal across various demographics. Such influencers are most often referred to as lifestyle bloggers. One of the most succeeded influencer events of the kind was organized by Macy’s. The brand invited sponsored influencers from most diverse backgrounds – there were shoe designers, models, software designers, etc. This way the brand promoted its products outside of their typical field.
Jul 19, 2019
Influencer marketing has proven to be a great growth asset once the matter comes to growing a business on Instagram. This refers to not only big brands but also small ones. In fact, small businesses get the ability to level-up a campaign, create the so-important brand awareness and get to new audiences by cooperating with the right influencers. And all this without blowing the budget.
Nevertheless, small brands find working with Instagram influencers quite daunting. You get to complete such important tasks as finding the right influencers, setting the campaign purposes and deadlines, measuring and tracking success, managing the budget, etc. And if all this frustrates you, too, InstaBF, a popular Instagram and IGTV provider, will present to your attention several steps adhering to which, you will have a productive Instagram collaboration.
Identify Your Influencer Campaign Goals
Prior to starting the search for an Instagram influencer, it’s important to clearly identify your goals – what do you want to achieve with that collaboration. Whether it’s a short-term seasonal campaign with an intention to raise your brand awareness, or a long-term one planning to boost your sales, get a precise idea of what you want to achieve. A clear vision of your goals will help you picture the best influencers for that task.
Search Instagram Down for Influencers
Now it’s time to focus on finding the right Instagram influencers for your marketing campaign. In case you need an Influencer for a co-branded project, start with those influencers who are already interested in your brand. Such collaboration will not only make them work more diligently but will also seem more natural in the eyes of their numerous followers. For this, check your “tagged in posts and Direct Messages to find any influencer who has tagged your brand in their posts or stories, watch your followers’ list and look through the comments made on your posts. You can also find influencers in your niche through relevant hashtags.
Reach Out to The Target Influencers
So, now when you already have created a list of potential influencers you can cooperate with, it’s time to reach out to them. Research for the correct contact details and first email them. Surely, you can DM them, but contacting through an email is more professional. Once in touch, ask for their media kit, introduce yourself as best as possible (your role in the brand, the brand’s purpose, etc.), and state it clear why you have chosen particularly that influencer.
Lead Transparent Negotiations
There’s no strict pricelist of cooperating with Instagram influencers. Hence, get a very clear outline on both what you expect the influencer to deliver on their part of the contract (ex. 3 posts, 1 video, 6 Stories with the brand mentioned, the deadlines, etc.) and how much you can afford to pay them for the job.
Share Useful Resources
Providing your influencers with a pack of data will significantly speed up them. So, remember to share such crucial resources on your brand as its style guide, editorial style guide, press releases and talking points, FAQs.
Follow the Analytics
Finding the right influencers to collaborate with is important, undoubtedly. But not less important it is to track and measure your campaign’s success. For this, you can use Insta’s paid partnership feature, set up UTM tagging for further posts the influencers will make, ask for feedback from them.
Be Grateful
And finally, the last and perhaps the most pleasant step in cooperation with an Instagram influencer is saying “thank you”! You can do this through a token of your brand’s products, a gifted item from your last collection, a gift or sale card, etc.
So, these were the seven crucial steps following which you are going to have a long-lasting partnership with Instagram influencers.
May 25, 2019
Today Instagram gives brands a real chance to increase their outreach and potential engagement, yet without extra expenditures. This is so simple yet far not all brands have discovered how. And now InstaBF, a known Instagram and IGTV provider, is going to offer you a working way how to make a 180 turn – focus on micro and nano influencers. Particularly they are going to make the next generation (even more powerful) of influencer marketing. And as we have already spoken about micro influencers, it’s right time to discover nano influencers.
Who Is an Instagram Nano Influencer?
A nano influencer typically has from 1k to 5k followers. These are the smallest group of influencers yet you shouldn’t underestimate them. Their power is the high level of engagement with their niche audiences. The closeness and connection that these users have with their followers is their main appeal. Such influencers, as a rule, don’t own business profiles despite the fact that they would benefit from a business profile greatly. They would gain more credibility in the field.
Working with a Nano Influencer
Generally, the accounts of nano influencers don’t feature mass appeal. Therefore, they have more time to engage with their followers, respond to their DMs and comments. All this builds a deeper personal relationship with users. People start trusting them more, taking their words for granted. That’s why a higher conversion rate for any sponsored post made by a nano influencer is guaranteed. As a rule, they don’t have any precise plan of creating a mass following to earn money. Yet, despite this, brands still notice them and appreciate their true engagement.
Anyway, collaborating with a nano influencer is risky. You, as a brand, send them a product for a sponsored post and pay for that without having any guarantee to have your expectations satisfied.
So, once you plan to cooperate with a nano influence, you’d better make a deep research, and ask for a media kit.
The Downsides of Cooperating with Nano Influencers
It’s true that nano influencers have faithful followers who are deeply engaged with them. However, this doesn’t mean they have the power to influence users’ tastes. A nano influencer’s voice can’t reach that far! Their ability to make waves is definitely questionable.
Another crucial point of such a cooperation is the level of a nano influencer’s professionalism. Before you entrust the promotion of your brand to an Instagram influencer, it’s important to check whether they have access to advanced Instagram analytics through which both the influencer and you can track the success of your cooperation. After all, it’s horrible to collaborate with an influence not having the opportunity to establish a clear ROI.
Verdict
Working with a nano influencer means paying smaller fees. Fewer followers – less return on investment, isn’t it such? Whether your brand benefits from such cooperation or not can be determined only after carrying it out. It’s really likely that you will find these nano influencers add value to your marketing efforts and that will be a big win!
