Influencer campaigns are a major trend. If you open your social media account today, you will immediately start scrolling through influencers talking about certain products or services. With the dawn of AI influencer marketing platform, its potential and worth have further hit the roof. 

While influencer marketing promises to garner a lot of engagement on social media, it needs to be planned with patience. Yet, many brands and agencies tend to make common influencer marketing mistakes that cost them enormous money, reputation, and customers’ trust. 

So, we’ve done the work for you and listed down the top 11 influencer marketing mistakes that you can steer clear off: 

1. Not Setting Clear Goals

There should be a meaningful objective attached to any business activity; otherwise, you are just shooting in the dark. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon, ask yourself – is influencer marketing the solution to your business problem? Set clear goals, for example, increasing your follower count or improving ROI.

2. Partnering With the Wrong Influencers

Of course, follower count matters, but there’s more to choosing the right influencer. Besides your influencer marketing budget, you need to consider the influencer’s engagement rate, level of influence, and connection with the audience.

3. Failing to Understand Competition

Researching about your competitors can put you a step ahead. Find out which influencers did your competition collaborate with. Also, thoroughly screen your potential influencers’ social media profiles to understand which other brands they have been associated with. 

4. Not Analyzing the Outcome

You have your campaign reports with the number of clicks, shares, sales, etc., but how do you interpret what worked for you and what didn’t, and why? Employ influencer marketing platforms to help you with data analysis and make well-informed customer conversion and retention decisions.

5. Poor Relationship Management with the Influencers

Just like we believe that every business relationship can be useful even after the gig is over, an influencer might also come to your rescue when you need them in the future. So, it is imperative to build long-lasting relationships with your influencers by applauding their work on social media time and again.

6. Underestimating Fake Followers

Bot-created or bought followers are not going to get you the results. Sooner or later, your audience will start noticing low engagement rates on your influencers’ posts and stop believing in your brand. The only way through is by being consistent in producing quality content and truly engaging with your audience.

7. Inadequate Hashtags and Descriptions

Social media algorithms work on using accurate hashtags to discover relevant content. Once a user lands on your post that has a hashtag of their interest, they would learn about your product by reading the description below. So, always ensure that you use relevant hashtags and mention your product and CTA in the description. 

8. Not Engaging with Your Followers

A follower would be delighted to receive a response from an influencer that they look up to. The brand and the influencers must develop a habit to engage with their followers in the form of questions, polls, comments, reposts, live videos, etc. 

9. Not Following FTC Guidelines

According to the latest US Federal Trade Commission’s rules, you are liable to label branded content as paid or sponsored to keep things transparent with the end consumer. Make sure you give your influencers clear guidelines on the same.

10. Not Creating Original, Authentic Content

With enough people trying to flag copied content online, you’ve got to get super creative with your influencer marketing campaigns. Do not make the influencer marketing mistake of copying another brand’s content strategy. You will only land in trouble by doing so, not to mention the distrust of your followers.

11. Sacrificing Quantity for Quality

It is advised not to put all your eggs in one basket, meaning don’t focus on only one social media platform. Try cross-channel marketing by disseminating your content on various social media platforms to connect with different audience groups. It may take extra time, but you can ask your influencers to use new tools that allow them to manage multiple platforms easily.

Although Instagram is influencers’ favorite platform, there are many other growing influencer marketing platforms you can utilize. For example, TikTok influencer marketing is seeing a lot of enthusiasm if you have a sizeable marketing budget and target a young audience. 

If you want to get the best value for your money, avoid the above influencer marketing mistakes and tap into the potential of upcoming and growing influencer marketing platforms.

Author Bio:

Rachel Smith is a communication executive who works with the content marketing team at Affable, an influencer marketing company that provides AI-driven solutions that allows you to plan and execute your influencer campaigns strategically. She develops content around social media and marketing topics that can help her readers understand how to pick the right influencers, measure their impact, and run effective influencer campaigns. In her free time, she loves meeting new people and attending workshops on communication and psychology.