Twenty years ago, it would have been hard to imagine this current internet age. It has changed so many aspects of our lives. As the internet became more accessible to more people, the creator’s economy came into effect. Anyone with access to the internet has the power to create Content. This started the rise of influencers.
Eventually, as social media apps began to rise, creators began to utilize those platforms to share products and events they enjoyed. With the addition of paid advertisements, brands could pay influencers for sharing what they love.
People’s opinions and thoughts originally came through word of mouth. The influencer market is a global extension of this, amplifying the wealth of knowledge on the internet. It’s no surprise that influencer marketing has been growing exponentially over the last few years.
Now the influencer marketing business has gained remarkable success as they’ve grown and adapted to the changes of the industry. Consumers can interact with several types of influencers in ways that can benefit their personal lives and businesses.
What are the Roles of Influencers?
Influencers have become an integral part of a good marketing strategy. These influencers have adapted into various forms since they began blogging. For example, “mommy” blogs became popular as they shared their struggles and successes with parenting. Currently, the model that most companies are using for their social media presence is hiring influencers that align with their brands values. This is known as an influencer collaboration.
Companies currently pay anywhere from $200 to $10,000 per video or post. What Stratezine has done is research and then draw actionable insights on the idea that a company or brand can adapt their social media persona to be an “in-house influencer” by allowing employees to create original content.
An in-house influencer is someone who works for the company and creates content. Staff are given access to the business channels to form relationships with brands and private channels. This type of influencer is excellent for putting a face to branded content and building an online persona for the company.
The Value of an Employee Influencer for a Company
B2C (business to consumer) companies have been utilizing the value of an employee influencer to connect with consumers. To a potential customer, an employee influencer is a trusted face and a reliable source of information. Who better to know about the company than an employee? That real connection between the customer and influencer is built because customers view that as more personable content.
“Internal influencers are like customer service representatives with personality; some may even be the perfect vessel for collecting customer insights, including barriers to sales and buying journey pain points.”
This is where the employee influencer can step in and utilize the business account to personally connect with those customers. The customers can feel that they are speaking to one person with similar problems and can receive help. That help can be along the buyer’s journey or customer service inquiries.
To back the idea of employee influencers being more personable, Stratezine conducted a survey and asked what the top three most important attributes are for following an influencer:
Out of a sample of 30 BYU-Idaho students, 41% voted authenticity is their most important attribute when following influencers.
Conversely, the biggest reason BYU-I students would unfollow an influencer was because of difference in or changing values.
From this information, we can conclude that social media users want value and authenticity being brought to them by influencers. No person will devote their time to listening or looking at content that doesn’t offer them value. They want an authentic experience. This is where the success of employee content plays a part.
Pros and Cons of Hiring an In-House Influencer
Pros:
● Builds lasting, productive relationships with key industry thought leaders and influencers
● Personal career advancement
● Having an employee in a forward-facing role who resonates with customers
● Becoming experts in your industry and leveraging insights
● It helps the employee (because employees can create their own brands and build up credibility in a specific industry, businesses can use the credibility and recognition by featuring them in the content you create and promote. Ideally an employee influencer keeps their own separate profile along with posting regularly on the business’ profile).
Cons:
● Takes time away from other jobs and tasks
● Engagement with followers is now your job too— responding to comments, messages, questions, and negative feedback.
● You must be responsive to questions at weird times of the day.
● Employees could be hesitant about using their personal profiles.
● Because social media can take on a life of its own, as employees build followers, they’ll develop a whole new set of connections and people to interact with, presenting new challenges.
● Maintaining and keeping these new connections and networks can turn into a job of its own.
Overall, consumers want to know what jobs are like and what goes into the product or service they are purchasing. Employee content can show realistic and exclusive behind-the-scenes content that gives your audience an inside look at the product or service. Employee influencers can be a channel of sustainable content creation, rather than just a short-term contract. And most importantly, it can build authority and credibility for your business in a personable and organic way.
Engagement and Employee Influencers
Employee influencer marketing has the power to amplify content and boost brand awareness. It brings people into the company network and changes the way potential customers view a brand, product, or service.
In the survey Stratezine conducted, we discovered that influencer sponsorships had no effect on whether people bought the product or service more. Meaning, that any kind of rumor that sponsorships negatively affect your audience’s purchasing power are just that: rumors. This insight further supports the idea that employees can build authority and credibility for your business.
In the survey with BYU-I students, we also asked them what specific topics they follow an influencer for. The highest ranked response was tied between health/wellness and lifestyle. The second ranked spot was tied between adventure and outdoors.
These are examples of niche content creators. BYU-Idaho students felt connected to these influencers because they are the “face of” a topic that the students are interested in. Social media users want to see the topics they are interested in, so influencers need to brand who they are and the value they add to that topic. This “face value” or genuineness from these influencers drives up engagement with their content.
Employee influencers also utilize different tactics to drive forward engaging content and to put themselves and their business forward as something enticing to capture the attention of a customer. One tactic people enjoy is day-in-the-life content. It gives a realistic view of the employee’s day-to-day routine at work.
Aligning with the same principle is behind-the-scenes content that highlights the methods of their jobs and potential benefits. Another tactic would be accomplishment or celebration type content. Finally, find ways to personalize your content. People want to find ways to connect with what they see, and if influencers utilize this aspect, they can make powerful content for their business.
Stratezine interviewed micro-influencer Lori Ward, who has built a following of 27k on Instagram. To learn more about her journey and how she builds her own brand and style, Stratezine interviewed her on our podcast.
She says, “I decided to start it on Instagram because of a few things: my target market, who is about 14, believe it or not, and 35 for acne. My target market lives here on Instagram. But my target market is younger, and so I went to Instagram six years ago.” As an influencer native, she gave Stratezine’s audience a few tips:
➔ “You don’t want to pay for followers because you can’t convert fake accounts into money. You can’t convert them over to being clients. They’re just dead weights. They will do nothing for you.”
➔ “If you’re going to be on Instagram or any social media, and you want to do well, you want to promote yourself and start making money and growing your business. It is a full-time job.”
➔ “I found that it is so much easier in my business if I talk to one person, one particular type of person. When you start talking to everybody, you won’t reach anyone.”
➔ “I feel like it’s harder to gain a following. I feel like it’s harder now because Instagram wants you to pay to get promoted, pay to be sponsored. And I just want you to know, you don’t have to do that. You can grow it organically. I’ve done both.”
➔ “I would recommend a niche into your particular set of skills. Like, for us, the umbrella is acne, right? That overarching theme is acne. And then, everything underneath that supports getting clear and being healthy.”
➔ “Here’s another tip, all the content that you make, make a reel out of it because Instagram is just going that way.”
➔ “Learn how to adapt and pivot really fast. Things are changing so quickly; there’s new features to use. I mainly use Instagram, and there’s always new algorithms, which I can’t stand. I think they’re rather unfair to the users, but it is what it is. But learn to adapt to all the new changes.”
In the second interview with nano-influencer Bethany Barr Smith, Bethany echoed many of the same tips that Lori did. These tips have come from their individual experiences of success and failure trying to build a business. As an individual influencer who is trying to carve out their own place in the business market, our interviewees have had to start from the ground up, taking years to experience some measure of success. Businesses can utilize the benefits of influencers by looking inward to the employees that they have.
Let’s hear what Bethany has to say!
What Internal Influencer style is best for you?
The option is available for a company to hire someone to take over and handle social media pages, but employees have the passion and insider knowledge already that can be an asset to developing an influencer character. It can be an easier and more effective method, rather than hiring a brand-new person to the company.
A brand or company would need to really scout out their employee’s media habits to determine a suitable candidate for an influencer. In this internet age, people have adopted natural ways that they use and present themselves in the media. The internet has given the average person limitless creative freedom. But with creative freedom comes distinct styles of content creation. When trying to determine an employee to entrust a media page to, consider if they fall into one of the five influencer styles.
The Five Influencer Styles
● The enthusiast – this creator focuses on the messaging and utilizing media platforms as a megaphone. This creator is a natural ambassador.
● The expert opinion – this is the traditional take to an influencer. This creator is seen as an expert on topics.
● The unplanned – the internet sometimes turns out unexpected viral videos. These are unplanned but can be used to boost a brand by the right creator.
● The reserved – this creator isn’t active in posting but prefers to support friends and other brands.
● The connector – this creator understands the value of networking and is natural at it. They have potential to expand networks and strengthen brands.
What to do After Finding Your Employee Influencer
After identifying a group of employees who could take on the responsibilities and represent the style that aligns with your business, approach them with an offer. If they refuse the opportunity, graciously accept their answer, and continue looking for potential candidates. If the offer is accepted, be clear about their responsibilities and the guidelines they need to follow to represent the brand appropriately, and then follow the steps listed below:
1. Define your audience and goals. Help your employee influencer to see their role as a marketer and teach or provide training for them to create content that targets your business’ audience.
2. Create content calendars. Having a structure to the creative process will alleviate the stress of deadlines and assist in knowing when to post at the optimal time.
3. Set clear expectations with contributors. If there are multiple employees who make content within a company, make sure to foster an environment where they create strong content together. Don’t force them to do things that they don’t like to do.
4. Give them enough freedom to explore creatively with enough boundaries for the company to move forward. One way to make sure this is happening is by working with your group of employee influencers to set KPIs that can track and measure their content performance.
5. Review and adjust the strategy. KPIs are only helpful if you are reviewing them and drawing actionable insights from them. Remember these employees are building a personal brand that is in alignment with your business’ values. So, there could be multiple KPIs that give insights on your company’s goals as well as their personal brand goals as employees.
Key Takeaways:
➔ People can interact with various types of influencers in ways that can benefit their personal lives and businesses.
➔ To a potential customer, an employee influencer is a trusted face with reliable source information.
➔ Authenticity is crucial to gathering followers.
➔ Sponsorships can help sell your product or service and don’t damage trust.
➔ People like to follow their “niche influencer.” The influencer is seen as a person that adds value to viewers’ interests.
➔ Employee influencers utilize their own tactics to drive engagement with their followers.
➔ Bethany Barr Smith said, “Go on to your stories and have live videos of you being yourself, being able to laugh, being able to show up without makeup on, and show your audience that you are actually a real person who is relatable and kind. That’s very attractive to people.”
➔ Humanize your content. Lori Ward said, “They want to see where you go, what you do, things that you eat, etc… I like bringing people along and I like showing people real life behind Instagram.”
➔ Businesses can utilize their employees to be influencers and advocates for the brand.
➔ Find how employees use their media and identify the influencer style that works best for your brand or business.
➔ Approach the employee with an offer of being an influencer; if accepted, be clear on responsibilities and guidelines.
Overall, in influencer marketing, or this era of media creation, it’s wise to capitalize on the fact that social media has created a generation of hungry consumers. Turn your content creation over to employees in your business who know the ins and outs of your business. Trusting those who have a passion for a brand or business to handle social media is like tapping into a business’ own network of like-minded customers. By doing this, you can increase your business’ chances of being discovered, gain support, and strengthen the authority of your product or service.
Recent Comments