Friday, June 14, 2019
You’ve probably heard the term influencer or influencer marketing. It’s a kind of word-of-mouth advertising that involves leveraging the social media reach of someone who is influential - either because they have a large following, or because they hold a lot of credibility with a particular audience.
An influencer creates content about your business or product and posts it on their social media channels like Facebook, Instagram and blogs. It could take the form of sponsored posts, a review of your business, or a contest on their channels. You can then share or cross post the content on your own social media channels.
Tourism Nova Scotia often works with influencers to help raise awareness of Nova Scotia as a vacation destination, as do most destination marketing organizations. There is an opportunity for tourism businesses to work with influencers to market their product as well.
Lee Fraser, co-owner of Live Life in Tents, had experience with social media advertising from his previous work in events promotion, and has pulled that experience in to market his tourism business. Live Life in Tents focuses almost entirely on digital marketing where analytics tools allow the business to target ads to a specific audience and track performance. They also work with influencers to help raise awareness of their brand.
Live Life in Tents is co-hosting its fourth Creatives Weekend from June 14-16 at Broad Cove Campground in partnership with Destination Cape Breton, Parks Canada, and other local businesses. In 2016, Live Life in Tents invited five influencers to the campground for a weekend, which laid the groundwork for the Creatives Weekend concept. Now, Live Life in Tents works closely with Destination Cape Breton to host the Creatives Weekends and shine a light on tourism in Cape Breton. This partnership has allowed the influencer events to grow. This year, 120 people applied to participate and 40 were selected.
Creatives Weekends are a social networking event that provides food, accommodations and entertainment for bloggers, photographers and videographers in exchange for pre-determined content that can be leveraged by the event sponsors. Each participant has a set list of deliverables (posts, photos, videos, etc.)
“We don’t just look at follower counts, we mostly work with micro-influencers to get into the smaller communities that are often overlooked in marketing,” says Lee. “We try to have a mix of photographers, videographers, and people who work with drones. We look for people who are hiking enthusiasts and create the quality and type of content that connects with our brand.”
Lee says the event has allowed him to build a community of creators that have a strong attachment to his business and form important partnerships with other local tourism businesses. He has also seen his visitation to his business increase as a result of the social media content generated by influencers. For example, his river tubing experience on the Margaree River exploded in popularity just from people tagging Live Life in Tents in social media posts about their tubing trips.
So, how do you get started in working with influencers?
First, you need to decide what your objective is for influencer marketing. Are you trying to raise awareness of your brand? Do you want to increase engagement on your social media channels or website? Knowing this will help you choose influencers you want to partner with and help you set clear expectations for what services you want to receive.
For example, if your goal is increased engagement, you might want to work with micro-influencers who have a smaller following, but who are actively engaged within the community you are trying to reach.
“Find people whose content you like, that is a good fit for your brand, and start messaging them,” says Lee. “Offer what you think is equal value to their work and have defined deliverables.”
If you want people to promote your business on their channels or create quality content that you can use in your marketing, you must be prepared to offer fair compensation. Compensation could take the form of cost per engagement (such as clicks or visits to your site, likes and shares on a post, etc), cost per post on their social channels, or free products or services in exchange for content. For example, you might offer a free weekend at your accommodation or free ticket to participate in a guided kayaking trip in exchange for an article on a travel blog.
“People often focus on the cost of marketing, but you have to think of it as a long game. For social media marketing you have to constantly be creating and pushing quality content so you can build your brand over time,” says Lee. “For the cost of a weekend accommodation, you receive quality content. Having good images that represent your business is worth the investment.”
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