The Latest Cannabis Industry and Social Media Trends Worth Knowing

If you’re new here, I try to provide weekly social media insights and news for marketing professionals. You can read more of those blogs posts here and here. And in another blog post, I talk about four influencer misconceptions that digital marketers and social media professionals should be aware of.

Well without further ado, let’s get right into the latest cannabis industry and social media trends you need to know.

Weedmaps’ "2021 Cannabis In America" Report

Weedmaps recently published their 2021 "Cannabis In America" report, highlighting how our industry has progressed and stalled over the past twelve months. This report covers a variety of topics, but I'll share some interesting tidbits regarding cannabis consumption:

• Half of cannabis consumers responded by saying their overall consumption has increased since the start of the pandemic.

• The majority of respondents (66%) say their preferred method of consumption is alone or with one or two people. 

• Nearly half (40%) of cannabis consumers say they consume their preferred cannabis or CBD product every day. 

Influencer Marketing Surges in 2022

In Collabstr's 2022 Influencer Marketing Report, it's clear to see that influencer marketing is here to stay and, if anything, become more prevalent for brands in 2022. Some interesting tidbits worth knowing: 

• Spend associated with influencer marketing grew 42% to $13.8 billion in 2021, up from $9.7 billion in 2020, according to a new year-end report released by Collabstr. By the end of 2022, it's projected to reach $15 billion.

• Females currently dominate influencer marketing, with 77% of influencers actively monetizing their content being female, while only 23% are male. Coincidentally, research from Collabstr shows photos shared by female influencers perform better than photos shared by male influencers. 

At my 9:5, our company will be hitting the ground running in 2022 with sponsored collaborations with five influencers and sending out surprise and delight opportunities to 20 influencers for an upcoming campaign.

HubSpot 2022 Social Trends

HubSpot's released their 2022 Social Trends report ahead of the new year, for marketers to better understand what trends will be prevalent in 2022. The report touches on a variety of topics, including the metaverse and the growth of social audio, but here are some of my favorites:

• HubSpot noted that TikTok was the most downloaded app on the App Store in 2021. But Hubspot believes that this trend is more about the prevalence of short-form videos than TikTok itself, especially as other social media platforms look to tap into that trend like Instagram with Reels.
  

• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and brand inclusivity will continue to be front and center across all industries. Over the last two years, diversity and social equity were woven into some of the most memorable campaigns of this year, regardless of industry. These same social issues still matter to consumers in 2022, and whether you’re an established brand in your category or a challenger, brands and consumers will look to see how we as marketers address these very issues. 

  
  With less than four days left in the year, I hope 2022 starts off on a more positive note for everyone. Happy New Year!

Four Misconceptions About Influencer Marketing

I hope you're doing well! Over the last few weeks, I've been writing a lot about the ever-changing social media landscape, and other social media trends. But I want to dive a little bit deeper into something that I find exciting as a marketer.

So for today, let's talk about influencer marketing and some misconceptions marketers face. For many marketers and brands, 2021 was a pause or reduction of marketing efforts as belts were tightened, and ROI became even more critical. Based on the conversations I've had with other marketers, one of those programs that were initially paused was influencer marketing. 

I've discussed the importance of influencers for brands of all sizes and across all industries in the past, but as we approach the new year, many expect influencer marketing not only to return but grow. 

If you're a social media professional looking to amplify or even start your influencer marketing efforts, you've come to the right place. Today I'll dispel five myths about influencer marketing. 

Brands are looking to build relationships with their target audience by creating entertaining, educational, or inspiring content. Influencers can start that relationship by leveraging their personality, tone, and voice, introducing consumers to a brand. 

As we approach 2022, you'd be pressed to find an advertising professional who hasn't either personally worked with an influencer before.

Let's get into it. 

1: Influencer Marketing is Just a Trend.

Before COVID-19, brands were partnering with influencers to create content that would help them reach their target audience at scale. As consumers hunkered down and stayed inside during lockdowns, consumer shopping behavior shifted. Studies earlier this year showed that 75% of consumers reported trying a new shopping behavior like Instagram Shopping, enabling brands to reach consumers.  

As a brand, the goal of an influencer campaign is to identify and partner with influencers who fully embody the brand's personality and essence. Brands can reach new customers and increase their overall brand awareness by partnering with influencers who have ancillary interests in said brands. 

I feel like a broken record saying this, but influencer marketing isn't a fad or trend. Despite all of the flack Meta has received (and deservedly so), social media continues to be thoroughly ingrained with the everyday consumer. Even if there was a global reduction in social media usage, the existing data and advertising space established on these platforms still exist. Brands will still use whatever existing first-party data is available to segment and target their prospective buyers. 

I'm excited to see what's next for influencer marketing in 2022, but I expect to see more sponsored posts in my feed as we get closer to the new year. I look for ways to amplify our efforts by partnering with my colleagues in paid media and email for my programs. 

2: Influence Marketing Is Only For The Young 

To be honest here, if I asked you to close your eyes and picture an influencer, what would they look like? If you're picturing a younger adult like a Gen Z or millennial, you're not alone. You even see it on commercials as Gen Z is known to have grown up fully immersed in social media and influencers. 

While that generation is more familiar with influencers, that doesn't mean that influencers can't partner with brands that have an older target audience. I have been successful with influencers across multiple industries, including the auto, household cleaning, and even adult incontinence industries. 

Boomers and younger generations may not have grown up with sponsored posts and their favorite entertainers saying, "This video is brought to you in partnership by...," but they remain active on social media. Their favorite brands that they happen to follow on social media are already working with influencers. 

3: Influencer Marketing Is Only Effective With Macro influencers or Celebrities

It's a misconception that brands have to partner with influencers with social followings in the millions to have an effective campaign. The exact opposite is true, and more often than not, micro-influencers provide a better ROI than other influencers. 

The most significant trade-off between a micro-influencer and macro-influencers is the quality of the said audience. Micro-influencers will often have a more engaged audience than macro-influencers or other celebrities. As one's celebrity continues to grow, influencers are expanding to new niches more often than not. 

For example, Kim Kardashian's social following is split up between different chapters of her life. Some follow her from her days of being Paris Hilton's friend, others from the Keeping Up With The Kardashians days, some follow her for her relationship with Kanye, you get the gist. But if you look at the interests of the individuals who have an affinity to those different "chapters" of Kim's life, there may not be much overlap. 

With a micro-influencer, the majority of their followers are there for one thing only. And that's the niche of said micro-influencer. So when brands decide to partner with a micro-influencer over a macro-influencer, they know that most eyeballs on their influencer's post will be people who have a genuine affinity for that influencer's content. 

4: Influencer Marketing Is The Wild West

This is an interesting misconception because, in my experience, influencer marketing has often had the most guidelines, internal reviews, and legal oversight compared to other social media efforts I've launched in my career. 

Influencer marketing is still in the relative infancy compared to other marketing channels like radio, print, or even podcasts; however, there are no rules or restrictions when communicating on social media. 

Even marketing companies like Popular Pays, Linqia, and Tagger help brands launch campaigns at scale and do so in a manner that allows brands to do it safely. For example, in a previous campaign, we used Popular Pay's audience analysis to confirm that the influencers we partnered with for an alcohol brand had most of their followers being of legal drinking age. 

Well, those are just four of the more common misconceptions involving influencer marketing, and I can already think of others that need to be addressed. Woe is the life of a social media professional. Are there any trends that you think don't get enough attention? Leave them down in the comments and I’ll share my thoughts on them.

Thanks again for reading my latest blog piece! 

4 Social Media Tips & Trends Worth Knowing

Welcome back! It’s been a little bit since my last blog post, but I have more social media insights and trends to share with you.

See below for more info!

Instagram Releases New Shopping Feature “Drops”

Similar to Supreme, Telfar, and many other brands, Instagram enables brands on their platform to create hype around seasonal product releases. 

According to Instagram, “Instagram Drops” will help users discover more products, see what’s coming, sign up for reminders and view the newest products and collections that are already available on the app.”

As brands look to expand into merchandising and swag for their most passionate fans, there are opportunities for consumer-packaged goods (CPG) brands to create some engagement and excitement around exclusive gear. 

8 Social Media Content Ideas to Incorporate

Buffer provided some thought-starters for brands to create content effectively and incorporate it into a social media strategy. Our teams have already done a few of these things in one shape or another, like making videos, using engagement prompts, and sharing company news.

There is an excellent opportunity for small business owners and social media marketers to implement these things more systematically. Our teams are looking at ways to do so for upcoming content calendars.

How To Grow and Engage an Audience On Instagram

Social Media Examiner shared are some tactical ways we can continue to grow our audience on Instagram. Similar to the above article, these might be things your brand is already doing through social media content. Tactics like encouraging user engagement through social media posts, asking questions, and responding to DMs, Comments, and Mentions. 

Instagram Outlines How Its Search Algorithm Works

In another opportunity to have a peek behind the curtains, Social Media Today put some info together on how Instagram’s search algorithms work and how brands can optimize for better discoverability.

Last year, Instagram expanded its search options to show a broader set of relevant keyword matches instead of being limited to profiles, hashtags, and geographic locations. Instagram is now looking to display an even more comprehensive range of results based on your query. 

"We're making search results better for exploration. For example, a search for "space" will show you space-related photos and videos, too. This is especially helpful when you don't have an exact username or hashtag in mind when searching for a certain topic."

A critical tip regarding keywords and hashtags from Instagram: "For a post to be found in Search, put keywords and hashtags in the caption, not the comments." 

Let me know in the comments if you plan on implementing any of the above or if you have any useful social media tips worth sharing.

5 Social Media Trends For The 2nd Half of 2021

As we head into the secondnd half of 2021, I've felt re-energized and excited to discuss all things marketing and social media! Hopefully, you're feeling a similar energy and looking to improve on your social media strategy. So, without further ado, let's get into 5 Social Media Trends Heading Into The Second Half of the Year.

1) Direct To Consumer (D2C) For All Brands

The pandemic caused a drastic shift in how consumers engage with brands and vice-versa. Consumers who had never ordered an item felt compelled to due to a variety of reasons. People were looking to limit the number of times they could be potentially exposed to COVID-19, and online shopping gave them a safe way to get the items they needed or wanted.

Even if you were wearing double masks and gloves while you went outside, there was such a demand for essential products like soap, toilet paper, paper towels, and cleaning wipes that you couldn't even find what you were looking for. So is it any surprise that so many CPG brands saw record profits over the last year?

Other brands that succeeded were those that were already engaging with their customers through online shopping channels. Specifically, Direct-To-Consumer (D2C) brands were not only seeing continued sales during the pandemic, but they also saw an increase in new customers as consumers looked to new brands for their shopping needs.

If you haven’t seen Magic Spoon Cereal in your local grocery store, that’s not a surprise. This D2C cereal brand grew its customer base over the last year.

When I was working at Grassroots Cannabis at the start of the pandemic, after our businesses were deemed essential, we saw a dramatic shift in consumer shopping behavior. We went from roughly 30% online orders to approximately 70% online orders within the first few months of lockdown.

There was already data showing that brick-and-mortar shopping was decreasing, and the pandemic only accelerated that timeline. So now more than ever, brands are looking to establish a D2C strategy regardless of size. From Mom and Pop shops to global brands like Nike, who recently closed wholesale accounts with department and online stores to focus on their D2C efforts.

2) The Rise of Reddit 

When I first provided some social media tips in 2020 , I didn't touch on Reddit and how advertisers were already flocking to the platform. Fast-forward nearly a year later, and that still rings true.

According to Reddit research, the platform expects significant growth across its niche communities. And is fastly developing additional ad products and improving target capabilities for advertisers.

Since then, brands in various industries have allocated marketing spend to Reddit as a platform and have also executed platform-specific campaigns that have grabbed the attention of millions and achieved actionable business goals. CPG brands like Welch's, Pepsi, and Absolut use Reddit to successfully reach individuals of all ages and drive positive brand sentiment.

For Welch's , the brand utilized video assets targeted at Gen X men on relevant subreddits and enabled users to engage with the brand directly by enabling comments on their ads.

Welch’s sparked conversation and opened a direct conversation with the brand by enabling comments on their ads.

The campaign drove a higher than average View Through Rate and doubled the average Completion Rate for videos compared to Reddit benchmarks. And drove a 94% positive brand sentiment among comments in their engagement prompts.

Reddit isn't just useful for awareness-driving, top-of-the-funnel campaigns but also for driving conversions at the bottom.

A post on the MeUndies Subreddit, where a user compares the brand to another competitor, Lululemon. Nearly “identical” products, so why not go with the significantly cheaper brand.

MeUndies, a D2C online underwear and loungewear company, utilized Reddit conversion ads to drive purchases. The ads ran as promoted posts and utilized interest-based targeting, focusing on a variety of relevant subreddits. By optimizing towards CPA and ROAS goals, the MeUndies team was able to reach efficient CPAs.

By the end of the campaign, MeUndies saw a 60% lower Cost-Per-Click (CPC), a 5.6x Click-Through-Rate, and 61% more effective Cost Per 1000 Impressions (CPM)s, when compared to platform benchmarks.

When it comes to Reddit, I am an avid user and a beginner when advertising on the platform. I look forward to sharing insights and results of my first Reddit campaign!

3) Shoppable Social Will Continue To Grow

Even for brands that plan to utilize brick-and-mortar locations, retail e-commerce is here to stay. If anything, it's only going to get bigger. According to Statista data of retail sales worldwide, projections show that the United States alone will go from $374 billion to $407 billion by next year. By 2023, the U.S. alone will account for nearly 22% of global sales.

We'll see this global trend continue to shape the most popular social media platforms in 2021. For example, on Facebook and Instagram, integrated shopping already exists through Facebook Shops and Instagram Shopping. Both enable users to purchase products directly from within the app.

On Pinterest, consumers are already actively looking for inspiration and are closer to purchase than users on other social media platforms. According to platform research, 89% percent of Pinterest users actively look to purchase while on the platform.

The Pinterest business page for Parachute, a Bedding and Home company, enables Pinners to not only get visual inspiration for their products, but also make a purchase from within the platform.

And advertisers are already utilizing the platform's social commerce tools, including Product Pins and ad units that take consumers to Product Detail Pages (PDPs) or a landing page where a Digital Free Standing Insert (DFSI ) can house a coupon for a variety of retailers.

Pinterest also launched Shopify integration for brands on the platform and enabled marketers to add their products or catalogs to a Pinterest Business Page.

And according to Sprout Social data, nearly 80% of executives surveyed expected to be selling their products or services on social media within the next three years. For other platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and potentially Twitter, engineering teams across these companies are developing new innovative ways for consumers to purchase products directly within an app.

4) TikTok Isn't Going Anywhere 

Despite the rocky year TikTok had over the last year and potentially getting banned, the platform and business as a whole seem to be making the correct steps to further establish themselves as a home for advertisers.

With nearly 700 million monthly active users and 65 million of those being in the U.S., there's an opportunity for brands to reach an active, engaged, and growing audience. A recent study shows that TikTok users spend roughly 46 minutes a day scrolling through the app, giving brands an excellent opportunity to show up in their target audience's feed.

Idahoan partnered with influencers on TikTok to help reach a younger audience for their Instant Mashed Potatoes through authentic and engaging content.

TikTok's growth seems poised to continue, with the social media company hiring key employees from other social media platforms. And more of my clients continue to ask, "Should/Can we activate on TikTok as a brand?" From an advertising perspective, TikTok has much more competitive costs when it comes to Costs Per 1000 Impressions (CPM). And advertising on the platform is becoming accessible for brands of all sizes.

From a content perspective, brands utilizing influencer marketing, and User Generated Content (UGC) continue to succeed on the platform, reaching millions of consumers.

5) Data Privacy Will Be A Focal Point

When I first started my professional career as a digital marketer for a FinTech startup working to solve a global issue, data breaches, and privacy. Little did I know that nearly a decade later, the same trends I saw back then are just as important now.

After the iOS 14 privacy update through Apple, consumers have been opting out of being tracked by advertisers. So far, data seems to show that roughly 96% of U.S. consumers have opted out of some form of tracking on their mobile device in iOS 14.5, and the impact that will have on marketers is still unknown.

Have you decided to opt out of tracking when it comes to the apps you use on your devices?

And in Washington, a bipartisan group of Senators is looking to reintroduce the Social Media Privacy Protection and Consumer Rights Act, to protect consumer data privacy when collected by large tech companies like Facebook and Google.

This is already affecting how social media platforms and if you're actively running campaigns, you've seen the updates, pop-ups, and emails from Facebook. However, when it comes to targeting on paid social, audience options are limited, and once used, audience insights and cross-channel attribution are becoming more difficult to utilize effectively.

To counter this, we could expect social media platforms to showcase new identity and tracking capabilities. For brands and digital marketers to utilize first-party data for what would now be considered "traditional" targeting a more personalized experience.

Influencer Marketing: What You Need To Know

Like most marketing activities, influencer marketing can be very beneficial for a brand when done correctly. From helping spread word-of-mouth through a blog or piece of social content to driving an increase of overall awareness for a brand. Influencer marketing enables a company to insert itself authentically through the interests of its target audience.

When talking to my clients, they viewed influencer marketing as something only fit for well-known brands like Nordstrom, Crown Royal, and Target. But that shouldn't scare you, and I'll tell you why. Even more so during COVID-19, as consumers are switching brands at an unprecedented rate.

With 75% of consumers having tried a new shopping behavior, like one the above, this is an opportunity for brands to reach new consumers.

From a brand's perspective, the goal is to partner with influencers who fully embody the brand's personality and essence. And by working with various influencers, brands can reach new customers and increase overall brand awareness.

Real-life Examples

For one of the spirit brands I worked on, our strategic approach was to take advantage of relevant events and pop-culture experiences. In particular, this brand would use influencer marketing to insert itself authentically through its target audience's interests.

To find influencers that were already loyal fans of the brand and embodied its spirit, I recommended taking a two-pronged approach:

1) Leveraging our agency network to identify, research, and vet potential influencers in a 1:1 capacity

2) Partnering with a 3rd party, influencer marketing company to help us do the same as above, but at a larger scale

To set out for this spirit brand, we needed to establish our goals for this influencer campaign:

• Drive awareness and build brand affinity for this particular spirit brand

• Become the social brand with the brand’s consumer base (young adults 21-29) when they go out to the bars

• Assist in driving on-premise sales and an increase in overall consumption

• Inform and educate consumer base about intriguing retail activations (special edition bottles, programs, events) 

During my time leading all things Social Media and Influencer Marketing at Grassroots Cannabis, our goal was similar: 

• Raise awareness and build brand affinity for our cultivator and dispensary brands

• Increase in overall patient registrations across all dispensary locations

• Drive product sell-through to consumers (share of product sold to medical patients and recreational patrons) 

• Inform and educate consumer base on interesting retail activations (new product releases, programs, community events,) 

Identifying Your Target Audience?

Understanding your target audience will enable you to identify the right influencers for your brand. For larger brands or those in unique industries, this often means your target audience can be more complicated.

Within the cannabis industry, we had three unique target audiences;

• Consumers who look to cannabis as medical treatment (think patients with debilitating illnesses)

• Consumers who look to cannabis for wellness (think of the millennial mom who would rather unwind with an edible instead of a glass of red wine)

• Consumers who look to cannabis in a more recreational aspect (this is when you think of your stereotypical ‘stoner’)

We wanted our influencers to appeal to at least 1 of these key target audiences. Digging even deeper into those target audiences, we also had to take into account other key demographics. For example, across the 11 states one of the dispensary brands we operate, our footprint and target consumer varied widely.

Jasyra (@Fit4Arn) shared her influencer content for Herbology Dispensary, becoming one of her most engaged (comments + likes) posts on her page.

In Pennsylvania, the median household income for those near one of our dispensaries was $36,258/yr. Less than a two hour drive at another dispensary we operated, the median household income was $72,948/yr. What this means is that we were challenged to identify influencers in Pennsylvania that would resonate with consumers at each median household income.

Switching gears to the spirit brand I worked on, our target audience was:

• Young, Legal Drinking Age (LDA) – 29, All Genders (heavier initial focus on male), Intellectual & Blue Collar

• Urban & rural – over-indexing in college/university markets

• Consumes alcohol before going out to the bar, house-parties, celebratory occasions, while partaking in outdoor sporting activities, especially in cold weather

To dive deeper into our audience, we set out to understand better which interest verticals would resonate best with them. In the agency world, using the services provided by Mediamark Research and Intelligence (MRI) to identify key interests that index highest with our target audience.

Using MRI, we could then deduce key thematics within each category. As we evaluated potential influencers, we will see which influencers align with the potential verticals listed here.

How To Identify Your Potential Influencers?

We know who our target audience is, and now we need to identify potential influencers whose content would resonate with. What that means is each influencer you partner with has to embody the brand's personality.

These influencers need to reside in and can execute against priority markets. You can identify influencers that fall under specific verticals (e.g. interested in Punk music, Tattoo Enthusiasts, Gamers, Sports Fans) with the help of a 3rd party influencer marketing like Popular Pays or Tagger.

Finding influencers on a site like Popular Pays that have a specific interest, we could then select influencers with specific demographic traits (e.g., African-American, Hispanic, LGBTQ+)

Partnering With A 3rd Party Vendor

Have a small team running your influencer marketing efforts, or are you leading things on your own? Executing on influencer marketing is both labor and time-intensive, and most likely, you're working on multiple brands at once. To help agencies or brands scale their influencer efforts, an ecosystem of influencer marketing companies have sprouted up to do just that.

One of the key players in the space is Popular Pays. Popular Pays has worked with various brands, including Google, Macy's, New Balance, and many more. Including three brands I've personally worked on throughout my career.

Kevin (@turnone) shared his influencer content following a visit to one of the Pennsylvania Herbology locations. This visually-stunning creative was made possible in thanks to Popular Pays.

Working with Popular Pays, our agencies would partner with influencers across multiple verticals to create content for our clients' initiatives. Similar to how an agency operates, Popular Pays works by having agencies or brands create a brief, detailing the brand’s influencer marketing goals and objectives.

After creating a brief, these influencers will be vetted through an application process and shared with Popular Pays 6,000 + content creators. For more information about Popular Pays, you can visit their website by clicking here.

1:1 Partnerships

In conjunction with partnering with a 3rd party like Popular Pays or Taggr, working with an influencer directly, in a 1:1 capacity will help you achieve a brand’s influencer goals. Think of it as catching fish with a large net (Popular Pays) compared to using a fishing line (1:1 relationships). Both are capable of catching fish, but you might end up catching fish you may not be looking for using a large net, however.

So what does 1:1 influencer marketing involve? From start to finish, we’re talking about:

• Identifying Influencers - Similar to how Popular Pays operates, you will need to search across social media to identify potential influencers. These individuals may already be following or tagging said brand in their personal content. As marketers, do some digging and look for other influencers who might not know of said brand yet but would be fans of their product or service. 

• Influencer Outreach - Once those influencers have been identified, there then needs to be some outreach to start a conversation with each influencer. If you genuinely think they're a good fit for the brand, engage (like and comment) with their relevant content. 

• Influencer Negotiation - Once identified and having started a conversation with these influencers, look to set up a meeting so you can get to know each influencers on a personal level better. And at the same time, express to these influencers why partnering with them makes sense for said brand. Look to schedule follow-up meetings to help negotiate contracts.

• Influencer Management & Coordination – This is everything from negotiation contracts, product fulfillment, reviewing the social content they'll create for a brand, and the most crucial part, fulfilling all obligations for compensation.

Influencer content we put together for Oscar Mayer, where we identified food influencers, like HellthyJunkFood who specialized in unique recipes.

A recent report regarding influencer compensation has shined a light on influencer compensation, based on respondents in the Sub-Saharan African influencer industry. The report was put together by PLAQD, and some of the insights can help marketers across the globe regarding influencer compensation:

• Nearly 95% of influencers listed they would rather be compensated for their time (to cover travel costs + expenses) over an all-expenses-paid trip with no cash compensation

• Roughly half (53% ) of influencers surveyed said they would not work with competing brands following a partnership with another brand

• Nearly 70% of brands surveyed reported they manage their influencer campaigns in-house. This figure is up 25% compared to last year, according to a 2019 SocialPubli survey

• 70% of brands reported that they would increase their influencer spend to end the calendar year

TIP: When working with influencers in a 1:1 capacity, many digital marketers adhere to the one cent per follower (or $100 per 10K or $1,000 per 100k followers) rule. Note this is only a starting point and compensation can change due to the size and length of the campaign.

Forms of Collaboration

Now the fun part, how to collaborate with influencers to create unique content and reach a new audience. There are 3 general ways brands can partner with influencers:

Posting Content  - Posting organic content to raise overall awareness is one of the most popular ways to collaborate with influencers. Depending on your goals, this could be a single Instagram post or a series of social posts over an allotted amount of time to promote whatever event or product the brand wants to push. It is an endorsement, but the risk comes when picking the correct influencer to partner with.

Posting content in this manner tends to hold less monetary risk due to the investment level, and is extremely scalable.

Content Takeover - Takeovers can work multiple ways; either by inserting the brand into an influencer's content/blog/live show, becoming a partner. Or by allowing an influencer to take over a brand’s content for an allotted period (mainly around live events or campaign launches). 

Content takeovers are a great way to shake up a brand and what is usually associated with it. They can also be used as a temperature test if a brand wants to go further with a particular influencer. If the influencer’s content takeover is driving more impressions or engagements than other sponsored content, there might have a good fit for the long-term.

Content Series/Digital Endorser - This level of collaboration is the most in-depth as it gives brands a voice outside of their traditional marketing channels. These influencers help with creative direction and content production by being a leader. Becoming the centerpiece within the content, alongside the product. This type of collaboration is typically a much longer relationship compared to the other types of influencer engagement relationships mentioned above.

A content series like this can also includes costs that are on the higher end of the influencer campaign scale, with pay being closer to that of a brand ambassador.    

Mike Malcolm (@mikegdagod) of WeedTravelFood, created sponsored content (in-feed and Story) for Grassroots Cannabis, visiting a Windy City Cannabis dispensary.

What To Monitor For

We've set our goals for an influencer marketing campaign, identified what type of influencers we should be looking for (similar interests to our audience), and we've established how we're going to partner with these individuals (3rd Party partners + 1:1 relationships).

Once an influencer's content goes live, analysis and measurement come into play. Here are a couple of tips you can use when reviewing your influencer's content:

● Look at the conversations from each influencer's following and community to use as inspiration for creative ideation to better target your audience with a brand’s owned content

● Each piece of content created is an opportunity to insert your influencer's content into your brand's feed as organic content. Not only does this help fill out a content calendar but also extends the lifespan of the influencer's creative by exposing it to a brand's audience

● If the brands is a chain or has multiple locations, leverage influencers' local influence to promote a specific locations by creating paid ads with their creative, this can also avoid showing favoritism

Measuring Success

When looking to report on the success of your influencer's content, there are usually 3 leading key-performance indicators (KPIs) that you will track.

● Engagement Rate: That includes all likes, reactions, comments, retweets, shares, video views for each piece of content, compared against the reach garnered

● Brand Sentiment: Using a social listening tool, like Crimson-Hexagon, or even just manually looking at the comments in-feed to see how people talk about your brand in the digital world. The goal is to monitor to see any lift during the timeframe of the campaign

● Reach: This looking at the number of times your influencers' content is viewed in feed

You will most likely have additional KPIs that are specific to your brand or industry. 

During my time at Grassroots Cannabis, the KPIs we established for our dispensary brands included tracking the number of new patient registrations. For our cultivation brand, another KPI was to track product sell-in to the dispensaries we partnered with (share of our product sold to various dispensaries).

As we head into the final months of 2020, it seems as if marketing efforts, specifically around social media and influencer marketing, are increasing. And yet, we've barely scratched the surface when it comes to influencer marketing, and I look forward to sharing more industry insights.

For more ways to improve your social media efforts, check out this blog post to maximize your organic and paid social media efforts.

Social Media Tips: Continued

Following my first blog post covering platform-specific social media tips, I want to touch on an aspect of social media that a lot of my professional and consulting clients ask about, influencer marketing.

Like most marketing activities, working with influencers can be very beneficial for a brand when done correctly. From helping spread word-of-mouth through a blog or social content to driving an increase of overall awareness for a brand. Influencer marketing enables a company to insert itself authentically through the interests of its target audience.

Let me guess when you think of influencer marketing, you think of well-known brands like Nordstrom, Crown Royal, and Target, but that shouldn't scare you, and I'll tell you why.

One of my content shoots from 5411 Empanadas, a Chicago restaurant with multiple locations.

One of my former consulting clients is a co-owner of a multi-location, quick-service restaurant in Chicago, 5411 Empanadas, and was interested in influencer partnerships to promote a new product launch. But it needed to happen with a limited budget in mind. With some determination and social listening, I was able to do just that for my client.

I did it by identifying and reaching out to up and coming food and beverage influencers in Chicago with smaller follower counts; we're talking less than 3,000 on Instagram, similar to a micro-influencer.

In exchange for a free meal and the opportunity to capture some photo and video content at one of the restaurant's locations, my client received User-Generated Content (UGC) to share on their restaurant's social channels, and we earned additional reach through the influencers' social channels as well.

To wrap up this section on influencer marketing, I wanted to share a more tactical approach to building brand advocates for small businesses.

Brand Advocates

Like user-generated content, brand advocates are low-cost, and if you're lucky, a free marketing tool can help your business. Brand advocates are your most faithful and intense customers, who will take action if asked. The customers leaving positive feedback on a brand's comments or the Amazon review section are brand advocates.

Most small to midsize businesses lack the resources to either hire a large client success team or pay for chatbots to handle the heavy lifting. An absence of either can result in lost leads and lost sales, but you can level the playing field by utilizing brand advocates. They can be vital to the success of businesses, especially those with limited marketing budgets. Here's how:

Unlike influencers or brand ambassadors, brand advocates engage with a brand because they genuinely love it. These brand advocates can have a sphere of influence themselves but on a much more micro level.

A Fireball Whisky brand advocate, excited about our “Surprise & Delight” kit we sent him.

Like this Fireball Whisky fan above, brand advocates are people who find a way to talk about their experiences and satisfaction with your brand, no matter the scenario. Brand advocates often lead to new customers through word of mouth marketing (WOMM).

They can help build brand affinity, increase overall awareness, and assist in supporting new product launches.

So let's talk about the benefits of a brand advocacy program in the real world and how it can benefit your business. I think a brand that does a great job at building brand advocacy is the shoe company Toms. Those who don't know the company, Toms started in California with both a unique style of shoes and a great category differentiator.

How Toms continues to do social good, even during COVID-19.

Tom's will donate another pair of their shoes to a person in a developing country for every pair of Toms shoes purchased on their site. Even now, during COVID-19, Toms is finding ways to take their profits and turn it into a social good by purchasing personal-protective equipment (PPE).

When thinking about what "reward" your customer could receive for buying your product, it can be something tangible like a coupon for a future visit or points towards a loyalty program. But it can also be something intangible, something that evokes an emotional feeling.

For Toms, the reward is knowing that your purchase will help someone in need with every shoe you purchase. Toms’ brand advocates then take that brand story about why this particular shoe brand is such a great company, and they tell everyone they can, their friends, family, co-workers, and even the person they sit next to on the plane.

Those individuals happen to be potential customers for Toms. Now in an ideal world, those potential customers will go out and purchase a pair of shoes as soon as they hear about how great Toms is as a company, creating new revenue streams.

Leveraging Word Of Mouth Marketing (WOMM)

As a marketer and consumer, there's often some lag time between when someone hears about an exciting product or company and acts on it. We’re talking about multiple touchpoints before a consumer becomes a customer. Sometimes you may not get a direct sale through your brand advocates, but you will gain word of mouth and hopefully convert later.

If you dedicate time to building a brand advocacy program, you also can provide a baseline of customer support without adding to your bottom line, requiring additional resources. For one of my previous agency clients, when we'd see a customer leave a negative comment about issues with their products on Facebook, other users, aka brand advocates, would come out of the woodwork and provide advice or tips to remedy the situation.

One example of a successful brand advocacy program that sticks out in my mind to this day was from a book I read when I was first starting in advertising called "Fizz: Harness the Power of Word of Mouth Marketing to Drive Brand Growth" by Ted Wright.

Fizz: Harness the Power of Word of Mouth Marketing to Drive Brand Growth by Ted Wright

In his book, Ted talks about how his marketing agency in Atlanta, Fizz, helped the U.S. Dairy Association through brand advocates and word of mouth marketing. One of their goals was to get pre-teens and teens to keep drinking milk through high school. And to do that, they needed a story worth telling. That story was a research study concluding that chocolate milk was the best drink following strenuous activity for recovery. Better than Gatorade, water, and everything in between.

Now they needed to change how their potential audience, pre-teens, and teens think about chocolate milk. And who leaves a more significant impression on middle schoolers more than anyone? High school kids. So now, Ted and his team needed to identify and partner with brand advocates who have an authoritative voice on this particular subject, fitness. When it comes to fitness and playing your best in high school, most students look to the football coach for guidance.

Through direct mail, leveraging the study and benefits of chocolate milk, and partnering with professional athletes, the agency convinced coaches in Ohio that chocolate milk should be their players' post-workout drink of choice. Over time, more and more coaches started recommending chocolate milk to their players. Those players then asked their moms for it at home, driving purchase intent at the grocery store. And before long, that local Ohio story gained national coverage, increasing overall sales of chocolate milk.

Takeaways

What are some takeaways from a brand advocacy program, albeit at a much larger scale, that applies to marketers, regardless of skill:

1) Identify your existing brand advocates; they're the people talking about your brand constantly on social or online. You probably already know a couple and could identify more easily with just a little bit of time

2) Establish your goal for partnering with these brand advocates. Is it direct referral, is it app downloads, is it product reviews?

3) What is the creative way to reach those goals? For example, for direct referrals, what can you offer more exciting than a basic "Earn $5 for each referral?"

4) Monitor test and learn. Regarding reporting and analyzing content, we're fortunate to be in an industry where trial and error are not only accepted; and championed when done correctly.

Follow these four takeaways, and as a bonus, you'll be able to build an emotional connection with these potential brand advocates, while also establishing a trusting relationship with your brand or your client's.

With these takeaways, you can create a brand advocacy program with the ability to scale up or down as necessary, that can assist from a content creation standpoint and help you receive product feedback or reviews if your business requires that.

Looking Ahead

We've gone over a lot in the past few weeks, and yet, we've only scratched the surface of the current social media ecosystem. Social media is ever-changing and requires a mixture of both art and science. You need to understand both the qualitative and the quantitative when reviewing content and understanding performance.

And even as social media continues to evolve, we still know that consumers across all of the major social media platforms want to share aspects of their lives and engage with the brands that make it possible for them to do that. So how can your business or your clients engage with its consumers in a natural and non-invasive way? ‘

In my career, we typically mine for insights across the Internet and in the real world, discovering how a brand's products live in everyday consumers' lives. We do this to ground our social strategy in actionable insights.

From a cultural standpoint, what culturally-relevant moments can my brand show up authentically? When thinking about our business category, are we seeing any trends that seem to separate some businesses from others within the category?

Next, we look from a consumer perspective. Can we do social listening to uncover any insights relevant to our brand?

And from a company standpoint, what's truly different about our brand, and how can we maximize that advantage across every relevant media?

During my time at The Escape Pod Group, we took a four-step approach to our social media process. That involves listening to our community, our target audience, and the competitive set for any insights.

1) We look to create original branded content per an editorial calendar.

2) To help supplement that content, we curate and share user-generated content and 3rd party testimonials.

3) We then look to connect with influencers, micro, and macro, to help grow our social following and raise overall awareness.

4) Finally, we take a look back to measure and analyze our results to optimize future content. Like any campaign or activation, review how your content is performing throughout the campaign for better success.

That includes everything from an A/B test using the same creative but different post copy on two paid social posts, all the way to flighting several pieces of content over a more extended period and having them compete against each other.

This A/B testing is sometimes known as race tracking, where you're using the performance of those paid ads to determine which has the best creative to run long-term.

Next week, we're going to continue looking at the organic and paid social content.

Can’t wait and want to learn more about organic and paid social media? Check out my “Organic vs. Paid Social Media: Part 01” blog post.