These 4 Influencer Marketing Campaigns Will Knock Your Socks Off

Influencer marketing: if you own a small business or work in digital marketing, chances are you have heard about this elusive marketing strategy a lot over the past few months. But what’s the hype really all about?

It’s more than just a buzzword. According to a HubSpot-backed study, 94% of marketers think that influencer marketing is an effective campaign strategy. It makes sense. As digital marketing trends ever more personal and marketers rely on quality content to attract and retain audiences, it seems like influencer marketing is here to stay.

And as with most things in this world, what works for multi-million dollar companies with unlimited budgets, influencer marketing can work for your small business–if you make some adjustments.

To inspire your influencer marketing campaign, here are 4 campaigns (of various sizes) that really knocked it out of the park in 2017.

4 Influencer Marketing Campaigns That Totally Nailed It – And What You Can Learn From Them

River Island

You may have seen one of their posts when scrolling through Instagram.  River Island is currently killing it with the influencer marketing game – in large part due to their team of influencers comprised of women and men with all different styles. Their own hashtag #imwearingri has over 180,000 posts. They rely heavily on micro-celebrities (people with a  significant social media following) to sell their products.

The lesson: You don’t need a Kim Kardashian on board to run a successful influencer marketing campaign. Small-time influencers can feel more authentic to audiences and often have higher levels of real engagement.

ASOS Insiders

Another darling of social media: the ASOS insiders effort. This popular fast fashion brand had one of the top influencer marketing campaigns since influencer marketing became a thing. They enlisted popular bloggers from a wide variety of areas (fashion, beauty, lifestyle and even comedy) to give customers more personal content – including fashion tips and style advice. Each ASOS Insider has a profile page on their website, and uses their own social media accounts to promote ASOS’s clothes, accessories, etc. and give their combined millions of followers access to sartorial and lifestyle inspiration.

The lesson: Influencer marketing is about long-term engagement. Your influencers should have an organic following and post consistently on a theme to pack the maximum punch.

Before you can crush the influencer marketing game, you need to have a good sense of your brand voice. Find it now with these 4 tips.

Airbnb

Influencer marketing is more versatile than just fashion and beauty. Airbnb regularly provides popular travel influencers with accommodations in exotic locations in exchange for a shoutout on social media. For example: they have provided accommodations for celebrities such as Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Kylie Jenner, Mariah Carey, Drake, and many more! Not too shabby, right?

Fabletics

This brand (founded by Kate Hudson) works with influencers of all tiers – from micro-influencers to brand ambassadors and well-known celebrities. Their own hashtag #fableticsambassador has nearly 10,000 posts which help reach the brand’s athleisure audience. 

The lesson: Use influencer marketing to tell a story about your brand. Highlight the things that make it special in order to create content that audiences will connect with.

How can your business leverage micro-influencers to tell your story to a large, brand-aligned audience?