Influencer marketing – the future of food marketing?
Influencer marketing is a strategy to significantly affect the visibility of a brand and closely linked to social media.
At one time it was simply called ‘word of mouth’, as the claim of a well-known detergent suggested; today, with the advent of social media, a growing number of opinion leaders – bloggers, YouTubers, Twitter users, Instagrammers – exercise a real social influence by connecting and sharing messages with their own audience, significantly affecting the visibility of a brand, the actions of followers / fans and their purchasing decisions.
For this reason, companies have totally redefined how they can influence and engage the target market, to the point that influencer marketing plans have taken on strategic relevance for many digital marketers. An investment of this type is even more justified, moreover, considering findings by Tomoson according to which 76% of marketers would recognize a clear correlation between influencer marketing and customer loyalty.
What are the best practices for building an effective influencer marketing plan? First of all, a fundamental concept must be clarified: anyone can become an influencer, but not all influencers can really collaborate effectively with a certain company or brand. For this it is necessary to start from a correct identification of the archetypes of influencers, each of which is characterized by specific characteristics. The most recent literature on the subject identifies three main clusters of influencers. The first is that of the ‘identified’, made up of influencers considered relevant for a brand, based on the specially designed rankings, but also for the role and position held in the sector in which they operate and which is relevant for the company. A wide range of influencers can be inserted into this cluster, from celebrities who enjoy wide exposure and generate immediate action, to passionate, authoritative and independent publishers, to everyday advocates, who love to review products and services and enjoy a great reputation with their own community, to altruistic activators, generally considered impartial and therefore reliable.
The second cluster is instead made up of the ‘engaged’, i.e. the number of influencers with whom an initial level of interaction has already been established, from sharing content on social networks to liking and following. This type of involvement represents the first substantial step towards building a stable and lasting relationship and is strictly connected to the relevance of the content published and promoted by a company and its attractiveness, as well as the reputation of the brand and its evocative power.
Finally, the third cluster includes ‘active’ influencers: they are the influencers directly involved in influencer marketing programmes and who actively collaborate with brands and companies to promote their products or services, share their vision and embrace their causes, effectively becoming true ambassadors.
However, one of the most recent trends is to close partnerships with micro-influencers. They are common users, with relatively small communities and who certainly do not have followers numerically comparable to those of long-time VIPs or influencers, but who instead have a great ability to actively involve the fanbase and become ambassadors of the product, service, brand: metrics that are much more important for a business person who wants to invest in influencer marketing.
But, in a nutshell, does influencer marketing lead directly to sales conversion? It’s difficult to be absolutely sure about its influence. One sure thing, however, is that “transparent” posts are constantly increasing, that is with hashtags that denote the commercial nature of the post. In fact, in the last year, transparent posts have increased by + 69% on Instagram.
This is what emerges from the analysis conducted by a series of European Observatories (and by the Observatory set up by Buzzoole, martech company for Italy) which analyzed all the posts published in Italian that use the transparency hashtags divided by sector, as well as to the most active brands on social networks. The annual study “Transparency in Influencer Marketing” covered all posts (except stories) published on Instagram, Youtube, Twitter and Facebook, containing the most used transparency hashtags: #ad, #adv, # sponsored, #sponsored, #sponsoredby, #gifted, #giftedby, #supplied and #advertising.
TRANSPARENT FOOD
Fashion and cosmetics were confirmed as the most transparent sectors. The third place is now occupied by food, with 9.8% of posts, gaining 3.3 percentage points. Behind food come technology (consumer electronics) with 9% of posts, entertainment (TV, gaming) with 8.7% of posts, accessories (bags, watches and jewelry) with 8, 6% and beverages with 4.4%. Over both 2020 and 2021 it emerged that the health care sector with 3.1% of transparent posts focused above all on personal hygiene and safety devices for consumer health protection.
ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENT
Transparency is not only an important value but also an essential requirement in the world of influencer marketing to preserve the relationship of trust between influencers, brands and users. In fact, transparency hashtags must be automatically added to all campaigns.