Influencer Marketing has become one of the pillars of the overall marketing strategy for brands across industries. More marketing budgets are allocated to collaboration with social media influencers than ever. ZENPULSAR offers a unique AI product aimed at identifying and analysing influencers from a variety of niches. The product goes beyond mere analysis – it offers estimates of the ROI based on partnering with a specific influencer. In this article, we are taking a look at what this ground-breaking product can do for brands, particularly with regard to optimizing influencer marketing spend.
Growth of Influencer Marketing Budgets
Influencer Marketing is a category of marketing that is experiencing unprecedented growth. According to a survey by the Influencer Marketing Hub, more than 80% of brands dedicate funds to Influencer Marketing, while 67% intend to increase their spend in this area. The chart below shows the respondents' plans with regard to their Influencer Marketing budgets.
Image source: InfluencerMarketingHub.com
In the same benchmark survey, marketing managers stated their intent to increase the use of AI technologies, and the leading reason for turning to AI was “influencer identification”. Clearly, identifying the right influencers is high on the agenda of marketing departments.
Problems with Finding the Right Influencers
It’s no coincidence that marketing professionals are hoping to employ AI for influencer identification. One of the key problems faced by businesses employing Influencer Marketing is the inability to find the right individuals that will elevate their brands above the rest. Marketers are often relying on heuristics or simplified strategies to find the right influencer, e.g., by checking follower numbers, engagement rates, and the influencer’s fit to the company’s brand image. With all and sundry employing the same influencer targeting strategies, this leads to a narrow group of super-influencers with massive follower numbers who attract a vast proportion of Influencer Marketing dollars.
Juggling an entire army of brand partners from different areas, these super-influencers often dedicate little effort or coverage to each individual brand. For the company hoping to achieve their Influencer Marketing goals, the end result of this dispersed focus is suboptimal campaign returns.
Brands that focus on smaller and more specialised influencers might get better cooperation and more dedicated coverage from their influencer. However, these influencers might lack the necessary exposure to large enough audiences to make the Influencer Marketing exercise worth it.
With the trade-offs to consider and the insane segmentation of the Influencer Marketing universe, finding the right influencer has turned into a sort of art many are struggling to attain mastery in.
ZENPULSAR Influencer Analysis – Finding the Right Influencer & Optimizing Spend
At ZENPULSAR, we have been designing smart AI solutions for years, particularly in the domain of social media. Identifying the need for businesses to partner with the right influencers, we have introduced ZENPULSAR Influencers – an AI-driven database solution that helps brands accomplish a number of critical goals:
1. Identifying influencers optimally aligned with your brand
ZENPULSAR's AI-driven influencer identification algorithm efficiently sifts through social media databases, categorising users by reach, engagement, and credibility. It pinpoints individuals best suited to campaign objectives, regardless of location, ensuring effective targeting for your campaigns.
2. Providing demographic insights on the influencers’ follower bases
Finding the influencers whose image, credibility, or discussion topics are aligned with your marketing objectives is only one part of the equation. A critical element of Influencer Marketing is an in-depth analysis of the influencers’ follower bases. This is an area that brands have typically struggled with. While tracking influencers’ topic areas, communication styles, or overall follower stats is relatively uncomplicated, gaining deep insights into their followers’ demographics is much harder.
While adhering to GDPR regulations and respecting privacy concerns, ZENPULSAR conducts in-depth analyses of influencers' posts, reactions, and engagements. This approach offers valuable insights into the audiences they attract.
3. Cost-Benefit Analysis
Our influencer analytics helps brands estimate the value of engaging an influencer from a cost-benefit perspective. This is another critical area that brands often find challenging. Analysing influencers’ collaborations, engagement stats, and social media reach helps in estimating the dollar impact of partnering with a specific influencer.
On the basis of these estimates, brands can make informed decisions about which influencer or influencers to engage, all driven by actual ROI estimates.
Despite the importance of Influencer Marketing and the significant amounts allocated by brands to the area, cost-benefit estimates employed in the industry are often imprecise and heuristics driven. In part, this is due to the unpredictable nature of social media networks.
Using ZENPULSAR’s influencer analytics, businesses can now have a higher degree of certainty with regard to their spend commitments and expected returns. For the first time in the domain of Influencer Marketing, you can run a laser-sharp cost-benefit analysis of engaging an influencer, all thanks to our Influencers solution!