A Beginner's Guide to Facebook Influencer Marketing

In this day and age, online presence is a fundamental part of any brand’s marketing strategy. But the days of solely relying on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns to get your name out there and drive conversions are long gone. We’ve entered an age where social influence is one of the most important factors that drive purchasing behaviour.

Now, more than ever, consumers are spending their time browsing social media and engaging with content on a variety of social platforms. In fact, internet users watch an average of 16 hours of videos online per week. That is up 52% over the past two years! What’s more, 64% of consumers make a purchase after watching branded social media videos.

Naturally, you may be wondering what the best way to leverage consumer social media usage for your business is.

Enter: Facebook Influencer Marketing, a powerful marketing technique that takes advantage of the connection that influencers on the platform have built with their audience.

Today, I'll walk you through everything you need to know about getting started, including how Facebook influencer marketing works, what it can achieve, and a step-by-step guide to launching a successful campaign. Plus, you’ll find tips on optimising your campaigns and taking them to the next level.

Is Facebook even relevant in 2022?

In many ways, Facebook is seen as the less cool older sibling of Instagram, and it's practically archaic compared to new, hip platforms like TikTok and BeReal. But rest assured, Facebook influencer marketing still presents a wealth of opportunity.

Facebook averaged a whopping 1.98 billion daily active users in 2022, with 32% of users being 25 to 34-year-olds On either side of Facebook’s primary marketing audience, 25% of users are between 18-24, and an additional 25% are 35-54 year-olds.

Naturally, if your target demographic is active on Facebook, it makes sense for you to focus your marketing efforts there.

What’s more, this well-established platform certainly has no shortage of medium to large influencers in a variety of different niches. Simply put, there’s still ample opportunity to promote your brand to loyal, highly engaged audiences on Facebook, even with the rise of other social platforms.

What is influencer marketing?

As the name suggests, social media influencers are people who have an established audience of people who value their opinion and recommendations. Like other forms of social media marketing, Facebook influencer marketing involves paying a creator to promote your products or services to their audience through their content.

Many people automatically think of celebrity influencers, like the Kardashians, when they think of 'influencers'. While these high-profile names have made a fortune promoting products to their millions of followers. However, not all influencers are mega-famous.

The term ‘micro-influencer’ is used to describe people with a smaller audience size (usually between 1000-100,000 followers.) While fewer followers may seem like less exposure for partnering brands, micro-influencers tend to have more engaged audiences and lower fee rates. Many companies find a higher return on investment (ROI) when working with smaller creators.

Once a brand partners with an influencer, there is a multitude of ways that the brand and its products can be naturally integrated into Facebook content. These include statuses, images, videos, Facebook lives and more.

Why should I choose Facebook for my influencer marketing?

According to a 2018 survey By CPC Strategy, nearly 70% of respondents said they are more likely to hear about new products, services, and events on Facebook than anywhere else. This means users on the platform already see it as a place to discover the next best thing.

Facebook influencer marketing also makes sense from a cost-saving perspective for brands looking to increase awareness. Influencers build their audience through the creation of authentic, relatable content. This means that partnered brands get unique and highly-relatable ‘advertising’ without having to actually do the creative work of designing and producing a social media advert.

But how do I even get started?

There’s more to a successful campaign than reaching out to a few influencers with similar target demographics. Here’s an overview of the five key steps you need to take to plan an effective influencer marketing campaign from start to finish.

1. Determine your campaign objectives

Naturally, the first step in launching a successful campaign is clarifying exactly what you hope to get out of it. Simply saying "more brand awareness" isn’t going to cut it.

You want to establish important key performance indicators (KPIs) for your campaign, which will allow you to evaluate how successful your campaign was. Things like content reach, engagement rate (clicks, likes, shares, etc.), website traffic, lead generation, and conversions are helpful KPIs to set targets around.

Setting these objectives first helps guide your decisions, from setting a budget to choosing an influencer to partner with and determining what type of content to feature. 

Knowing your KPIs upfront will also help you to evaluate and compare the ROI of different influencer campaigns over time.

2. Identify your target audience

The next step is knowing who you’re trying to influence (aka your target audience). You need to know who you’re marketing to before choosing an influencer to ensure that there’s enough overlap between their audience demographics and your target audience.

This is where Facebook Insights come in handy. With Facebook Insights, you get access to reach and engagement rates on your Facebook pages and posts and demographic data about your audience.

These analytics give you a better understanding of the type of people who follow your brand and which types of content they engage with. This way, you can tailor your campaign to expand on what’s already working.

3. Find relevant influencers

Now for the fun part, finding a Facebook influencer to help bring your campaign to life.

People tend to gravitate towards types of influencers they view as peers, so look for creators who have similar characteristics to your target audience. Start by browsing popular hashtags related to your brand’s niche and filter to find relevant Facebook pages or people. You can search keywords within Facebook groups to find posts and discussions on specific topics or influencers in that group.

Once you have a short list of influencers, you want to screen the candidates to help narrow down your options. It’s important to ask about niches, audience demographics, level of engagement, and types of content they create to help determine the best fit.

Keep in mind that the brand-influencer relationship should be a mutually beneficial one. In other words, influencers will be more willing to work with you if your brand aligns with their persona and offers their audience something of value.

4. Draft a proposal

Once you’ve narrowed down your top picks, it’s time to iron out the details of the partnership. It’s always a good idea to have a business proposal outlining timelines, content ideas, compensation, etc to get the ball rolling.

An effective proposal should clarify expectations and get the potential influencer excited about working with your brand.

5. Monitor your performance

Once your campaign is underway, tracking your performance objectives is important. Take some time to figure out how you will track performance indicators and summarize the data collected.

You can use a Facebook influencer marketing platform, like Sprout Social, to manage your campaigns. This platform allows you to track influencer content related to your campaign and KPIs related to impressions, engagement, growth etc.

Just remember every campaign will have its glitches, but it’s still important to gather performance data so you can refine your process.

But how can I take my Facebook influencer marketing to the next level?

Learning the ropes of Facebook influencer marketing takes time, but once you’ve mastered the basics, there are a few things you can do to make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck.

1. Use a Facebook influencer marketing platform to find creators

Arguably the hardest part of influencer marketing is choosing which influencer to partner with. Luckily, there are Facebook influencer marketing platforms to help you evaluate influencers in your brand’s niche.

Platforms like Cision make it easy to search and compare top influencers. This platform offers a wealth of info on influencer reach, engagement rates, audience demographics and posting schedules. Plus, it gives insight into a particular influencer’s reach across multiple platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, etc.)

2. Take advantage of cross-promotion

These days many influencers have their own line of branded merchandise, be it clothing, home decor, or cosmetics. Why not incentivize people to engage with both brands by launching a contest or giveaway?

For instance, if your brand specialises in vegan skin care, why not partner with an influencer who has their own cruelty-free hair care line? The overlap in interests of both your audiences and the complementary of your products will exponentially increase the effectiveness of your campaign.

3. Repurpose content

Social media reach is all about working smarter, not harder. When working with an influencer, plan content that can be shared across multiple social media platforms. For instance, Facebook videos can be reformatted and shared to TikTok and Instagram for maximum reach.

Repurposing influencer content to your own social media pages can also help strengthen your brand’s relationship with the influencer by offering them greater exposure– win, win!

4. Create unique promotional offers and discount codes

Customers love feeling like they’re getting a good deal (who doesn’t?), and influencers like offering their audience something of value, like exclusive discounts. Creating a unique promo code for influencers to share simultaneously satisfies both of these needs. Plus, it makes it easy to track influencer referrals and assess campaign performance.

5. Strengthen the partnership

Facebook influencer marketing is more than just a transaction between brands and creators. The most authentic and successful campaigns happen when influencers truly buy into the brand’s mission and values, and likewise, the brand becomes invested in the influencer’s success.

Help cultivate a positive relationship with influencers by:

• • Engaging with the influencer’s social media content
  • Helping them create branded content
  • Giving them plenty of opportunities to provide open and honest feedback about the process
  • Connecting them with beneficial contacts in the industry
  • Setting realistic expectations and communicating with them respectfully

Maintaining strong relationships with influencers ultimately helps improve the quality of content produced while increasing the likelihood of future collaborations.

So, there we have it!

You now know what Facebook influencer marketing is and why it's important. You have five steps you need to take to get started and additional tips to take your campaigns to the next level. Put all ten into practice, and you will be a pro in no time!

Now it's time to get out there and start engaging with your potential customers and elevating your brand to the next level. Of course, if you still think you might need a little extra help, please don't hesitate to reach out!