While the internet has evolved at a rapid pace since the turn of the Century, the emergence of social media has been so formidable that it encompasses the lives of billions of users. It’s for this reason that businesses are constantly attempting to discover new ways to reach out to their target audience through social platforms.
In an online environment where social networks command significant traffic volumes every day, influencers can operate as significant marketing tools for brands.
In fact, Digital Marketing Institute data suggests that 45% of GenZers in Europe are more inclined to buy fashion items they’ve seen worn by influencers ahead of their peers or more traditional celebrities.
Facebook has 2.9 billion monthly active users, while newer platforms like TikTok boast more than one billion active users per month. This represents an extraordinary opportunity for SMEs to ramp up their lead generation on an unprecedented scale with the help of influencers.
But how can small and medium-sized enterprises generate an effective influencer campaign that can outpace their competitors? Let’s explore four emerging technologies and how they can revolutionize the influencer campaigns of tomorrow:
Generative AI and Content Automation
Crucially, generative AI can help support influencer campaigns while improving the quality of their output by automatically generating stunning visuals and in-depth copy to drive audience engagement.
In terms of content generation, leading generative AI platforms like ChatGPT are capable of creating text, images, video, or audio based on predetermined prompts or inputs by users.
For bolstering the SEO of multimedia content, artificial intelligence can also create functional and engaging captions for content in order to maximize engagement potential.
Other generative AI tools like Yarnit can be great for content ideation and converting prompts into text, images, and audio based on a series of prompts.
Crucially, the technology can also convert content into a call-to-action (CTA), and platforms like Tribe and Scaler can help to work alongside influencers and brands alike to maximize the click-through rate of a variety of content.
The age of generative AI can significantly improve the quality of influencer marketing campaigns because it empowers SMEs to adapt their requirements on the fly to suit the influencers outreached and their respective audience demographics.
Automation Enhances Collaboration
Automation tools can also help to revolutionize the influencer marketing landscape in a way that significantly enhances collaboration.
Existing tools that feature content scheduling, performance tracking, and payment processing can all help SMEs create and actively manage multiple influencer campaigns and their performance in reaching specific target audience segments.
By automating many of the collaborative processes between SMEs and influencers, it’s possible to maintain strong relationships and can help to ensure that high performers are made to feel valued by the brand.
Modern AP automation tools that unite real-time spend visibility with flexible approval workflows empower more SMEs to manage influencer campaigns through collaborative vendor portals automatically monitor compliance and ensure that no campaigns are left unattended due to departmental silos or a lack of time efficiency.
AI-Driven Influencer Discovery
Artificial intelligence forms a symbiotic relationship with big data, and the technology’s algorithms are adept at identifying trends from vast unstructured data sets that their human counterparts would simply be unable to discover with the naked eye.
With this in mind, it’s possible to build impactful influencer marketing strategies through advanced selection criteria that analyze the performance history of each prospective influencer based on past collaborations, and how their approach to marketing could help to deliver on leading KPIs.
This data-rich approach to influencer discovery means that SMEs can identify high-quality opportunities at a lower cost by looking deeper into their performance metrics and past performance.
Because these campaigns can be broken down into their metadata components, it means more brands have the potential to tap into the vast market of nano-influencers, who have follower counts ranging between 1,000 and 10,000 but feature an average 3.69% rate of interaction with their audience, a metric that’s more than double that of more costly macro-influencers.
Unlocking the potential of nano-influencers through AI-driven big data insights holds more than just cost advantages. Around 75% of nano-influencers generally agree to collaboration opportunities featuring free products, meaning that SMEs can access a more engaged audience without having to waste time attempting to build connections with disinterested parties.
The blend of AI and big data means marketers can discover high-performing talent throughout the influencer landscape that other businesses have been unable to identify. These sophisticated search capabilities mean brands undergo rigorous vetting of candidates using social listening and sentiment analysis to access the perfect low-cost influencer that’s more likely to drive more engagement and support their return on investment (ROI).
Speaking of ROI, it’s time to look at the final revolutionary technology sweeping the influencer marketing landscape…
Insights into ROI with Machine Learning
Machine learning (ML) will also make its presence felt throughout the influencer marketing ecosystem.
Calculating the return on investment for influencer marketing campaigns can be a significant challenge for SMEs. This is because it hinges on converting social media engagement metrics into sales and conversions.
Thanks to ML, it’s possible to simplify the vast analytics associated with influencer marketing by analyzing high volumes of data, identifying new connections built through campaigns, and utilizing predictive analytics to anticipate future campaign performance based on ongoing engagement statistics.
These metrics would take marketers a significant amount of time and resources to complete and would otherwise be a luxury that SMEs can’t afford to undertake. However, ML can take on board the tangible and intangible qualities of brands, measure them against the campaigns being orchestrated by influencers, and identify the true ROI generated from each influencer in real-time, helping brands to understand which relationships to nurture and what could need more work.
Building a Sustainable Approach to Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing can be a difficult industry to crack for SMEs due to siloed data and inefficiencies throughout the lead generation process.
However, through emerging technologies like generative AI, machine learning, automation technology, and AI analytics, it’s possible to build close relationships with high-value influencers in a way that doesn’t consume significant resources or cost the world to implement.
Branding is about building bridges between businesses and customers, and technology can help unlock the vast potential of social media in a way that builds a sustainable approach to lead generation long into the future.
The post Four Emerging Technologies that are Revolutionizing the Influencer Marketing Landscape for SMEs appeared first on Datafloq.
