With the new Facebook algorithm changes, everyone is rushing to learn about influencers, and for good reason.

According to a consumer survey, 54% of women have made a purchase after they saw an influencer posting about it. Forty-five percent of women in the survey have even started following a brand that an influencer has created a sponsored post about. And a study by Google showed that 70% of teenage YouTube audiences are influenced more by YouTubers than by traditional celebrities.

Let’s face it, traditional ads are almost obsolete these days. They cost a lot and tend to fall on deaf ears.

Clearly, influencer marketing is the way to go, but if everyone is participating, how do you beat the competition? How do you make sure that your influencer strategy will truly get the best engagement and reach? And how can you be certain that your campaign will ultimately get you more sales?

Here are a few of the best tips to absolutely smash the competition and out-influence everyone else.

1. Turn your influencers into ambassadors.

Working with influencers to promote your brand will only get you so far. In order to maximize your influencer campaigns, you need to build long-term relationships with each of your influencers. One way to do so is to turn them into true ambassadors for your brand.

Influencers are perfect because they have an established audience that is interested in specific subjects. This audience is also engaged enough to interact with the type of content and the specific style that the influencer uses.

The more your message is promoted to and consumed by that audience, the higher the likelihood of sales for your product or service. So you want to find an influencer with a large enough or an engaged enough audience and work with them on a long-term basis.

What you need to do is find an influencer whose message and style are authentic and consistent in addition to matching your brand. But how exactly do you find these influencers?

That brings us to the next point.

2. Use an influencer tool or marketplace.

If you want to be better at influencer marketing than everyone else, you need some additional help. There are a variety of tools that automate several vital pieces of the influencer campaign for you.

Some of the most popular tools you can use for finding influencers (and that we use for our campaigns) are Grin, BuzzSumo, influence.co, etc. These tools each come with a search feature that allows you to narrow down your influencer search effectively to find the ideal people to work with.

3. Track your campaign. 

What many marketers struggle with when it comes to influencer marketing is campaign execution and tracking. They have a hard time figuring out exactly how their campaigns are driving results and get overwhelmed by the amount of work it takes to run these types of campaigns. For most marketers, the struggle is in understanding how each of the influencers is performing. This can make it difficult to calculate your campaign ROI.

I’ve found that this challenge can easily be overcome with the help of a platform that keeps track of influencer posts. Our team uses Socialpeeks. With advanced analytics, it lets you keep track of the results to see how well your campaign is performing. Even further, they have a team of specialists who will run your campaigns from start to finish. It’s ideal for many marketers who don’t have the time it takes to execute these campaigns with proven engagement metrics.

NeoReach is another excellent tool for tracking the results of your campaign. It keeps track of performance indicators such as engagements, costs, cost per engagement, ROI and more.

4. Use multiple mediums.

If you want to absolutely crush the competition, you need to utilize every single medium that your influencers use. For example, if your influencer uses Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, ask them to post unique native content on each platform about your brand.

Gillette did this in a brilliant way. The company wanted to promote its new product line — the Gillette Venus, for which they hired several female beauty influencers. The influencers then created Instagram posts, which they used for directing visitors to their vlogs. These vlogs, too, contained mentions of the brand. By using multiple mediums and a catchy hashtag, #ChooseToSmooth, the brand was able to garner an engagement rate of 2.2%. The campaign also reached 476,000.

5. Leverage user-generated content.

User-generated content is the holy grail of influencer marketing.

This is where users or followers get so inspired by a campaign that they go out and create their own content in which they tag the brand using the campaign’s hashtag. This creates a viral effect on the campaign that quickly multiplies the engagement and reach.

Before you knew it, thousands of users on Instagram began posting photos of themselves, covered in coffee scrub, with the #letsbefrank hashtag. The campaign was one of the most successful campaigns and gained the brand 350,000 followers in a very short time.

Recap

For your next influencer campaign, don’t shoot from the hip.

Take the time to automate key processes, and gain a clear advantage over your competitors. Make sure to create long-term relationships with every influencer you work with.

Find the best influencers for your brand using an influencer tool or marketplace. Automate your payments to free up some time for other aspects of the campaign. Use every platform that the influencer is on to your advantage. And lastly, leverage user-generated content to make your influencer campaigns go viral.

If you follow these five simple tips, you will truly get a leg up on everyone else out there.

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Article written by Shane Barker