Brands: 6 Content Problems Influencers Solve

Monday Nov 4th, 2019

Male Instagram Influencer Skipping Through a Field

With digital marketing, high-quality content is an investment in your brand. Like any investment, time, effort, and consistency are required. But the returns—boosts in search authority, brand awareness, conversion rates, and average order value—are worthwhile. If you struggle with the time and resources to create high volumes of media and use them appropriately, you’re not alone.

Are you looking to streamline content creation for your brand?  We have a solution for you: influencer marketing. The concept is simple: gift your product to people who have a sizeable number of engaged followers on social media. Let these real people create content and talk authentically about your brand. You can activate hundreds, or even thousands of real people to create branded images and share posts about your products. 

To get a closer look at how this strategy helps businesses simplify content creation, we’ve outlined the six main hurdles to content marketing and how influencers will help you soar above them.

Female instagram influencer sitting at her desk and looking at her computer

1. Engaging Your Audience

Today, marketers realize audience engagement is a critical metric when evaluating influence. When looking for engagement, Instagram is where you’ll find it. The median engagement rate across industries is 1.60% in 2019. Combine premium influencers with your Instagram efforts, and you’ll see your engagement rates skyrocket. ApexDrop’s ApexInfluencersTM regularly see engagement rates between 4.01-7.00%.

Contrast that with Facebook, where according to Digital Marketing Community, the median engagement rate is down to .09% this year, down from .16% in 2018. Or Twitter, where the median engagement rate across all industries is still only .048%.

2. Saving Time

Just write a blog, snap a picture, shoot a quick video. How long could that possibly take? Answer: Hours, days, even weeks—for just one piece of content. In reality, product marketers need hundreds to thousands of posts each year.

Female fashion influencer wearing a large hat and fashionable cloths

The time investment to create a single, engaging Instagram post is a far cry from that of a simple selfie. You need to find a subject, location, and photographer. Then someone needs to edit the photo(s), send them back to your marketing team for review, and craft a compelling post. You’ll be lucky if this whole process wraps up in a single workday.

Moz also updated their findings on Google’s algorithm and noticed that the quality and quantity of social metrics now impact search rankings.

Unfortunately, after all that hard work, your brand’s engagement will likely peak at a fraction of what a high-quality influencer typically generates. Why? Because people always trust people more than brands. Plus, a good influencer will have an avid following who loves and looks forward to their content.

3. Reducing Costs

Your time is valuable and content is arguably the most important element of modern marketing.

Minimize your marketing costs by:

  • aligning with hundreds to thousands of micro-influencers who will produce content for you
  • collaborating with influencers who are compensated with product gifts instead of cash 
  • outsourcing influencers in bulk   

No need to hire models or photographers. No need to immerse your social media managers in the tedious work of vetting and selecting influencers, coordination of photo shoots, or actual content creation when they can be setting content strategy and ensuring outcomes align with corporate goals. ApexInfluencersTM are pre-vetted content creators who craft posts that deliver results. Brands that align with influencers for content creation experience:

  • Greater Reach
  • Higher Engagement
  • Deeper Customer Insights
  • Increased Conversion Opportunities

Boy next to a dog holding a box

4. Winning Customers

Have your competitors invested in influencer marketing? A 2019 Influencer Marketing Hub study showed:  

  • 86% of brands intend to dedicate a portion of their budget to influencer marketing 
  • 63% of businesses plan to increase this budget over the next 12 months
  • Nearly half of the brands Influencer Marketing Hub interviewed already dedicate 20% of their overall marketing budget to influencer marketing.

Moz also updated their findings on Google’s algorithm and noticed that the quality and quantity of social metrics now impact search rankings. Because social posts and mentions impact SEO,  it’s never been more critical to get people talking about your brand on digital channels.

5. Maintaining Quality

Traditionally, businesses using content as a marketing strategy have to grapple with the “Triple Constraint,” also known as the Project Management Triangle. Essentially, this model contends that:

  • Budgets, time, and scope constrain the quality of work
  • You can pick between two constraints
  • Changes in one constraint affect the others

ApexDrop Triple Constraint

However, ApexInfluencerTM Marketing basically shatters the traditional model of content production. When sourced in bulk, our pre-vetted network of premier influencers can create thousands of content pieces in an average of three-months. It’s one of the rare cases where brands can have their cake and eat it too.

Trendy micro-influcner walking down the side walk wearing a leather jacket

6. Reaching the Right Audience

A significant challenge for brands is reaching the right audience. Missing your target becomes a costly mistake. Producing content with contextual relevance is one challenge. Distributing it to the right audience is the corollary. Both are necessary to inspire your audience. 

Conversely, when you allow influencers to take the reigns, your brand reaches niche audiences that are more apt to take action. According to McKinsey, influencers typically generate three times more word-of-mouth messages than non-influencers. Plus, each post from an influencer has four times more impact on a recipient’s purchasing decision than posts by non-influencers.

Fashion influencer wearing big glasses sitting up against a wall

Where Speed, Quality, and Affordability Meet

If you’re looking for volumes of high-quality content with a quick turnaround, try influencer marketing. With our seasoned network of content creators, ApexDrop has helped some of the world’s biggest brands, and smaller brands as well, to build and engage their audiences. To learn how we can help your brand, schedule a quick chat with our brand strategists today.