Credit: Artem Podrez via Pexels
Alt=“smartphone capturing two teens dancing for an influencer marketing campaign”
With the rise of influencer marketing, more brands are heading to social media than ever before to work with content creators. But not all of them nail it on the first try.
You’ve probably seen a brand or two fumble before. Maybe you scrolled along your feed and came across a Toronto-based foodie account suddenly endorsing the latest diet supplements, or a pet-less Instagrammer who has a promo code for a local pet shop.
These kinds of unusual pairings raise a red flag for most consumers. They know it’s an ad, which spells trouble for the success of your influencer marketing campaign. Why? The problem is they lack authenticity and trust.
Why Trust is Mission-Critical to Your Next Campaign
Most people ignore true ads. They’ll scroll past inauthentic posts without fully reading them or exploring links, wasting your marketing dollars with zero returns.
Luckily, the flip side is true. Consumers are more likely to engage with your posts if they come across as genuine.
Influencer marketing is at its most authentic when you hand over your campaign to an influencer agency in Toronto that understands the power of trust. The top influencer agency Toronto has to offer handpicks influencers for every campaign, making sure the right people work with the right brands.
With the right pairing, this endorsement will match a content creator’s usual brand and flow within the feed of your consumer, scoring high in credibility.
How to Inspire Trust with Your Campaign
Trust is a critical part of creating a successful influencer marketing campaign. The only problem is, consumers’ trust for brands in Toronto and across Canada is at an all-time low.
Last year’s Meaningful Brands Report shows just 47% of brands are seen as trustworthy, and 75% of brands could disappear and nobody would care. This harsh reality of consumer sentiment can feel like a brick wall for your creative juices.
How are you going to overcome these odds? If you’re finding it hard to inspire trust on your own, these tips can help you create an authentic campaign:
1. Know Your Audience
You can’t get anywhere before you understand your target audience. Who are they? Build out audience profiles so that you have a better idea of who you want to engage with your campaign.
2. Find the Right Influencers
Once you know who you want your audience to be, the next step is to find content creators who have these kinds of people as followers. Stick with niche accounts that reflect your brand’s niche.
In many cases, niche creators end up being nano influencers who have fewer than 10K followers. Their smaller platforms make them more relatable than most celebrity accounts, so they already score higher on the trust scale.
3. Seek Guidance from the Pros
Finding the right content creators can be challenging, especially if this is your first go at this type of marketing. If you aren’t sure who your target Instagrammers are or how to contact them, partnering with a Toronto influencer agency can take all the guesswork out of this monumental task.
Local agencies already know the city’s content creators, and they pick the top talent to be on their roster. These Instagrammers come previously vetted to ensure they create unique and authentic content.
Bottom Line:
Bad endorsement deals have a stink to them, and your consumers will sniff them out quite easily. Just like the foodie-turned-dieter account, any confusing partnership comes across as a business deal more than a genuine endorsement for a product. For your campaign to work, you need to put trust first.
