Well, let’s think about it for a second. 

More often than not you will seek out the opinion of your friends and family before you purchase something. 

Why is that so?

Easy: Because you trust them. 

You probably pay more attention to a brand whenever you see a rave review from someone you know and admire – even if you’ve never met them in real life. 

So, it’s no wonder influencer marketing has been one of the biggest buzzwords in digital marketing for the past few years. Hiring influencers become one of the most effective ways for brands to promote their products on Instagram. 

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing strategy that sees brands collaborate with influencers.

We can define influencers as trusted content creators with the power to affect how their audience makes purchasing decisions. They also have a significant well-engaged following in their niche.

Influencers can leverage Instagram automation to efficiently endorse or make product mentions, share their opinions with their audience, and effectively partner with brands.

To show you influencer marketing in real action, today we take a look at the five most successful Instagram influencer marketing campaigns.

Each approach sheds light on proven techniques that you too can use and capitalize on the value of Instagram influencers. All these brands incorporated unique Instagram influencer campaigns in its social media strategy and it paid off. 

But first, let’s discuss why you should implement Instagram influencer marketing.

Why Instagram influencer marketing campaigns?

Instagram influencer marketing campaigns are exploding by the day and for a good reason. 

Influencer marketing ROI is stronger than ever. So it comes as no surprise that marketers believe that this industry is bound to double its worth to $24.1 billion by 2025. 

Already, this marketing tactic is yielding a $6.50 return on investment for every dollar spent.

According to social media influencer statistics, only 1% of millennials trust advertisements. But, 33% of them trust blog reviews when it comes to making purchases.

When purchasing products online around 40% of people will buy a product after seeing it used by an influencer on Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

And what do influencers think about their impact?

71% of influencers believe that what keeps their audience engaged is an honest and authentic voice. All these stats are a clear indication of why influencer marketing is red-hot right now. 

Now that you know the whats and whys of Instagram influencer marketing, let’s see them in action.

How to launch influencer marketing campaigns?

There are 10 steps to build a great influencer marketing campaign:

1. Set your goals by visualizing what success would look like to determine your key metrics.
2. Identify the target audience you want to reach through your influencer.
3. Determine your budget to identify how many and what tier of influencers you can afford.
4. Choose your channel(s).
5. Choose an Influencer Tracking & Managing tool.
6. Identify & choose your ideal influencers.
7. Reach out to your influencers to reach an agreement.
8. Track and evaluate the campaign and optimize when needed.
9. Compensate your influencers fairly.
10. Measure and evaluate the success of your campaign.

If you want a more detailed guide of what each of these steps look like, visit our influencer marketing guide.

Now, we understand that this seems like a lot! However, using a tool like Keyhole can take care of finding the perfect influencer, optimizing your influencers’ campaigns, tracking all your influencers’ performance in a single dashboard in real-time, and measuring the impact of your campaign.

5 Most successful Instagram influencer marketing campaign examples

1. Uber Eats X Chipotle X Hinge X Rebel Wilson

What do Uber Eats, Chipotle, and Hinge have in common? 

Perhaps a desire to be loved by a certain demographic who is also looking for love – at least for cuffing season.

The three brands found the best way to reach young adults who use dating apps and food delivery services through a celebrity Instagram influencer campaign.. 

Using the “Chipotle Cuffing Season Menu” the brands ran a collective campaign that gave their customers a chance to win dating advice from the hilarious celebrity and “How to Be Single” star Rebel Wilson. 

The limited-time Chipotle Cuffing Season menu was available exclusively on Uber Eats and featured meals inspired by Hinge dating habits and Chipotle’s most popular dishes. 

To take advantage of their influencer relationship, the brands offered 10 lucky people who ordered from the exclusive menu a chance to win dating advice from Wilson.

In addition, Hinge added a new profile prompt in the app for daters to be able to connect over their specific Chipotle orders. Users also got $20 off their next 3 orders of Chipotle delivered using Uber Eats!

The campaign gave the brands’ target audience the incentive to order from the limited-time menu, increase Uber Eats orders, and at the same time, it raised awareness for Hinge’s brand.

Why it works?

Rebel Wilson is the ideal celebrity influencer to reach a young adult audience because she is authentic, and she is relatable. While we expect Internet influencers boast unattainable flawlessness, Wilson can point out her flaws with humour and celebrate them. 

In a similar way, the irony of having the “How to Be Single” actress give dating advice, allowed the brands to advertise Cuff Day in a fun, unexpected way. 

Each of the two ads on Wilson’s Instagram account was viewed over a million times. Much more than the average engagement that all these companies get on the platform.  

2. McDonald’s X Travis Scott (#cactusjack)

Popular fast-food brand, McDonald’s teamed up with Astroworld star Travis Scott to promote Scott’s favorite McDonald’s meal for a limited time.

The month-long deal featured a quarter-pounder with cheese, bacon, and lettuce. It also came with a medium order of fries and BBQ sauce dip.

As part of the campaign, Scott ran a new line of merchandise under his label, Cactus Jack, a line was inspired by McDonald’s. The merchandise included unique company swag products: denim shorts, t-shirts, a nugget body pillow, hoodies, a burger tie, Egg McMuffin-branded boxers, and a Cactus Jack basketball jersey.

The two brands also supported charitable organizations throughout the partnership. 

Why it works?

With a following of over 73 million on Instagram, Scott’s posts had the potential to receive an average of 10 million views amplifying McDonald’s brand significantly. 

Not to mention, the amount of hype it would generate in social media. In the second half of September, the term Cactus Jack acquired 124.4K posts and over 426 million impressions.

3. HelloFresh X Micro-influencers and Mindy Kaling (#hellofreshpartner)

HelloFresh has a very photogenic product. The bright-green box, delightful pre-packaged ingredients, and tasty finished meals are a great fit for Instagram influencer marketing.  

Also, HelloFresh has fully embraced the value of influencer marketing and has mastered the art of finding micro-influencers on Instagram spanning across different fields.

The brand partners with thousands of such micro-influencers to promote its products within their target audience. So you are likely to see the #hellofreshpartner hashtag as you scroll your Instagram timeline. 

Occasionally, HelloFresh uses celebrity influencers. Recently, the brand partnered with actress and writer Mindy Kaling. The busy celebrity mom of two will share cooking tips and how to have fun while at it. 

For the partnership, Mindy will star in a four-episode video series titled “Meals with Mindy.” The series will begin airing across social media and digital ads in January 2021.

Each webisode will feature Mindy teaching viewers, in her humor-filled fashion, about the art of cooking. For the purpose of illustrating how HelloFresh helps her create easy, but delicious meals.

 Why it works?

The brand works with a variety of lifestyle, motherhood, and cooking influencers to share their experiences with HelloFresh on Instagram. All of which fall within their target market.

The influencers also ask their followers to sign up for the service using a unique promo code that offers them a discount on their first month. 

This kind of influencer marketing tactic drives sign-ups and makes it very easy for HelloFresh to track each influencer’s ROI.

HelloFresh, using a host of  social media analytics tools, can see which influencers generated the most sign-ups and can then use them for future campaigns.

4. Biossance X Jonathan Van Ness

The sustainable skincare brand Biossance has a secret weapon. And it is none other than Queer Eye and Gay of Thrones grooming guru Jonathan Van Ness.

The brand chose to work with the popular TV personality to promote the brand in an authentic way. JVN’s personable nature, approachable style to beauty expertise make him an ideal influencer.

He also shares a passion for sustainable beauty and is a champion for inclusivity. These happen to be the same values that the brand stands for. 

The Fab 5 member is no stranger to brand partnerships. Of course, every brand would like to be promoted in a way that is authentic, fun, fabulous and unique – and JVN succeeds in doing all these and more.

It also helps that JVN has over 5.3m followers, an engagement rate of 373%, and an average of 200.7K engagements per post. In other words, he is a unicorn among influencers.

Why it works?

While JVN is the influencer version of a dream boat, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he could work with any brand. One of the reasons why he is so influential is because of his fierce commitment to his personal brand.

For Biossance, it is a match made in heaven. As we mentioned, the brand’s values align perfectly with JVN’s values.

JVN is also an expert authority on beauty products. He can give you compelling reasons to buy Biossance products in his own words and based on his own expertise. 

This is the ideal in Instagram influencer marketing: to find an influencer that is knowledgeable and passionate about your brand and can express so in their own words.

You don’t need an influencer matchmaker to find the right influencer for your brand, especially if you use a social listening tool like Keyhole. Keyhole will surface the most influential voices that mention your brand or the conversations you are tracking, and let you take a peek at their followers, engagement, and sentiment.

5. ASOS X Micro-influencers (#asseenonme)

ASOS typically attracts all shoppers of all ages, sizes, and backgrounds thanks to its approach to inclusivity. 

The brand’s Instagram influencer marketing campaign strategy is to collaborate with a wide audience through its Insider influencer program. In this program, ASOS partners with 29 influencers who have distinctive looks and communities.

Each of these influencers has ASOS-branded Instagram and Pinterest accounts. ASOS also has a dedicated landing page that features its style guides. In doing so, ASOS makes its brand welcoming to all shoppers. 

The influencers offer so many different styles to choose from. Which in turn, makes it easy for every ASOS shopper to find their perfect look. 

Why it works?

This tactic is effective because shoppers trust the content. That is because it comes from real, stylish people – and not directly from the brand.

Having such a diverse audience is any brand’s dream. However, it can be difficult for brands to maintain a strong identity, while representing a wide range of individuals.

ASOS uses its Instagram influencer marketing to do this flawlessly. First, it identified the essence of the brand that appeals to its wide audience: fashion and style. Then, it found key influencers that can inspire this love for fashion and style in their own communities.

“With Keyhole at your disposal, if someone has a large following and they’re mentioning your keyword, you’ll be the first one to know about this person and the first one to reach out.” – Neil Patel,

Finding the right influencers for your Instagram influencer marketing campaign

You don’t want to work with just any influencer, you want to work with the one that will bring you the highest ROI. 

Also, there’s more to an influencer’s success than their follower count.

To find the right one, these are qualities (and the metrics) you need to focus on when finding the right influencer for your brand.

1. Brand fit

Before you pick an influencer ask yourself this question: What type of influencer is best for my campaign? Who is the JVN to your Biossance?

The answer that you come up with will help you pick the influencer that is a brand fit. 

When deciding your brand fit, you want to focus on influencers who have a genuine interest in your niche and line of products. This way, your influencer partnership will be more authentic and genuine from a consumer’s perspective.

Basically, the better the fit, the more likely your influencer is to inspire trust. In return, you will have more ROI potential from your campaign.

With a social listening tool, you can surface the most influential accounts for your followers, as well as organic brand advocates, which are the most likely to be a good fit for your brand.

Try Keyhole social listening today and find the best influencers for your brand.

2. Engagement rate

As we mentioned before, influence is more than just the follower count. A high number of followers does not necessarily result in high ROI. You want an influencer with highly engaged followers. 

The more engaged an audience is the more likely they are to be influenced. Take advantage of a profile analytics tool and pay close attention to engagement rates, reach, and engagement per post. Plus, you can use its Publishing feature to schedule unlimited posts and find your best time to post, most engaging post types, optional post length, etc.

3. Clear communication

Once you start pitching a potential influencer, take into account how they handle communication. Do they take eons to respond to you? Do they give you the information you ask for? Are they prioritizing your brand? 

Clear communication is vital to success in Instagram influencer marketing campaigns. Especially, when it comes to your goal expectations and results. Using an influencer tracking and analytics tool will track goal-based metrics and will give you transparency into your influencer’s performance metrics and will let you.

4. Genuine love for your brand

At the end of the day, you want to work with an individual who authentically loves your brand. See if the influencer has been promoting your brand or products like yours without a sponsorship. 

You want to partner with someone who will genuinely promote your product and not just see your campaign as another form of income. Pay attention to the influencer’s messaging and see if it could match your own.

Amplify your reach with Instagram influencer marketing campaigns

Influencer marketing is not a new concept and it isn’t going away anytime soon. 

As you can see from these campaigns when done correctly, the potential of this digital marketing tactic is huge. 

People are continuously paying attention to influencers who are just like them and not just celebrities, family, or friends. 

By finding the right influencer for your brand, you get the power to bring your brand to new heights. Now you have the tools and examples of how to do this the right way.

So go on and run your own Instagram influencer marketing campaign. We can’t wait to feature your brand as one of our success stories!

Keyhole is a Social Media Listening & Brand Monitoring Solution that helps marketers unlock data-driven business insights. Its visual dashboard is simple and shareable with your clients.

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The post 5 Successful Influencer Marketing Campaign Examples To Get Inspired appeared first on Keyhole.

Information is power, and unless you’re constantly gathering data, you’ll be in the dark on key shifts that could help your business soar or, at the very least, prevent disaster. 

Thankfully, there’s a simple, free option you can use to keep one finger on your industry’s pulse at all times. 

Enter: Google Alerts. 

Google Alerts is a free service that you can use to monitor specific search terms. You receive results directly in your Gmail inbox at whatever frequency you decide. Not only is this service 100% free, but it’s entirely customizable to your preferences. 

But, like most data initiatives, you’ll get the most out of Google Alerts when you understand how to optimize the process. 

That’s what this ultimate guide is for. In today’s guide, we’ll teach you everything you need to know about Google Alerts, including what they are and how to set them up. We’ll also teach you how to manage and optimize your alerts for the greatest chance of success. 

What are Google Alerts?

Google Alerts is a free service created by Google that lets users monitor any keyword or phrase they want. When you set up Google Alerts, the system will send email reports to your Gmail account with links to where your alert terms have popped up. 

As far as frequency goes, Google gives you a few options, including: 

• As it happens
• At most, once a day
• At most, once a week

Speak with your marketing team, consider your goals, and analyze how quickly the information you track shifts when deciding on frequency. 

Of course, Google Alerts isn’t a be-all-end-all solution. It can’t as of now monitor social media mentions, which is a huge part of gauging public conversation around your industry or brand. That’s why certain Google Alerts alternative services like Keyhole exist to help you keep your finger on the pulse of social media conversations. 

Setting up Google Alerts

Now that you understand what Google Alerts are, let’s go over how to set up an alert. 

Step 1: Go to the Google Alerts page

Google Alerts has its own page in the Google family. Simply go to google.com/alerts, and you’ll see a very simplistic interface Google provides:

As you can tell, it’s just a simple search bar, like the kind you use on Google every day. 

Step 2: Enter your search terms

Now, enter the search term you want alerts for. Let’s assume you’re running a real estate firm for this example. 

Once you enter the term, you’ll get a sample alert preview before finalizing the alert, which we’ve highlighted in the image above. This will give you an idea of what information you’ll get when creating alerts for this specific term. 

Step 3: Click on “Show Options” to set your preferences

To set your alert preferences, click on the “Show Options” toggle menu toward the top of the page. This will open up another menu listing your options.

Here you’ll set preferences like: 

• The frequency of your alerts
• What sources you want to pull from
• The language you want your results in
• The region Google is pulling from
• How many results you want to see
• Whether you want your alerts delivered to an email address or an RSS feed

Step 4: Create your alert

Once you’ve set your terms and preferences, click “Create Alert,” and you’ll receive Google Alerts immediately. And that’s it! You’ve officially created your first Google Alert.

Managing Google Alerts for apt tracking

Once you’ve created Google Alerts, it’s important to manage them. Set up multiple Google alerts for maximum success. 

To edit them, head to the main page, where you’ll see the alerts you’ve made. Go to the alert you want to manage and click on the edit icon, which looks like a pencil:

This will open the same menu as when you initially set up the alert. You can refine and adjust your alerts by selecting the option you want to change and making a new selection. 

Your options include: 

• How Often
  • As it happens
  • At most once per day
  • At most once per week
• Sources
  • Automatic
  • News
  • Blogs
  • Web
  • Video
  • Books
  • Discussion
  • Finance
• Language
  • Select from many world languages
• Region
  • Any region
  • Select from specific regions all over the world 
• How many
  • Only the best results
  • All results
• Deliver to
  • Email address
  • RSS feed

Once you make a change, click “Update Alert,” as shown in the image above. There’s also a Settings cog symbol at the upper right:

Click on that to decide when your alerts will come in and whether you want them all in a single email. 

Optimizing Google Alerts for better results

To optimize your Google alerts for success, there are a few best practices you should implement. 

These include: 

1. Be specific with keywords

You don’t want to create a broad search term that will flood your inbox with useless information. That’s why it’s better to opt for “Real Estate Tulsa Oklahoma” and not just “Real Estate.” 

2. Don’t limit your alerts

Create many specific alerts to get a full picture of what’s happening in your industry. Try using different modifiers to augment your results. 

For example, try out something like “Tulsa OK Real Estate Trends,” “Tulsa OK Real Estate Dangers,” “Tulsa OK Real Estate Scam,” and so on. 

3. Use Google’s filters

The filters under the Options menu are there for a reason, so use them. Set the region to your service area. If you want to filter out low-quality results, set your alert to show “Only the best.” 

4. Use quotation marks to combine terms

When setting the search terms for your alerts, anything you place in quotes will generate an exact match. So typing: “Tulsa OK Real Estate Market” will get results for that exact term as written. 

But if you add words outside of the quotes, you can mix and match results. 

Try something like “Tulsa OK Real Estate Market” tips, “Tulsa OK Real Estate Market” prices, “Tulsa OK Real Estate Market,” strong, for example.

Advanced Google Alert techniques for beginners

With a little know-how, you can take your Google Alerts to the next level with some advanced techniques. 

You can harness the power of these alerts for continued success in several ways. 

These include: 

Monitoring brand mentions

Your brand reputation is vital to your continued success. By setting a Google Alert for your business’ name, you’ll be able to capture any mentions and determine the general tone of the conversation. 

If people are speaking poorly about your business, receiving an alert right away can help you devise an immediate plan to get out in front of it and curb any damage. 

To monitor your brand mentions, do a general search for your brand name and create modifier searches. 

For example, if you’re trying to gauge how people feel about your brand, try something like: 

• “Brand” best
• “Brand” great
• “Brand” good
• “Brand” bad
• “Brand” worst
• “Brand” awful

And so on.

Monitoring competitors

It’s also important to see what people say about your biggest competitors. 

For instance, if your competitors are getting a lot of praise, you need to know what they’re doing right. If they’re getting flack, you also need to understand why. Losing sight of your competitors could allow them to surprise — or worse — overtake you. 

When keeping an eye on competitors, simply replace your brand name with theirs and add the same modifiers we covered in the bulleted list above. This will help you measure what the public has to say about your brand against what they say about your chief rivals. 

Monitoring relevant topics

You can keep a close eye on your industry by tracking topics relevant to your business and customer pain points. By keeping this information top of mind, you can accurately forecast shifts in industry trends that’ll help you stay ahead of the curve. 

Here’s a great example of how you can use Google Alerts to monitor your industry. For this example, let’s stick with our real estate firm scenario.  

In addition to using IDX real estate software to display the most up-to-date property listing data, Google Alerts information can be invaluable in helping real estate firms optimize their websites and marketing efforts to serve clients better and stand out from the competition.

By setting up Google Alerts for specific keywords related to their market, such as “homes for sale in [city name]” or “real estate trends in [state name],” real estate firms can stay up-to-date on the latest news and developments in their area while closely monitoring demand, competition, and potential lead sources. 
Regardless of the industry you’re in, by coupling Google Alerts with relevant brand monitoring tools, you can do your best to stay ahead of the competition and understand what your target audience needs most.

Conclusion

Google Alerts can be a powerful way to keep track of your brand, competitors, and industry. Consider experimenting with different search combinations and modifiers, applying various filters when needed to see what gets you the best results. 

While Google Alerts is a valuable service, it’s not a perfect solution. Currently, Google Alerts can’t check social media conversations. That means you’re missing out on mentions within these major platforms.

Keyhole’s social listening tool can work seamlessly alongside Google Alerts to give you a more complete view of what the public says about your business throughout the World Wide Web. 

Author Bio

Ioana is a Business, Digital Marketing, and SaaS content writer for B2B brands. Born in Transylvania and raised in Texas, Ioana has been living the digital nomad life since 2016. From Barcelona to Puerto Vallarta to her new abode in the windy city of Oklahoma, you’ll never know where Ioana will head off to next.

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The post How To Set Up And Optimize Google Alerts: The Ultimate Guide appeared first on Keyhole.

Your days are likely packed with creating killer content and writing compelling copy, or fielding comments and questions from users. On top of that, you must stay ahead of the algorithms.

We get it.

With all that said, you still need to make time in your busy day for comprehensive reporting that dissects your strategy.

Why do social media marketing metrics matter?

At the end of the day, you have to show why everything you do matters to someone that might not be as familiar with social media marketing metrics.

As social media platforms’ value to marketers increases, platforms are adding reporting features. These features will give some insight into how your posts are performing.

However, they do tend to err on the side of giving you more data-driven business insights than you might need. And remember, a lot of data does not translate into actionable insights.

So, how do you avoid information overload in your own reporting, while still maintaining a solid overview of your brand traction?

This list of social media marketing metrics will help you report based on your brand’s goals. Whether it is tracking your campaigns, your daily social media management across all platforms, etc. 

Content-based social media marketing metrics: Are your posting efforts working?

Social media is considered an art and a science for many reasons. Like any art form, you pour your time, effort, and soul into your content to release it into the vast social ether.

However, it takes a scientific approach to ensure that your post will cut through the noise and reach your target audience. These are the social media metrics that will measure your posts performance and success.

Post Reach and Impressions – Who is Seeing Your Content?

Two of the most important social media marketing metrics to keep in mind are post reach and post impressions. These two metrics together will give you an idea of roughly how many people are seeing a given post.

While the two metrics are pretty similar in what they measure, there are some differences.  

Post reach refers to how many unique users were exposed to a piece of content. Post impressions refers to how many times your target audience has seen your content appear on their screen.

There is more to it than just keeping tabs on the visibility of your posts through the various social media.

Monitoring post reach and post impressions is also a great way to assess if you are posting at the right time of day. It also helps you know if you are using the right combination of hashtags or keywords in your posts.

Also, if you run social media ads or boost posts, it is important to track both organic and paid post reach and impressions. Both sets of metrics can give you a very different picture of where you stand in your respective channels.

Engagement Counts – Do They Like Your Stuff?

Now that you have a good idea of how many people are seeing your content, you will want to know how is engaging your content. To find this out, you need to measure your engagement.

Each social media platform has their own unique ways for users to interact. However, most fall into likes, reactions or favorites, retweets, shares, reposts, comments or replies. And these are what we call engagements.

Unless you are going through a total social media crisis, engagements are a great thing.

Engagements mean that your content is leading users out of their mindless scrolling to interact with your post. In this day and age, that in itself, is a feat worth celebrating.

With few exceptions, highly-engaging content will be boosted in the algorithm. Thus, it will result in a higher post reach and post impressions.

Moreover, you can benchmark your engagement in order to see how you perform versus your competition or measure your own performance over time.

To do this, calculate your engagement rate, which converts your engagements into a single number. Then, instead of counting the various engagements from all the platforms and accounts, you can create a single metric.

Brand Mentions – Are They Talking About You?

Brand mentions are another important social media marketing metric to include in your regular reports. As this can help you understand brand awareness and sentiment. It comes specially handy to alert you of PR situations ahead. 

While not as easy to measure as post reach, impressions, or engagement, brand mentions can often be more valuable.

For instance, if your brand that is being talked about positively on social media, or gaining user generated content, it will increase its digital footprint.

It is also a solid display of relevance.

Simply put: you could be earning customers without even posting anything.

As we previously stated, measuring brand mentions can be a little tricky unless you use a social listening tool like Keyhole, or other sentiment analysis tools. 

You can also search your brand’s hashtag using a hashtag analytics tool or the platform search engine. This will give you a general picture of how your brand is being discussed on social media.

Among many key features, Keyhole gives you straight-forward data, making it easy to understand and report your social media presence.  

Reply Time and Messaging – Keeping the Conversation Going

The social media marketing metrics we covered had to do with your content, but it is also important to monitor your direct interactions with social media users.  

The interactions you have on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram can be a powerful force in sealing sales conversions, or generating overall goodwill toward your brand.

However, the opposite is also possible. A delayed or carelessly-worded reply to a user’s comment or message can cause possibly cost you a customer. It can also reflect poorly on your brand.

Here are some segmented metrics you should keep in mind when creating your regular reporting.

Reply Time

When a customer messages you directly, asks a question on your page, or comments a query under a post, it is important to get them the information they need in a timely fashion. 

This attention to their needs will make them feel like you care about their particular issue. In fact, a positive customer interaction may lead to the customer promoting your brand on their social channels.

Facebook displays the average time it takes for your brand to respond to a direct message, which any page visitor can see. Knowing that your brand takes a long time to respond might discourage visitors from interacting with you. 

For both of these reasons, it is important to take stock of how long it takes for your team to respond adequately to a customer message. If it is taking over a day to get back to a user, it might be time to rearrange your priorities.

Perhaps creating a system to address messages once or twice daily, depending on the frequency of direct messages or post comments you are receiving. 

Tone, Questions, and Comments

Beyond simply taking the time to address user messages in a timely manner, it can be very informative to monitor exactly what is being said. This should include the tone of the message, and any questions that may pop up.

Take notice of repeated questions, comments or concerns from your followers.  These can be an excellent opportunity to inform your content strategy. 

If, for example, a smartphone repair business has customers commenting or messaging questions regarding iPhone updates. This would be a great opportunity to write a blog or long-form social media post answering that question to stir-up some engagement.

Conversions – The End Goal

This goes without saying, but by far the most important metric in your reporting should be customer conversions from your social media presence.

There are plenty of guides out there to ace your social media commerce. Making sure you keep track of those successes can be key to informing your social media strategy going forward.

Are you selling a product or service? Do you have a newsletter? Is the end goal to drive downloads?

All of these can and should be tracked. Period.

If you are not tracking conversions, then why are you spending any time on social media marketing? This is the end goal, right? Return on investment.

The cool thing is you are able to track users from the time they click on your post, all the way through to when they become a customer. You can even tell where they fall off along the way if they do not finalize a transaction.

This can all be accomplished through the use of Google Analytics and UTM tags tactically inserted in your links. We would explain that more in depth, but if you do not understand Google Analytics and UTM tags, here is a valuable resource on how to track that sort of engagement.

If you are active on Facebook or Instagram, they offer a tracking pixel called a Facebook Pixel that you can install on the back end of your website, and that allows for deeper social media analytics and reporting to be done on your Facebook dashboard. 

It also allows you to get a deeper understanding of your audience from folks who have visited your page or even completed a certain action on your page. This information can help you build targeted audiences for your paid ads

Don’t Get Lost in the Sauce

Monitoring and tracking your success – or lack thereof – in social media marketing can be an overwhelming experience. However, it pays serious dividends down the line in the form valuable insights to improve your organic and paid social media efforts.

Let’s give it the dramatic terms it deserves. In a realm that often feels ruled by the iron fist of algorithms, keeping track of these metrics gives you control of your social media destiny. 

There are many other social media marketing metrics that we didn’t touch upon. These include post times and follower growth rate.

Unless you have a dedicated team for social media, taking stock of the above social media metrics is more than enough to inform your strategy. The insights will be effective, and even impress stakeholders or clients.

Keyhole is a Social Media Listening & Online Monitoring Solution that helps marketers unlock data-driven business insights. Its visual dashboard is simple and shareable with your clients.

As always, if you need an intuitive and comprehensive suite of social media analytics to step up your social media marketing and crush your goals. We are here to help.

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The post The 7 Most Important Social Media Marketing Metrics appeared first on Keyhole.

Did you know? A long and confusing checkout process is one of the top 5 reasons why people abandon their carts. And who could blame them? 

When you’ve decided to buy something, you probably want to finish the purchase process as quickly and as easily as possible. Social commerce makes that happen by allowing shoppers to finish buying things directly through social media.

In this post, you’ll discover what social commerce is and why you need it in your social media marketing strategy. You’ll also learn a few tips that can help you get started with social commerce for your business. 

And of course, we’ll provide some real-life examples for inspiration.

What is social commerce?

Simply put, social commerce involves selling things directly on social media. Unlike social media marketing, you’re not redirecting people to your website or product pages. Instead, you’re giving them the option to checkout right on the social media platform they’re using.

With social commerce, shoppers go through the entire purchase funnel on a single social media platform. 

For instance, they may discover a tagged product through your ad, feed post, or Stories. Then, they can learn more about it on the same platform by clicking on the product tag. If they decide to buy it, they can simply tap on the “checkout” or “buy now” button to finish the purchase.

This streamlines the buying process, as it just takes a few clicks to complete a purchase. You can currently get this type of social shopping capability on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Twitter introduced the buy button in 2014 but then decided to ditch it in 2017.

Let’s discuss how each of these work?

Facebook Shopping

With 1.62 billion people using Facebook daily, the platform opens up an excellent opportunity to reach a massive audience base. 

The platform now has a feature to set up a full-blown Facebook Shop to showcase your featured products. This way, people can browse through the products in your Shop and buy them on the same platform.

Instagram shopping

70% of shopping enthusiasts go to Instagram to discover new products, making the platform a great option to drive social commerce. 

Instagram gives you the option to create shoppable posts, where you tag products in your photos and videos. People can click on these product tags to learn more about the product and/or buy it right on Instagram.

You can even create Shoppable Stories, but you can only tag one product per Stories post. When people swipe up it will take them to the product page.

Like with Facebook, you even have the option to set up a full-blown Instagram Shop to further promote Instagram selling. People can browse through this Shop to discover products to buy and complete their purchase without ever leaving Instagram.

Pinterest shopping

83% of Pinners have bought something based on Pins that they saw. Pinterest is the go-to destination for creative inspiration, so it’s no surprise that it also inspires buying decisions.

Taking advantage of this, Pinterest allows brands to create rich pins where people can learn more about a product. You can even create shoppable pins so people can buy the product without leaving Pinterest.

Earlier this year, Pinterest introduced a “Shop” tab that users can access from their boards. This tab showcases products featured in the user’s boards so they can easily find something to buy.

Why you need social commerce

Now you may want to know why social commerce is so important and why you need it for your business.

If you’re wondering, isn’t it enough to market your social media and send people to your website? Here’s a quick look at some of the top reasons why social commerce is so important:

Reduce friction and drive conversions

People are already using social media to discover and research things to buy. 43% of global social media users research products online using social networks. And for 13%, a “buy” button would make them more likely to buy something.

Also, according to a Facebook-backed study, Instagram fuels product discovery for 83% of users and helps purchase decisions for 80%. After seeing a product or service on Instagram, 65% visited the brand’s website or app. And 46% made a purchase online or offline. 

What does that mean? People are making their buying decision on your social platform. So, giving them the option to buy directly on the platform will turn them into customers.

The goal of social commerce applications is to reduce friction and minimize the steps to complete a purchase. People can easily go from discovering your products/services on social media to buying it. 

So there’s a lower risk of abandoning their carts and losing a sale since the process is shorter. And you have a good chance of driving more conversions with the help of social commerce. 

Enhance the customer experience

Customers using social commerce benefit from a quick and easy checkout process. With fewer steps needed to visit a brand store and complete a purchase, social shopping enhances the customer experience. 

In fact, people value efficiency and convenience the most in their customer experience. And that’s exactly what social commerce offers.

Improve social ROI

When you have a Facebook Shop or an Instagram Shop, people can browse through them and find products they like. This means that they’ll likely spend more time engaging with your brand on social media.

The same goes for product tags and rich pins, as people will spend time looking at the product info. And with an easier checkout option that will boost your conversion rates, you’re bound to see your social ROI soar.

In other words, you’ll be getting much more out of your investment in social commerce. Make the most of robust social media analytics tools to track your ROI and see the impact in real time.

5 social commerce tips to get you started

Now that you know how your business can benefit from social commerce, it’s time to bring it to fruition. To help you get a great start, take a look at these tips and best practices. 

We’ve also provided you with a few social commerce examples of brands that got it right. So take in the inspiration.

1: Start with low-cost offers

When people browse social media, they’re not really looking for things to buy. They’re there to engage with other users and pass the time.

After all, that’s the purpose of social media. So, maybe it’s not the best time or place to bombard them with offers for major purchases and high-cost products. 

For instance, you may not necessarily buy a car directly on Instagram. But you might be interested in buying accessories like dashboard cameras, car organizers, etc. 

ThreadBeast, the clothing subscription service, does exactly this with its Facebook Shop. The company highlights plans that cost less than $150 and occasionally promotes a plan over $200.

Similarly, ensure social commerce success by luring your customers in with your best, low-cost offers first. You can include the occasional high-priced item.

However, the main focus should be on promoting things that people would want to buy immediately without much second thought. 

2: Use hashtags to drive product discovery

You can’t sell stuff that people can’t see. So product discovery should be an essential aspect of your social marketing strategy.

Hashtags are crucial for driving product discovery, especially on Instagram. When you tag your posts with relevant hashtags, it allows the posts to show up in searches for said hashtags.

That means when people click on a certain hashtag, they could come across your shoppable post and end up converting. This works for Facebook too but it’s even more effective on Instagram.

On Instagram, your post could show up in the Explore page of relevant users when you use the right hashtags. So. improving your Instagram SEO with relevant hashtags will drive product discovery, which will likely end up in conversions.

Check out how Pottery Barn uses hashtags like #interiordesign, #homestyling, and #interiorinspo in their shoppable post. They also mix it up with branded hashtags like #potterybarn and #mypotterybarn.

If you’re using branded hashtags like Pottery Barn does, don’t forget to monitor and measure your hashtag performance. This will help you measure your brand reach and engagement, which are essential metrics of your social ROI.

Pro tip: To find popular hashtags, use the Keyhole Market Research platform to look for trending topics and conversations. This will give you an idea of what your target audience is interested in right now. 

Then come up with relevant hashtags that people are most likely to use and search based on those trends. You can also use this trend discovery and prediction feature to brainstorm content (and even product) ideas that you know people love.

3: Take advantage of UGC

People trust people more than they trust brands. In fact, 92% of consumers trust other people’s recommendations.

So it’s no wonder that 87% of brands are already taking advantage of user-generated content. 72% even believe that UGC helps them engage their customers better. 

This makes sense since seeing the product on real people or in real homes can set realistic expectations. It puts the item in context and helps people picture how it’ll look in real life. So if you’re going to enjoy the full impact of social commerce, you’ll need to leverage UGC too. 

H&M does a great job of implementing UGC in its shoppable posts. Most of the brand’s Instagram shoppable posts come from style influencers and real customers.

4: Get your timing right

Timing is everything, especially on social media. Facebook sees 14.58 million photos uploaded every hour. While Instagram sees 995 photos uploaded every second. So your posts can easily get lost in a sea of posts from other users.

If you want people to notice your posts, you need to reach them at just the right time. For this, you’ll need to test out different post timings to see when you get the most engagement. Then create a content calendar and posting schedule based on these findings. 

Don’t forget to use social media scheduling tools to help you get your posts out at the right time.

5: Build trust using reviews

Remember when we mentioned that people trust people? 

Well, online reviews have influenced the purchase decisions of 93% of consumers. So they could significantly boost your conversions and therefore, your returns on social commerce. 

Encourage your customers to leave reviews and then share those reviews through social media. You could share product reviews through your Stories for one. 

Better yet, find a way to incorporate reviews into your shoppable posts. For instance, you could include an image overlay of the review on top of the product photo.

Glossier shared reviews of its most popular products through Instagram Stories. This coincided with the brand’s Cyber Week sale as it was intended to inspire purchases during the sale week.

Sell more on social

Social commerce opens up an incredible opportunity to boost your social ROI. As it shortens and simplifies the conversion process, it reduces the risk of losing a sale. In the end, it helps you drive higher conversions in the long run.

Who doesn’t want that?

While you amplify your social selling efforts, don’t forget to research trending topics and conversations using Keyhole. This will help you figure out just how to create posts that resonate with your target audience.

The post Social Commerce: 5 Secrets To Boost Sales With Social Media appeared first on Keyhole.