Social Media Influencers – Stage 3: Attachment; How to Measure Influencer Success

Late to the altar? No worries, just read our TL;DR.

So, welcome to your third and final session. Not to mention the third and final stage of love: attachment. This is the part we all hope to hit someday: lazy sundays, comfort weight and stretchy pants, dual income in history’s hardest economy and, if things go really well, maybe even a matching set of shared cutlery. 

In the final part of this series, we are going to explore, through the lens of the last stage of love, how you should be measuring the success of your influencer marketing program. There are things you deserve to get out of these relationships, and knowing which aspects to focus on is the most important part. 

And, here is your regularly scheduled dose of tough love: in love and marketing, your partner isn’t responsible for your happiness. At some point, you’ll have to temper your expectations and have reasonable goals to chase. No one will single-handedly change your practice. 

So let’s focus on the biggest one here: the impact your social media influencer has on your content production. 

Impact on Content Production

The sheer volume of content you can create from a single influencer visit and partnership can be a game changer for your practice. But really getting an idea of what you can produce and to what degree can be a challenge if you are new to the influencer marketing game. 

Just like it is difficult to know how much you can expect of a significant other, knowing what you can reasonably expect to gain from an influencer is also difficult to uncover. Generally speaking, assuming standard partnerships, we suggest doing your best to follow the 1 to 5 rule, which will help you maintain an ideal level of content output for your investment.

1 Email Blast — Generally, an email blast focusing on a single influencer should be limited to one. This doesn’t mean you can’t plug it in future emails as reminders or additional content filler, but you don’t want to spam your lists inbox with messaging about a single person. We suggest saving the eblast until the influencer has finished their recovery or achieved optimal results. This will give your content a better shot at converting patients.

2 Blog Posts — From one influencer visit, you should be able to get at least two blogs’ worth of content. While they are there, ask the influencer questions to use as quotes, and ask them about how they are feeling throughout the entire process. Couple this later with some SEO-driven questions and blog titles and you’ll have pro-content that is engaging and informative.

3 Patient Journey Parts — We know we’ve been pushing the idea of an “influencer journey,” and we aren’t going to back down now. A standard Patient Journey covers the experience, from start to finish, and often way before or after that, to give a holistic view of the treatment’s impact on the subject’s life. Influencers are usually natural storytellers, so video, audio or notated interviews will go a long way to creating powerful content for your audiences. Typically, a Patient Journey can be broken into three parts: before and leading up to the treatment, the treatment experience and the post-treatment breakdown. 

4 Social Media Posts — Four social media posts on a single person might seem like a lot, but you have to remember that these posts will be spaced out, documenting the start, middle and end of the influencer’s results and experience. As long as you are creating regular and consistent content, you won’t need to worry that you are spamming too much of the same person. 

5 Social Media Stories — Stories are less permanent and are accepted to be the more spammy part of your profiles. Which means you can really load up on them as your influencer starts supplementing your content with their own. As long as you asked during the negotiation stage to be tagged in the stories when she is talking about your office or her results, then you can also easily share that additional content to your own story. Five is the minimum amount of stories you should be generating from an influencer visit — more than five is common and also beneficial. 

If you hit these benchmarks, or were at least close to them, then you can feel confident enough that you got a good bang for your influencer marketing buck. 

Impact on Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is one of the other big benefits to using influencer marketing. The more people who are aware that your practice exists, the more likely it is they will think of you when considering some kind of aesthetic treatment.

Measuring your brand awareness can be broken down into four main metrics: new follower count, impressions, engagement and campaign hashtag popularity.

The lucky part about all of this is that each of these metrics are easily trackable on the social media platforms you are working on. Your influencer’s contract should include some kind of reporting clause so that you know the exact value you are extracting. 

Impact on Brand Equity

Brand equity is a little more complicated to quantify because there is no quantifiable component behind it, unless you were to do a sample group or study. It is a term used to describe the amount of money that someone would pay to have your services over another practice. Basically, how much is the trust and reputation you develop with your audiences worth? 

It’s the calculation by which brands like Apple and Johnson & Johnson can put out products that might not be breaking any barriers in the industry, but still make huge profit margins. It’s why so many people will happily stand in line at a Starbucks instead of a local coffee shop, and why the word “Tylenol” has become ubiquitous with the idea of pain relief medication.  

Brand equity may not be directly measurable, but it is infinitely valuable. Why would anyone visit the rando aesthetics providers down the road when your practice, who they have seen all over social media, is right there?

Metrics may not be our best friend here when it comes to figuring out how well we are building brand equity, but we can still find some reasonable information to work with. 

1. Identifying the message that was conveyed. What was the general consensus of the influencer’s messaging? Did they rave about your service? Results? Your humor? Reliability? Comforting nature? Your stellar staff? Your no-pressure environment? Was your decor cool? Find the themes that made their way into all of the content that was produced and note how heavy those themes were. 
2. Count the number of times that messaging was conveyed. Did your influencer mention how dope your office was every time she posted? Nice, that will be something their audience will remember then. Did she only mention how much she liked the results once? Maybe that needed to be strategized or emphasized in the planning meetings. 

Impact on Conversions

Here’s the good news: most things you do in your digital marketing program, even if they don’t directly convert, may help you directly convert down the line. By providing some assurance to future prospects via testimonials, blogs, posts, stories, etc., you are indefinitely presenting a more trustworthy and expert image. 

It’s a patient. Sliding down an incredibly magenta marketing funnel, a.k.a., a conversion. Look it tracks alright, AI still has some learning to do. 

This isn’t to say that you won’t enjoy some immediate conversions directly from your influencer efforts — those should roll in at some point during the initial campaign. How do you track those? Easy. Trackable links and referrals.  

Is It Actually Worth It?

Look, are you going to be the next celebrity provider after booking a single influencer? Nah, dawg. It ain’t happening. 

But whether your goal is social media stardom or to be overflowing with patient leads, influencer marketing is probably something you should be taking advantage of if you want any hope of attaining that goal. 

Think about this way: are you going to find a perfect significant other? With no flaws, who makes no mistakes and with whom you will never argue? Maybe, the odds are low. But if you ever did want to find that person, you have to stay in the game.

Marketing and love have a lot in common, as it turns out.

The short of it is, yes, influencers do have value, despite all the memes about their profession. They can provide very beneficial services and introduce you to an audience you did not previously have access to. 

But is their value worth the money you put in? Our advice is to stay away from Kanye, the Kardashian clan and the rest of the mega influencers, and you should end up pretty happy with your investments.

TL:DR

Stage 3 of love, attachment, is all about figuring out if the influencer or object of your affection is going to provide you with the things you need to be successful or happy in the long run. Content production is important, shoot for 1 email blast, 2 blog posts, 3 Patient Journey parts, 4 social media posts and 5 social media stories and you’ll probably be alright. Brand awareness is a big benefit of working with an influencer, some metrics to watch for are: new follower counts, total impressions, total engagement and campaign hashtag popularity. Your influencer-friend should be able to provide you with those. Brand equity — a.k.a. your ability to be Apple or Johnson & Johnson — makes huge strides when endorsed by someone the public trusts. Conversions are *chef’s kiss,* so make sure you are using trackable links and referrals to keep an eye on how many come in directly from your influencer partnership. Influencer marketing is worth it, take our word for it.

Ready to Lock It Down?

Give yourself a hand. If you went through all these steps and came out on the happy end of the situation, you’ve found the real deal, my friend. Some people search their whole lives for this feeling. Soak it in. 

If you are about to open up your Tinder or influencer portal app again, our condolences. Get out there and keep trying, buddy. One day you’ll find an influencer who deserves you as much as you deserve them.

If you feel like you missed something, check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this series. We know you won’t regret it, unlike your dating history.

But if you ever need a love doctor (again, not a cardiologist), give us a call. As always, our educators are here to answer any questions you have, anytime, for free. Give us a call at (800) 949-0133 or schedule a one-on-one.