ConvertKit’s 30 Day Landing Page Challenge

This post contains affiliate links.

How big are you dreaming this year?

What are you building to serve your audience? What products or services are on your horizon? What ideas are you ready to make a reality?

Did you ever think those ideas could help you win $5,000?

Now they can.

ConvertKit’s 30 Day Landing Page Challenge

ConvertKit wants to celebrate your big dreams and help you kickstart your next idea with this month-long challenge geared around landing pages.

I love landing pages.

They’re a simple and beautiful way to promote products, webinars, your newsletters...the possibilities are endless. And they’re so easy to set up.

In just 10 minutes you can have a fully designed and branded landing page live and ready to share with the world.

With that in mind, ConvertKit is hosting this challenge to help you get your next idea up and running with a landing page to gain as many new subscribers as you possibly can.

For one creator who can set up a landing page that grows their list by over 100 subscribers in one month, ConvertKit is giving away a grand prize of:

• $5,000
• A free year of ConvertKit
• And a year of coaching with one of their account managers
• There are also more great prizes for anyone who doesn’t quite reach that level too!

And to help you along the way, ConvertKit will be hosting five live trainings to help you with everything from creating your landing page offer, to figuring out how to share your landing page, to tactics to make that email list grow.

The challenge starts on April 1st!

With 18 chances to win based on the number of subscribers you gain, it’s time to make your next big dream a reality.

I bet you didn’t think April was going to be this fun, right?

Click the Link below to join the challenge today!

<Grow your list to fund your future with the 30 Day Landing Page Challenge>

How to Simplify Social Media Ad Creation

For most organizations, social media marketing is an important piece of the overall strategy.

For good reason, too. The audience on these platforms is extremely active – and it’s constantly growing. Some data shows that by 2018, we can expect to see as many as 2.5 billion social media users around the world.

And while there’s a large audience here, for many marketers, the obstacle is getting content in front of the right audiences. Thanks to algorithms that limit who sees what content and when they are now turning to advertising on social media to specifically target their ideal customers.

Let’s take a deeper look at the growing adoption of social media ads, as well as some of the common obstacles and problem-solving tools being used to get the most out of it.

The Rise of Social Media Advertising

Last year, companies spent more than $24 billion on ads in spaces like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. And this spending is only expected to grow. According to eMarketer, in 2017, analysts predict a 26.3% global increase on spending for social media ads.

Why? A couple of important reasons:

For one thing, they’re battling decreased organic reach. On platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter where reach of posts is limited by a company algorithm, organic exposure is at an all-time low. In order for companies to get their messages in front of the right people, they’re paying for more targeted ads on these platforms.

Then there’s the simple fact that advertising here works. As more companies see positive results from their ads (think boosted website traffic, higher sales, more customer engagement), they’re investing more in these channels. On Facebook alone, ad spending increased 50% from 2015 to 2016…which means companies must be seeing strong results.

So while social media advertising is producing impressive results, many marketers are facing the same point of struggle when it comes to advertising (and content creation in general) in these spaces: Graphic design. 

Graphic Design & Social Media

Social Media Examiner tells us that 74% of social media marketers use visual assets in their social media marketing. Why? Because Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images – making a pretty strong case for using visuals.

But there’s a problem: Designing these images can be difficult. And without Photoshop skills or a graphic design degree, many marketers are having to hire graphic design help to create post-worthy graphics on a regular basis. It’s just one more expense on top of advertising that cuts into the company’s ROI.

When it comes down to it, difficult and expensive is not what we’re all about… so that is why we created our own solution – Social Studio FX.

Social Studio FX is an all-in-one, social media graphics tool that puts creative control directly in your hands. Using this tool, there’s no need for hiring a freelance designer, learning Photoshop, spending $100-$500 per design, waiting for designs, working through editing processes, and not being able to fully communicate your vision.

With this easy-to-use toolkit, marketers are finally able to design, create, and share the exact social media images they need. And with more than 180 fonts and 8,000 royalty-free graphics, this tool can help save time and money. From ads to everyday posts, this tool is helping make graphic design simpler than ever before.

How it Works

With this social media design toolkit, there’s no guesswork…just three simple steps:

1. Select a design/start from scratch

Browse the library of more than 13,200 templates and designs from 23 niche categories, or pick from over 200 done-for-you templates and 66 pre-sized social media layouts.

2. Customize your design

Using simple drag and drop tools, you can customize your content in a few simple clicks.

3. Download and publish

Once your design is complete, just download the material in PNG, JPEG, PDF, or TIFF format and use it on your preferred social media platform.

Simple, right? This tool is already being used by social media managers, affiliate marketers, bloggers, and ecommerce store owners alike because it’s cloud-based, powerful, and professional–and doesn’t require hours of initial training. In minutes, you can design high quality graphics for social media that can be launched right away.

Social Media Marketing: Don’t Let Graphic Design Over-Complicate

With Social Studio FX, you too can start getting the most out of your social media marketing presence without spending a fortune on graphic design help. Get empowered to take control of own design work and make your advertising and posting efforts look and feel the way they do in your mind. In no time at all, you’ll be creating ads and connecting with the engaged audience in spaces like Twitter, Facebook, and beyond with beautiful, professional visuals that are seen and shared.

Speaking of engagement, please take a moment to like, share and comment below. We’d love to know how you simplify your own social media ad creation!

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The Top 25 Tools Every Successful Blogger Needs

If you’re trying to make money by blogging, you need to promote and drive traffic to your website through an online marketing strategy. Add these 25 tools to your blogging arsenal to create quality content and accomplish your marketing goals.

Blogging Tools

First and foremost, you need to craft content your audience will enjoy and share. These tools will help you create, edit, and analyze your content.

Google Drive

As a blogger, you’ll have several files, drafts, and ideas floating around your computer. Keep all of your media, documents, and content in one place with Google Drive. If you work with other bloggers or colleagues, this is an excellent tool for collaborating and organizing campaigns, as well.

Grammarly

No one is perfect, not even top bloggers. We all make mistakes, but we don’t want to publish our errors online. Before you hit the looming “Publish” button, run your content through Grammarly. This free grammar checker will catch glaring spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes and also offer suggestions to improve your work.

Hemingway App

In the world of blogging, you want your writing to stand out from the crowd. The Hemingway App helps you fine-tune your content and cut out the fluff. Those who want to improve their writing chops derive a great deal of value from using Hemingway.

CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

Arguably one of the hardest parts of blogging is finding the perfect headline. A headline must be catchy, SEO-friendly, and intriguing enough to drive traffic to your blog. Rely on CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to discover headlines that work for your audience and search engines alike.

BuzzSumo

Understanding what topics and types of content generate top social media engagement is vital information for bloggers. BuzzSumo is an in-depth blogging tool designed to help writers discover relevant topics, top influencers, and other key data including social media insights. Bloggers also use this tool for content inspiration by researching competitors and trends.

Canva

Everyone knows blog content must also be intriguing to the eye. Canva allows bloggers to easily create stunning visuals for blog posts, social media, and other content. The tool also provides simple tutorials for those who need help along the way.

SEO Tools

Once you’ve created your content, you must optimize it to rank well on search engines. These SEO toolsare used by blogging professionals to increase website traffic, improve search rankings, and analyze their content’s performance.

Google Analytics

Every blogger must have a Google Analytics account. This versatile tool offers insight into your website’s performance, traffic acquisition, and audience. Bloggers use Google Analytics to discover what channels their traffic is coming from, how long people stay on their website, and where their readers are located.

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a popular WordPress plugin used to optimize a website and blog content for search engines. Everything from the technical aspects of SEO to improving the readability of a page can be accomplished using this handy plugin.

Google Keyword Planner

If you want to rank on Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo, you need to know what your audience is searching for. Google Keyword Planner provides expansive information about keywords, search trends, and more to amplify your content marketing efforts.

Keywordtool.io

Another popular keyword research tool is Keywordtool.io. Using Google’s autocomplete feature, this tool assists bloggers in identifying potential keywords for their blog content. Best of all, this tool is completely free!

Moz Open Site Explorer

To generate a wealth of traffic to a blog, you must have quality backlinks directing people to your website. However, some of these links may also be malicious or damaging. Moz Open Site Explorer shows bloggers what links are pointing to their website along with other crucial link information.  

SEMRush

Bloggers looking to advance their search engine optimization efforts should subscribe to SEMRush. As one of the leading SEO tools, SEMRush provides in-depth analytics, competitor research, display advertising information, and so much more. Bloggers will have an abundance of search marketing information at their disposal with this tool.

Social Media Tools

Bloggers are especially active on social media platforms such as Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. To maximize their audience engagement and content distribution on these platforms, bloggers rely on these tools:

Social Sharing Bars

With the goal of offering readers a simple way to share content, the majority of blogs use a social sharing bar or buttons embedded in or near their content. If you look to the left of this article, you’ll notice a social sharing toolbar on our blog. These widgets entice readers to share the content with their friends and followers online.

To add this capability to your blog, use one of these social sharing tools and WordPress plugins:

• AddtoAny
• Social Warfare
• SumoShare
• Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress

Once you install any of these social sharing tools on your blog, remind readers to use it!

Social Media Scheduling Tools

Bloggers are also responsible for distributing their own blog content and engaging with fans on various social media platforms. As you might imagine, this can be quite cumbersome. To speed up the process, bloggers schedule their social media posts in advance using a variety of tools. These social media scheduling tools allow you to create posts for specific platforms and assign when you’d like it to publish.

Top social media scheduling tools include:

• Buffer
• Hootsuite
• SproutSocial
• Everypost
• Crowdfire
• Tailwind

Take advantage of these tools by scheduling as much content in advance as possible. This leaves you with ample time to create more content and interact with your followers.

Email Marketing Tools

Another way to drive readers to your blog content is through email marketing. From regular newsletters to announcements, email marketing keeps your audience informed and engaged.

To start your email marketing campaigns, you must collect email addresses from interested readers. WP Subscribe and Optin Forms are both excellent choices for creating subscriber forms for your blog. These forms should be strategically placed throughout your website to entice readers to sign-up.

Once you’ve collected enough subscribers, you can create and send emails through tools like Constant Contact. Remember to only send your subscribers top quality content—never spam!

Bonus Tool: WordPress

We recommend that all bloggers use WordPress to create and manage their blog. WordPress is a versatile content management system that gives bloggers complete control over their content, tools, and website design.

Over to you! What blogging tools do you use? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Facebook Community Development: How to Cultivate Loyal Fans

 Are you creating a fan base on Facebook?

Want to discover how to engage your audience via pages and groups?

To explore how to nurture a community on Facebook, I interview Holly Homer.

More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Holly Homer, a professional blogger whose Kids Activities Blog helps parents discover fun things to do with their kids. Her Facebook page (Quirky Momma) has more than 3 million fans.

Holly shares how she’s cultivated a thriving community using Facebook.

You’ll discover how Holly uses Facebook Insights to develop her content.

5 Tips to Improve Your Visual Content Strategy

Visual content has become one of the most powerful tools out there.
With 500 million daily active users, Instagram has revolutionized the way we share content, by utilizing imagery alone!
The visual trend has already grown exponentially from the days of simply posting static images.
Social media is now dominated by eye-catching graphics, breathtaking pictures and gut-busting memes.
Most recently, incorporating GIFs, 360 photos, and live video.
Businesses rarely ask whether visual content is an effective part of their strategy.
In fact 65 percent of senior marketing executives believe that visual assets like photos, video, illustrations and infographics are important when it comes to sharing their brand story.
However, not everyone knows how to effectively leverage the power of graphics, images and videos.
Here, we will share 5 tips to improve your visual strategy and promote your business using the most effective types of visual content!

1. Publish striking images

Our first tip is to simply share images!
BuzzSumo found that updates with images have 2.3x more engagement on social media in comparison to posts without.
Clearly, that means that you should be publishing content featuring images in order to properly build your following!
However, it is crucial to always use high quality, eye-catching, brand flattering images for your website, blog, or social media efforts, in order to portray a professional feel.
Whether you use royalty free images featured on photo-sharing websites, take pictures yourself or hire a designer to create custom graphics and photos – the source is entirely up to you.

Image source

Strategies with a limited budget benefit from free images – like the one above – but if you run a company that highly values brand nurturing the best idea is to contract a designer who will help create fully branded, original images.
Whatever your budget, always be sure the images are:

• Crisp & clear – Avoid dark, pixelated or blurry images
• High quality – Be sure the images are optimized for today’s visual technology
• Relevant to your niche or brand (We’ll get into this more later!)

Looking for places to integrate visuals alongside usual content? How about:

• Featuring an image for your blog posts
• Share an image with a quote on social media
• Promote an eBook cover when advertising a digital product
• Show inspirational images in your email newsletter

2. Share knowledge using an infographic!

Infographics are a visual way to present data or explain an otherwise complex concept.
This makes them extremely effective when it comes to your overall content marketing strategy.
In fact, some reports state that infographics are liked and shared 3X more than any other type of content on social media.
Infographics are suitable for presenting research results, sharing a workflow, showing the passage of time or even teaching a step-by-step process.
This type of content is most appropriate for bloggers who want to enhance their writing with graphics that better help explain complicated concepts.
Readers will appreciate the clarity and love learning new things in a unique way!
The layout should be clear, with various different shapes and colors that allow you to highlight different aspects of the presented data:

 
An inspiring design helps even the most mundane statistics and percentages seem interesting and engaging.
Also, as they share their own view of the topic, your users will actively be promoting your infographic as well, thus helping you expand your audience.

3. Evaluate your use of memes

Memes are commonly known as images that are accompanied by humorous, unpredictable captions.
They even have their own way of being relevant in the world of online marketing!
Some of the most influential blogs in the industry use memes as a funny way to present a certain point, along with entertaining the readers at the same time.
With memes, it’s almost as if you are creating an inside joke specifically for your industry and tailoring it to the topic you’re addressing.
The best memes are targeted correctly and appropriate for your audience, so be sure you take those factors into consideration before posting.

 

Not only will you engage your readers by utilizing humor and using creativity, but if utilized properly, you will also get likes, shares, comments and even more engaged followers!

4. Create relevant presentations

While on one side we have memes and humorous content, on the other we have presentations, which are an equally important tool when it comes to your visual content marketing strategy.
The recommended approach for presentations is similar to that of infographics – visual elements, shapes and colors are used to create an attractive design and gain the attention of your readers.
Presentations are typically best for promoting short texts, quotes, definitions, etc. and unlike infographics, can be a bit more lengthy, which allows you to present more information and data.
Utilizing online platforms for sharing presentations, such as SlideShare, you can provide a presentation that is accessible to a significant number of online users, enabling them to easily share the presentation on their own blogs or social media.

5. Consider vlogging or filming videos

Vlogs and live videos are increasingly popular on social media, as they allow direct interaction with your social followers.
Videos are particularly useful for creating dynamic presentations especially with accompanying music or a voice over message.
Filming vlogs or doing a live video event is a perfect way to create a more intimate bond with your social followers.
You could film a part of your speech at a conference, share the atmosphere from an event or simply do an online Q and A.
Online platforms and advanced functions on smartphones allow you to create video content quite easily, without requiring any special technical skills.
Before you get started, find a great vlog to subscribe to and take notes!
Need a recommendation?
Click through to check out our vlog on YouTube!

Wrapping it Up

All types of visual content allow for the possibility of boosting engagement.
As a result, you’ll get to see a ton of benefits such as a gain in followers, an increase in traffic and even more leads.
Define your strategy in such a way that you take full advantage of visual content.
Use formats that are suitable for the topics you want to address, and make sure that visual content is relevant to your overall business strategy and intended audience.
Whether you use memes, infographics or presentations, you want the style to fully match the overall message you’re trying to convey.
You’ll see the best results when the strategy is aligned with – and reflective of – your business goals.
Think about using visual content as a way of showcasing the essence of your brand while engaging viewers at the same time!
As always, we’d love to hear from you next:
What type of visual content do you find to be the most appealing to you?
When it comes to your business, which type of visual content do you use the most and why?
Still trying to get the hang of this visual content thing and looking to learn more before posting your next image?
Click to read our tips for small businesses on Instagram!
Learn from your own experience and monitor which content helps you boost your business. Once you’ve had some practice, come back and let us know.
We can’t wait to hear from you!



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Affiliate Marketing in 2018, What You Need to Know

Affiliate marketing is constantly changing and evolving and 2018 is going to be another year when we can expect some incremental shifts and some more radical shifts. I am going to spend a bit here explaining where I see affiliate marketing in 2018 heading and hopefully shed some light on the industry as a whole.Before I get started, I want to clear your mind of ONE thing. Affiliate Marketing is not going anywhere. The opportunity to build a full-time business through affiliate marketing is still as possible as it has ever been.
In fact, there is becoming a greater shift of investment by large companies into their affiliate programs and their affiliates. You can expect more of this in the year ahead.
There are 5 main shifts/changes that you can expect in the year ahead within the AM world.

1. Affiliate Programs Need Affiliates More Than Ever.

I am sensing a bit of desperation in the commerce world. Very successful retailers of the "offline" world are losing their grasp of their overall market because of the "progressive online" companies that have focused primarily in the online retail space.
You have the likes of Etsy, EBay, Amazon, AliExpress that have truly invested a great deal of their energies into affiliates and their online retail experience. They are continuing to thrive and grow and will do so in 2018.
Then you have companies like Sears, Toys R Us (as well as several others) that are going completely out of business because they didn't focus on affiliates and their overall online retail experience.
We are going to see more of this. There will be more retailers that will go bankrupt in 2018. There will be a much greater focus by existing retailers in their online experience, affiliate programs, and working at a higher rate with affiliate marketers.
Those that continue to invest in this manner will see positive growth in their businesses in 2018. Those that don't, are unfortunately going to experience the same demise as many other "offline focused" retailers that simply do not get the new economy.

2. Authority Bloggers Will Continue to Reap the Rewards.

One thing that you can be assured about is that those that focus on OWNING their niche in 2018, are going to continue to attract the attention of larger affiliate marketing agencies, networks, and affiliate programs.
As an affiliate, you have a lot of power as you start to accrue a brand in the industry. The same way celebrities attract huge contracts for selling contracts through commercials if you focus on building your brand in your given niche/industry you are going to continue to attract these types of partnerships.
Often times as you gain true branding in your niche. Affiliate programs consider offering you more incentives or better commission (like our all-expense-paid Super Affiliate Conference).
So embrace your niche, work to become the best within it, and don't try to diversify and wear too many hats within the online world. It only takes ONE niche to be very successful online (as in millions in revenue per year).
Also, help as many people as you can in your niche. Make it a goal of 2018. If you can help 100% more people this year, you can expect 100% growth. If you can help 500% more people this year, you can expect 500% growth in your affiliate revenues.
If you haven't already had the opportunity to check out my Live Class on "Insights into Efficiently Becoming an Expert in 2018", I recommend you do so. All Premium members have access and it is going to give you some unique perspective on building a brand through the course of a year. It CAN be done.

WATCH LIVE CLASS: Insights into Efficiently Becoming an Expert in 2018

3. More People Online = More Affiliate Marketing Opportunity

Every year the world population grows. Ever year access to the Internet continues to grow. Every year more people are more active on the Internet than ever, through more devices.
There was a point in time when people were fearing the demise of desktop computing and people actually using anything but a mobile device. It was a big fear, in particular in the SEO space and with affiliate marketers.
What has happened though is that people now are online more than ever, people often times have 3-4 devices they can connect to the internet with and consume information with (desktop, laptop, iPad, smartphone, now home enabled devices), and people are now spending more money than ever as a result.
People also have ramped up their search habits.
Offline constructs like libraries, books, newspapers and offline retailers are continuing to become obsolete, meanwhile, anything online is only gaining more popularity.
This is a good thing for affiliate marketers. In fact, the opportunity has never been so big and the affiliate marketing snowball is going to continue to grow in size in 2018.

4. E-commerce is Thriving, More Hybrid Opportunities

Affiliate marketing is great. But it certainly is not the only way to monetize website traffic and if there are greater profits outside of affiliate marketing within certain pages on your website, then authority sites are going to continue to leverage these.
For example, if you are selling something that is not branded (a wooden clock), there are many opportunities to drop ship through companies like AliExpress where you can ship products at a much lower cost than you can charge for them, sometimes you can make 100% plus on the actual price of the product.

If you take a $15 clock like the one above, you sell it for $30, you double your money. This is a logic that has been in place, but where the "brand" isn't as sensitive (like a generic clock), you are going to see more opportunities in this space. There is much more administration and costs associated with accepting payment, dealing with returns, and managing product support. But accepting payment and hosting a store on your website through plugins like WooCommerce can be a great opportunity.
We have some existing training on this, but we are going to be exploring facets in the direct "e-commerce" space through more live classes and training in 2018.
Affiliate marketing is definitely going to remain our focus with the largest share of our training, but we also feel there are going to be new opportunities arising out of the e-commerce side of things that conventional affiliate-based sites will be able to leverage (as technology continues to improve).
The ability to operate a hybrid website where you recommend products through affiliate programs, as well as other means like drop shipping, and owning your own products/services are going to become more of a reality in 2018 and beyond.

5. Lots of Opportunity Outside of Amazon

Amazon is eating a disproportionate piece of the pie, the most we have ever seen. They are blowing away sales records and one thing that can be said about Amazon in the last 10 years is that they have invested in their affiliate program, their affiliates (associates) and maximizing revenue.
During Black Friday of 2017 it was stated that Amazon took anywhere between 45-50% of all online sales. That is a big deal, but this certainly does not mean that Amazon should be viewed as your only option. Online sales broke records once again in 2017, and will do so again in 2018.

Affiliate programs are going to continue to pop up. Networks continue to recruit brand new merchants and continue to expand their offerings. And often times you can find much better commission share (% wise) outside of Amazon.
There are 100,000's of affiliate programs out there across every industry offering a wide range of commission rates (1-75%), so explore your options and be strategic about what you promote on your sites. There is likely a greater windfall of revenue if you do your due diligence and you seek affiliate programs outside of just Amazon's.
Cookie life (the time in which you get credit for an affiliate commission) are typically better than Amazon as well through other affiliate programs and networks. Some like Wealthy Affiliate, offer affiliates LIFETIME cookies, meaning you get a commission if someone goes through your affiliate link and joins at any time, forever. Compare this to shorter cycle cookies like Amazon (which are only 24 hours).
Successful merchants on Amazon and other mass shopping agencies are going to become more privy to the benefits of having their own independent affiliate programs and either join affiliate networks or set-up their own independent affiliate programs. They will earn the merchants larger profit margins this way and they will also be able to pay affiliate more than commissions. A win/win.

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There you have it.
Those are some trends I see either taking place or evolving in 2018. The affiliate marketing industry has never been more exciting in my opinion and you can expect the most affiliate opportunities we have ever seen in the year ahead.
I would love to hear your feedback though. Where do you see the affiliate marketing industry heading in 2018? What are some trends you have noticed in your own niches? Do you have any questions or personal feedback? Drop a comment below!
Here is to a successful a brilliant 2018 ahead!



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7 Questions to Ask Before Working With a Micro-Influencer

The way we ask for recommendations has evolved.
Whereas once upon a time we may have asked a neighbor to recommend a product or service, 47% of millennials now turn to social media for recommendations and reviews before deciding on a purchase.
But these consumers aren’t always going to the social media accounts of brands. Much of the time, they're visiting the profiles of a special breed of social media personalities: influencers.
Consider this: Close to 40% of Twitter users alone have made a purchase as a result of influencer marketing -- and that's excluding the influence, if you will, of personalities on other channels, like Instagram.

Click here to learn how to grow your network and become an influencer in your industry.

 And when we think of influencers, for many of us, A-list personalities and celebrities come to mind. Take Kylie Jenner, for example, who helped catapult the brand Fashion Nova into a favorite online retail brand.

Sure, celebrities might significantly help boost your sales and achieve your marketing goals. But let’s face it: most of us can't afford their price tags. After all, it’s reported that Kylie Jenner gets $400,000 for a single promotional Instagram post.
The good news is that marketers and startup business owners now have another option that will allow them to tap into the power of influencer marketing without putting their ROI in jeopardy.
This option comes in the form of a unique group of social media users collectively known as micro-influencers.

What Is a Micro-Influencer?

Micro-influencers are social media users -- unlike typical celebrities, experts, or public figures. They're individuals who work or specialize in a particular vertical and frequently share social media content about their interests. Unlike traditional "influencers," micro-influencers have a more modest number of followers -- typically in the thousands or tens of thousands -- but they boast hyper-engaged audiences.

Why Use Micro-Influencers?

At first, opting to use micro-influencers for your marketing campaign may sound counterintuitive. Would it be more beneficial to tap an influencer with millions of followers, as opposed to getting a micro-influencer with just a few thousand followers?
Not necessarily.
That’s because when it comes to influencer marketing, the level of engagement is more crucial. It is one of the key metrics that will help you gauge the effectiveness of your influencer marketing campaign.
In a study done by Markerly, a converse relationship was discovered between the number of followers an influencer has, and the level of engagement each post gets. In other words, as the number of followers increases, the engagement rate decreases.

Source: Markerly

In its own study, Expercity found that micro-influencers not only generate 22.2X more conversion than the average social media user, but that 74% of them are rather direct in encouraging their followers to buy or try a product or service they're endorsing. That communicates credibility and transparency, which can help to build a loyal following.
Cost is another reason why many brands are now turning to micro-influencers. According to a study done by Bloglovin’, 97% of micro-influencers charge $500 and below for a sponsored post on Instagram.

Source: Influence

Additionally, 87% micro-influencers charge $500 and below for a sponsored blog post.

Source: Influence

Finding the Right Micro-Influencer for Your Business

With so many micro-influencers out there, it’s no surprise that 73% of marketers point to finding the right one as one of their biggest challenges.

Source: Econsultancy

Of course, you can choose to hire an influencer marketing agency to help you find the right micro-influencers for your campaign. But if you want to be more hands-on in finding the right micro-influencer, here are seven questions you’ll need to answer very carefully.

1. What are your goals?

The first thing to consider when finding the right micro-influencer is to look at what you're aiming to achieve. Do you want to generate more leads for your business? If so, look for micro-influencers that frequently host contests or giveaways on their social media accounts -- especially if they involve encouraging their followers to sign up in exchange for free trials, products or access to an exclusive event.

2. Who are the micro-influencer's followers?

When reviewing the followers of the micro-influencer you want to reach, look at to how well they align with your brand's buyer personas. Some of the things to consider are:

• Where are the majority of the micro-influencers' followers based (geographically)?
• Are they mostly male or female?
• Which type of posts resonates with them the most?

3. Is the micro-influencer already a fan?

Working with a micro-influencer that’s already using your product or service has several benefits. For starters, he or she might already be posting about your company and products -- so a partnership is more natural and appears more genuine to followers.
Also, micro-influencers who are fans of your products and brand are more likely negotiate lower fees. Some may even be willing to collaborate with you in exchange for some free products or services.
One way to find these micro-influencers is to perform a general search for blog posts mentioning your brand. Since Google ranks sites based on content quality, there's a good chance that the first two or three results belong to a micro-influencer in your niche.
Another is by using a tool like Gatsby.ai (which has an integration with HubSpot) to your website. Gatsby helps you search through your customer database for micro-influencers that have bought your products, and help you quickly retrieve their information so that you can reach out to them.

4. How engaged is the micro-influencer's audience?

As I mentioned earlier, a micro-influencer’s engagement rate is one of the key metrics that will help you determine the success (or lack of it) of your influencer marketing campaign.
Review the social media accounts of the micro-influencer to see how many likes, comments, and shares each post gets. Although likes are good, I often recommend that my clients focus more on the number of comments and shares a post receives. That's because it requires more effort for a follower to leave a comment on or share a post than it is to click on the like button. Often, followers will only leave comments when they find the post compelling enough for them do so.

5. What kind of content does the micro-influencer produce?

Micro-influencers create their posts based on their own brand and image they want to convey to their followers and compare this against the image you want your audience to associate with your brand. There must be alignment between your perceived brand image the micro-influencer's, in order to ensure that the posts he or she creates for you don't look like a mismatch. Followers tend not to appreciate that -- after all, they follow this micro-influencer for relevant content.

6. Are they working with your competitors?

If you're seriously considering using influencer marketing, there's a chance that your competitors are also doing the same. Take some time to review the posts of the micro-influencers you want to work with, and see if they've worked with any of your direct or indirect competitors.
If so, how did the audience respond to the post? Was there anything mentioned by the micro-influencer about your competitors' products that you can leverage?

7. How many platforms do they use?

Although 80% of micro-influencers point to Instagram as their preferred platform for creating and publishing content, many of them are equally active on their own blogs and in other social media channels. Some even have access to traditional media like TV and magazines. The more platforms a micro-influencer can use to promote your content, the better for you.



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