It’s no secret that influencer marketing can help increase your brand awareness, boost brand loyalty, and drive sales. Influencer marketing on Instagram is one of the most effective ways to drive business performance, which is why many brands are shifting more and more budgets to their influencer social media marketing campaigns.
However, you need the right strategy to get the best results.
Whether you are just getting started or you have already partnered with dozens of influencers, this article will help you take your influencer marketing to the next level.
Read on to learn more about why you need to incorporate Instagram in your marketing strategy. Then we present you three inspirational case studies that show your hands on examples on how successful influencer marketing is done in 2023.
Why use Instagram for Influencer Marketing?
Instagram, followed by YouTube, is the main channel for influencer marketing, adored by influencers and brands alike. Why? Let’s take a look at why Instagram is so popular when it comes to influencer marketing.
1. Huge reach
Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, with one billion monthly active users. This means brands can use Instagram to tap into a large pool of users across different demographics around the globe and reach their target audience.
Most of the users come from India (180 million) followed closely by the US (170 million):
How about the DACH region? In Germany, Austria and Switzerland over 1/3 of the population uses Instagram:
2. High engagement rate
While there are other platforms, like Facebook, which have more users, they can’t compete with TikTok or Instagram in terms of engagement.
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, TikTok organic engagement rates range from 3% to 9% based on their following!
Nevertheless a study by TrackMaven stated that Instagram generates the most average interactions per post per 1,000 followers. Stories are the most popular format and they have a lot of attractive benefits & possibilities for brands according to 99firms:
3. Influencers’ first choice
78% of influencers prefer Instagram. Only a measly 2% said Facebook was their favorite platform! Since Instagram is the place to be for influencers, they are experienced in creating content for the platform and are most likely to have a strong following there.
That makes Instagram the logical first choice for running your influencer marketing campaign.
Instagram Influencer Marketing yields $6.50 return on investment for every dollar spent. Successful influencers hold a lot of influence over their followers (it’s in the name!), so when they recommend a product, their fans are likely to order it and try it out for themselves.
4. Authentic content
It’s hard to do influencer marketing without coming across the term “authenticity” – and with good reason. The average Instagram user is looking for a connection with real people whose lives look like their own—not celebrities and models where everything is perfect all the time.
Recently, we have seen increased demand for authentic content – that means #nofilter, no staged script, behind-the-scenes insights and real talk.
5. Micro-influencers
Brands are slowly starting to realize the power of nano- or micro-influencers who are more relatable and have a strong connection with a small audience. While they might only have a few thousand followers, their audience tends to be highly engaged and has a higher level of trust in the influencer, which brands can tap into to promote their products.
6. Reels and stories
Users love video. An influencer showing your product in a story or reel and talking about how they use it in their day-to-day life is more tangible and authentic than a staged product shooting.
That’s why stories and reels are a great opportunity for brands to increase their visibility.
Diving into Instagram influencer marketing requires a strategic approach tailored to this visually-driven platform. It's not just about choosing influencers; it's about aligning them with your brand's goals and values, understanding the financial implications, and crafting content that speaks to your audience. Here's a step-by-step guide to set you on the path to success.
Getting started with Instagram Influencer Marketing
Here are the steps you need to take to set your brand up for success with influencer marketing on Instagram.
Define clear goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Start by asking, "What do I want to achieve?" This could range from increasing brand awareness and enhancing brand image to driving sales or growing your follower base. Each goal requires a different approach and influencer type.
Then, based on your objectives, establish measurable KPIs. For brand awareness, focus on reach, impressions, and engagement rates. For sales, track conversion rates, click-through rates, and ROI. Remember, the more specific your goals, the easier it will be to measure success.
Establish a realistic budget
Influencer fees can vary widely. Your budget dictates not just who you can collaborate with but also the scale and scope of your campaign. It should account for influencer fees, content production costs, and any additional expenses such as giveaways or special promotions.
Let’s break down the costs you should be thinking about to make the most of your investment.
Influencer fees vary based on various factors, including how many followers they have, how engaged these followers are, their niche, and the content type. Typically, smaller influencers with engaged audiences might charge less, but they can be very effective.
Here is what you can expect Instagram influencer marketing to cost you:
- Micro-Influencers (1,000 - 100,000 followers): Expect to pay these influencers a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars per post. They might have fewer followers, but their audience engagement can be high.
- Macro-Influencers (100,000 - 1 million followers): These influencers usually charge more, often thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars per post due to their broader reach.
- Mega Influencers and celebrities (1 million+ followers): For these high-profile influencers, the fees can be substantial, often exceeding tens of thousands per post.
If you are on a tight budget, it might be an option to run an influencer seeding campaign. Influencer seeding or gifting involves offering free products, hopefully in return for visibility. If the Instagram influencer likes your product, maybe they’ll share you for free in their story or make a review about your brand.
For more details about how much influencer collaborations cost, check out our deep-dive article: “How much does influencer marketing really cost?”
Choosing the type of Instagram campaign and content
One key decision is the kind of Instagram campaign you want to run, and the content you need. This choice should align with the goals you've set earlier. There are various campaign types to consider:
Sponsored posts: This is where influencers create and share content promoting your brand on their Instagram profiles. These posts need to be tagged as sponsored to meet advertising guidelines.
Influencer Generated Content (IGC): In this setup, you post content on your brand's Instagram account featuring influencers. This can be a great way to directly engage your audience while leveraging the influencer's credibility.
Product reviews: Influencers can review your products on their channels. The key here is authenticity – allowing influencers to give their honest opinions can boost credibility with their audience.
Giveaways and contests: You can provide products to influencers for contests or giveaways. This can be an effective way to engage both the influencer’s and your audience, and increase brand visibility.
As for the types of content formats, Instagram offers several options:
Standard posts: Single images with captions. These are the bread and butter of Instagram content.
Carousel posts: These allow multiple images or videos in a single post, giving influencers a way to create more dynamic and engaging content.
Instagram Stories: These are temporary 24-hour posts that are perfect for more candid, behind-the-scenes content, or time-sensitive promotions.
Reels: This includes long and short-form videos, which are particularly good for dynamic, engaging storytelling.
Each of these formats offers unique advantages and can be mixed and matched to suit your campaign goals.
Find Instagram Influencers
Before running a campaign, you need to find the right influencers for your brand. There are many ways to find influencers, including:
- Storyclash AI Influencer search
- Storyclash Influencer Discovery
- Social media research
- Competitor analysis
- Your network
A good way to find Instagram influencers for free is with storyclash.ai. Just describe what kind of Instagram influencer you are looking for, and hit “Do Magic.”
You’ll find a bunch of suggestions that fit what you’re looking for:
To apply filters and contact influencers directly, try using the full Influencer Discovery suite from Storyclash.
Influencer Briefing and Contract Signing
Before you jump into the collaboration, there are a couple of boring yet important administrative steps.
First, before working with an Instagram influencer you need an influencer contract.
An influencer contract is a legally binding document that covers all aspects of the collaboration, including payment terms, content ownership, deliverables, deadlines, and any legal requirements. This can help ensure that all necessary details are covered so there are no surprises later. Use our handy free influencer contract template to speed up the process.
You’ll also need a clear and detailed influencer marketing brief that outlines your campaign goals, target audience, content expectations, and any specific requirements or guidelines. This ensures that both you and the influencer are on the same page regarding what's expected.
Track, measure, and optimize your Instagram influencer campaign
It’s important to monitor the performance of your campaign against your KPIs. Track metrics such as reach, likes, shares, website traffic, and conversions. Storyclash makes it easy to track Instagram stories (up to one year later) and create reports on your Instagram campaigns.
Then, you can use the data gathered to refine your strategy. Identify which collaborations and messaging resonate with your target audience and help you achieve your goals, and adjust your approach accordingly.
Continuous learning and adaptation are key to long-term success in influencer marketing.
To learn more about how to run powerful Influencer marketing campaigns, check out our complete guide to influencer marketing strategy guide and grab the free checklist.
Now learn how your favorite DTC & Lifestyle brands are doing influencer marketing. We have 3 examples prepared for you to learn from the best.
Note: these examples are from our own customers, feel free to read more about them here:
3 Examples of amazing Instagram Influencer Marketing
At Storyclash, we have a front-row seat to the brands rocking influencer marketing. Let’s take a look at some leading brands and the secrets to their success.
Gina Tricot
The goal of Gina Tricot's influencer marketing is to increase brand awareness as well as drive traffic and sales. Their mission is to grow a network of influencers and strengthen relationships by reaching out to new influencers every day.
The important thing is to always identify new opportunities to bring customers closer to the brand.
Here is how Gina Tricot works their influencer marketing:
1. Tracking, analyzing and reporting of influencer content
Gina Tricot checks all stories from their influencers and compares the stories’ estimated reach to previous campaigns to evaluate the success.
Below you can see how they organize an overview of an influencer campaign which contains all posts & stories of a certain time period of their brand ambassadors.
2. Searching for influencer content to use on their brand channel
Re-posts of influencer content play an important role in collaborations. To integrate influencer content, Gina Tricot is searching for suitable content to potentially use for their own channels.
They download their influencers' post and stories and promote them on their social media accounts. In this way Gina Tricot makes use of the influencers' aesthetics by using very little effort.
Key Takeaways:
- Re-use influencer content
- Automate tracking to save time & increase quality of reports
everdrop
The sustainable startup everdrop collaborates with lots of influencers to raise brand awareness for their innovative and environmentally-friendly cleaning products. The brand specifically seeks out influencers who are genuinely enthusiastic about their products.
Here is how everdrop works their influencer marketing:
1. Tracking of brand mentions by searching for the keyword ‘everdrop’
The everdrop influencer marketing team is checking in on the influencers, brands, and media who are talking about them.
2. Checking of swipe up links in influencer stories
Through discount codes they make sure to track the amount of sales they make through individual influencers. They give every influencer a certain link to post in their stories and check the amount of swipe up links in their stories to see if there are influencers who don’t use them.
3. Evaluating campaigns by comparing reach, media value, mentions and interactions
By setting for main KPIs that everdrop can compare internally to other campaigns they evaluate the success and can optimize future campaigns. With a comprehensive report they share all the data of the campaign: content, brand mentions, reach, media value and number of interactions.
4. Discovering influencers by searching for relevant keywords
Everdrop discovers new brand ambassadors by filtering all influencer accounts for keywords that are important to them, f. ex. ‘nachhaltig’, ‘sustainability’, ‘reinige’ or ‘putze’.
5. Reports on all influencer content
A big part of an influencer campaign is the monitoring during and the reporting after the campaign. Results are always shared with the team to keep everybody updated and on board on the latest influencer marketing successes.
Key Takeaways:
- Set for relevant KPIs and compare them to your previous campaigns
- Find out who is talking about the brand and not yet a brand ambassador
- Share campaign results in comprehensive reports for your team members to easily understand
Yepoda
Yepoda managed to achieve incredibly high growth with an influencer-first marketing approach. They partner exclusively with influencers who are a perfect fit for the brand.
This allows the brand to get optimal results and the highest ROI.
Here is how Yepoda works their influencer marketing:
1. Analyzing Instagram stories over a longer period of time
A deep analysis of every influencer and their activities on Instagram is very important for Yepoda. The amount of stories within a certain period of time and the number of swipe up links is recorded.
Other helpful metrics are the average interaction rate, fan growth, number of posts and number of fans across all platforms (Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter).
2. Discovering influencers by comparing KPIs and content
Yepoda discovers influencers by checking their social media activities and KPIs.
3. Staying up to date with current trends in the industry
An important task besides gathering information about influencers is to stay updated on what is happening in the industry and in influencer marketing.
Key Takeaways:
- Analyze content over longer period of time
- Check influencer posts & stories to gather information about influencer activities
- Content based search as source of inspiration
What do brands that are exceptional in Influencer Marketing have in common?
Of course, you can run influencer marketing campaigns without the help of a specific platform. However, if you are serious about leveraging influencer marketing to drive real business results, a professional tool like Storyclash will help you get better results.
Gina Tricot, everdrop and Yepoda trust Storyclash.
Here’s why.
● Scan the influencers’ content
Finding the right influencers is key to your overall influencer marketing success. Select influencers based on the content they share and don’t just look where they are based or how many followers they have.
A clear strategy set in place will help you understand your consumers in the end.
● Monitor Instagram stories
Let’s say you’re promoting your cosmetic brand’s new lipstick. You might want to check which influencers tagged your brand in their makeup tutorials, and make sure they are not also showing competitor products.
Instagram stories are a highly used format for influencer collaborations, so don’t forget to regularly check on them.
● Keep track of all your influencer marketing campaigns
Many brands start off with manual reporting. But with the explosive growth of influencer marketing, collecting the data and recording the results manually is a lot of work and likely to lead to error.
Without comprehensive reporting, you can’t evaluate the success of your campaigns and have no insights to guide your future strategy. Improve your sales, ROI and partnerships along the way.
Do’s and Don’ts of Influencer Campaigns
Here are some things to bear in mind to ensure your Instagram influencer marketing campaigns are successful.
Do …
- Be selective and only work with influencers who are a great fit for your brand
- Content comes first! Check the influencer's posts & stories to see if it's authentic, don't rely too much on numbers
- Collaborate with influencers who genuinely love your products
- Ensure sponsored posts are labeled correctly
- Share the influencer’s content and use it for your other channels
- Be authentic and let your influencer share relatable content
Don’t …
- Get carried away by the number of followers
- Give overly strict briefings
- Forget to track and measure the results
Ready to get started?
Check out our helpful blog articles like this one on finding the right influencers, our list of the 36+ best influencer marketing platforms or talk to an influencer marketing expert from Storyclash.