How to Achieve Marketing Amplification with One Influencer

You’ve heard of marketing amplification, but have you experienced it firsthand? Have you seen how it works? Can you replicate its success? Not without influencers or powerful brand ambassadors, if your organization is like most. Honestly, even some of the biggest corporations have yet to establish effective methods for engaging, growing or empowering their audiences alone. Let me explain. 

More than 90% of all consumers consider peer reviews and user feedback to be the most credible source of potential purchase information. Nearly nine in 10 Gen Zers and millennials — the largest and fastest-growing segment of our population — learn about products of interest first on social media. And, believe it or not, almost half of all teens trust influencers more than their friends! Indeed, this says a lot about the state of our society in the metaverse era; it also clarifies how we should be marketing ourselves today and into the future.

It’s time to face the facts: no matter how authentic, transparent, consistent, empathic or personalized you make your digital marketing, consumers will continue to trust third parties more when it comes to whether they should buy (and promote) your products or services.

So, what’s the solution? There are two primary methods for developing external channels for (free) branding and marketing amplification:

• Influencer marketing, which leverages endorsements, reviews and product/service mentions from celebrities, trendsetters and social media stars as social proof to increase sales, brand awareness and online engagement. Companies that rely on influencers believe they can piggyback on the trust built by the influencer to build trust for themselves. Smart companies do their research and reach out only to those influencers with influence in their organization’s industry or niche. Some send influencers free products; others pay influencers to promote their brand.
• Customer lifecycle marketing, which leverages seamless collaboration among the marketing, sales and CX teams to deliver personalized, interactive experiences throughout the customer lifecycle, facilitating the development of long-term customer relationships toward a maximized customer lifetime value. The more often and more deeply a consumer engages with the brand across their varied platforms and devices, the more likely they are to convert from a lead to a customer and then from a customer to a brand ambassador. (Note: a less often recognized but sometimes equally effective strategy is leveraging employee engagement to facilitate brand ambassadorship from within.) 

If you’re not ready to put your brand messaging and product videos in the hands of others (even though there are influencer marketing platforms that streamline influencer management), my advice is to focus on your own content marketing and social media channels. But, first, invest in a customer data platform so you know who to talk to, and when, where and how; this will become an increasingly more urgent need as the third-party cookies crumble.

If you simply need to see influencer-based content amplification in real life, here’s a story of how a single verified account on Twitter drastically improved the performance of one of my recent articles for Customer Engagement Insider, a new digital marketing, customer experience and employee experience portal from Customer Management Practice (CMP).

How I Improved My Content Marketing Performance with Social Media and Influencer Marketing

The other day I was listening to NBA Radio on SiriusXM and heard a passing mention of what I expected to be a controversial league decision: to implement a no cursing “decorum” policy. Immediately, I thought of the 2005 dress code policy that left players and fans charging racism — and how that decision impacted the NBA’s branding and revenue. 

As soon as I parked the car, I picked up my mobile phone and googled “NBA no cursing policy.” I found almost nothing, except a Sports Illustrated article by famed sportswriter Howard Beck. As a guest on NBA Radio, he’d said that he enjoyed writing the piece because the editors allowed him to curse; I wondered, did Beck miss the irony in his ability to curse while predominantly Black players were being told they couldn’t? 

Of course, I reached out to Howard Beck. I had my questions ready, but I didn’t get a response. This happens. And he wasn’t nearly the only person I contacted. I also reached out to current and former players, as well as other sportswriters, with whom I’d previously spoken or who have a reputation for understanding the complexities of the intersections between sports and race. 

As a content creator for a publisher of digital marketing, customer experience and employee experience research and commentary, I knew I wasn’t going to be a popular first choice for most to share their first thoughts on the new NBA policy, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try — or use all the tactics I’d learned through past experiences. I was, after all, one of the first people online to broach the topic, and the only person attacking it from a business impact perspective. Frank Isola, who wrote about basketball for New York Daily News for more than two decades and now hosts SiriusXM’s morning show on NBA Radio, told me he hadn’t even heard about it as of May 18, 2022.

So, I used a combination of Twitter and LinkedIn tags and DMs (direct messages are better, obviously, because they’re private). I chose these platforms for four reasons: 

1. LinkedIn is the platform for professionals and B2B networking, and with LinkedIn Premium you can send a private message to anybody
2. After only Instagram, Twitter is the second-most popular social media platform for NBA fans
3. Including the account I run for my nom de plume, I have the largest and most engaged networks on Twitter and LinkedIn
4. I have had more previous success messaging with new sources and collaborators on Twitter and LinkedIn than any other social media platform

Needless to say, if you’ve had more success elsewhere, stick with what’s worked. Here’s a sample message that can work with Twitter, LinkedIn or just about any other social media site:

Hi, [Name]. I’m writing an article on the NBA dress code, the new cursing policy, and racism. Is there any chance you might be interested in providing me with a public comment?

When I received an affirmative response, I sent the following:

Thank you! I think this is a really important socio-political topic, particularly given the current state of our post-George Floyd society. For me, though, this isn’t *only* a sociological question — I write for Customer Engagement Insider, a digital marketing, customer experience and employee experience publication, and I want to consider how the new policy will impact the leaguer’s brand reputation and, ultimately, sales and revenue. In your opinion, does the new so-called decorum policy for the organization’s most important employees, *the players*, smell to you like the tone policing of Black women in the workplace? Does it remind you of the racist dress code of 2005? Will NBA fans support the policy or join players in condemning it?

And then I waited. And waited. And, not atypically, the majority of my contacts didn’t send responses, even after replying to my initial query; this is the reason it’s best to cast a wide net. 

• No one is monitoring or requesting reporting on the percentage of your contacts that replies to your requests for quotes
• All you need is one quote to drastically improve the quality of your article (or other content)
• All you need is one influencer with a large and/or engaged following to significantly amplify the reach of your social media marketing of that article (or other content)

Fortunately, I did get what I needed, and it helped. I asked Chuck Modiano, who writes about race and sports for Deadspin, for his take on the NBA’s ‘decorum’ policy. His response echoed my sentiments, supporting my thesis with his credibility in the field. 

If you’ve read the article, you know that Modiano’s take supplements my narrative unlike any of the third-party quotes I gathered online. And his influence extended well beyond this contribution. 

Social Media Amplification

As nice as it is to get your own quotes for your article, and as much as those quotes improve the depth and breadth of your reporting, the most important reason to include an influencer within your content is the ability to leverage them for the social media marketing of that content. As we know from our conversations about content marketing, its primary purpose is bringing new users to your website; your website’s job, then, is to convert those users to leads through UX design.

Chuck Modiano has a verified Twitter account with nearly 60,000 followers. On my unverified marketing-dedicated Twitter account (which I only started using in earnest in January, when I joined CEI), I have only a few hundred followers. But when I tweeted about the article on May 20, 2022, it was seen nearly 22,000 times!

How is that possible? Easy. Content amplification, through social media. Here’s how it works (and worked for me, and could work for you):

1. Tweet about the article, using one or two marketing-related hashtags
2. Tag as many influencers as appropriate, in hopes they will share your post or, preferably, create their own post sharing the link and your brand name — in the text of my post, I was able to tag not only Modiano but also his employer and a second, legendary influencer with whom I spoke but from whom I didn’t receive a public quote; by posting a photo from the article in addition to the article link, instead of embedding the article link in the post, I was able to tag an additional 10 influencers who were mentioned in the article
3. The influencer(s) share your post or create their own promoting your content — Modiano quote-tweeted my original, calling it a “great article,” and replied with a screenshot of his quote, which he then also retweeted for his audience
4. Other accounts, including other influencers (like UFC fighter and ‘movement’ lawyer Mike Jackson), see your original influencer’s post and either share or create their own, exponentially amplifying your reach and engagement

For context — and I hate to admit this — my previous tweet had 12 impressions (my other, secret account is verified and gets a lot more, I promise!). That’s a difference of 1,812 times! 

Of course, Twitter engagement only gets you so far. Out of vanity, we pin our best tweets to the top of our profiles, but what’s most important is whether our social media marketing translates into website page views. 

Which leads us to the final step: measurement and reporting.

Measuring the Effects of Marketing Amplification

Now that we’ve demonstrated the success of the social media marketing of our content, it’s time to determine if it impacted the performance of the content itself; if not, we can celebrate some additional brand awareness, but we can’t be fully satisfied with our content marketing or social media marketing strategies. 

To find out, I logged into Google Analytics. (Obviously, your site must already be connected.) Here are the steps to take:

1. Search for “most popular pages”

2. Update the date range, if necessary

I changed my analysis period to January 1, 2022, through yesterday, since I joined CEI in January and want to see the effect of my content creation.

3. Scroll down to find the article

4. Compare the article performance to other articles

Use the following digital marketing KPIs to begin to determine the success of your article:

• Views
• Average time on page
• Bounce rate

Admittedly, I would’ve loved to have seen the NBA article at the top of the list of most popular pages; on the other hand, I already knew what to expect — the homepage and site pillar pages are usually and understandably the most commonly viewed. But what’s on CEI’s most popular pages list is atypically informative for future content marketing strategy. Why? After the homepage, the second and third most popular pages on customerengagementinsider.com are an event and a white paper! This means our digital marketing team needs to prioritize events and white papers, certainly over twice- or thrice-weekly ungated articles (if we haven’t already, of course).

When I compared the NBA article to the only article that has outperformed it, I found the following:

• 16 fewer people have viewed the NBA article
• The people who have viewed the NBA article have remained on the page for an extra minute and 15 seconds
• 5% more viewers of the NBA article stayed on the site and clicked around after reading

Considering the NBA article pulled in hundreds of views in a couple days and ‘the other’ article is four months old, the 16-view difference is meaningless — and the NBA article is sure to surpass the other as it, hopefully, continues to climb up the most popular pages list.

The other interesting, unexpected insight gleaned from this analysis is that ‘the other’ article, the most popular article to date, is about the very same subject we’re discussing here: the power of online influencers. 

This analysis, then, confirms: 

• When leveraging influencers, our social media success does in fact translate into new site users and potential leads
• There remains a high level of interest in influencer marketing
• There is a likelihood that this article you’re now reading will also be successful, as it covers influencer marketing and includes additional mentions of multiple influencers

Now What: 10 Steps to Implementing a Masterful Influencer Marketing Strategy

Now that we have real-life proof of the power of influencer marketing, it’s time for you to incorporate it into your content marketing and overall digital marketing strategies. 

To get started, review: 

• The top influencer marketing trends of 2022 and beyond
• The keys to crushing your competition with killer content marketing

Then, determine:

1. The goals of your influencer marketing strategy
2. The ways you’ll use your brand story, core values and value proposition in your influencer marketing
3. The ways you’ll use your products and/or services in your influencer marketing (e.g., will you use subtle product placements or ask influencers to unbox and review your products)
4. The audiences you’ll target through influencers on social media
5. The platforms you’ll prioritize, based on the platforms your target audiences use most
6. The cadence at which your influencers and you will release new influencer-created content
7. The pieces of existing content that could potentially be repurposed by influencers
8. The methods by which you’ll collaborate with influencers to develop custom content
9. The influencer marketing platform, if any, you’ll use to manage your influencer relationships
10. The ways you’ll measure success, against your pre-established goals and key digital marketing KPIs

Image Credits (in order of appearance)

1. Photo by August Phlieger on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/CREqtqgBFcU
2. Photo by Steve Gale on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/e7jq0NH9Fbg
3. Photo by Akshar Dave🌻 on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/mkTqZN1NzhY
4. Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/kB5DnieBLtM