Influencer Campaign: An Updated Bell Ringer Category for 2019

“I saw Cady Heron wearing army pants and flip flops, so I bought army pants and flip flops.”

A simple movie quote that defines an entire subsection of the PR industry. How can PR professionals tap into people’s intrinsic desire to follow and emulate those they trust and admire? The answer is Influencer Marketing.

According to a study by Mintel in February 2019, Influencer Marketing posts with disclaimers such as #sponsored, #ad, rose from around 800k posts per month in 2017 to a whopping 4.6M+ posts in November 2018 alone. These posts can be made by influencers with minimal following, reaching their close family and friends, to huge celebrities like Kim Kardashian, reaching millions of people around the world. Every Influencer Marketing program is different, using different influencers with varying levels of reach, tailored to meet specific goals and KPIs like usage, sales, or even just general awareness. It is for this reason that it only makes sense to have two separate Influencer Marketing categories for this year’s Bell Ringer Awards.

One category, detailed in this blog post, focuses on micro-influencer campaigns comprised of influencers with 75,000 or fewer followers across all social channels. The second category, Influencer Campaign, is perfect for any campaign utilizing influencers with more than 75,000 followers across all social channels. Entries for this category are defined as, “programs developed to leverage the reach, influence, and authority of influential third-party sites that are not media companies, such as bloggers, social media influencers, YouTube stars, etc.” Applicable social channels include, but are not limited to, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Snapchat, and blogs (blog following is defined by unique visitors per month).

Entries for this category should showcase your program’s objectives and KPIs, and how your Influencer Marketing campaign helped achieve success. What was your reasoning for working with influencers with more than 75,000 followers? How did their following impact your results? Please also explain the capacity in which you worked with your selected influencers. For example, were they paid, or did you provide product in exchange for a post? It will be these factors, amongst others, that will determine the success of your campaign in the eyes of our Bell Ringer judges.

Best of luck with your submissions. We’re excited to see if we recognize your work from our Instagram feeds!

-Kate Lizotte, Account Executive, 451 Agency