The Ultimate Facebook Influencer Marketing Guide in 2024

After short-form video content, influencer marketing offers the highest ROI. In 2023, a growth of 17% is expected as marketers intend to invest in the partnership trend for the first time. And Facebook, still the most popular social media platform in the world, shows no signs of slowing, with an impressive 2.963 billion monthly active users in Jan 2023.

Therefore, it makes perfect sense to combine one of the top marketing trends with a leading social media platform. The right influencer with an established Facebook following could be pretty effective in helping your brand to thrive in 2023.

At Collabstr, we know how important it is to develop a solid influencer marketing strategy. That's why our ultimate guide goes through everything you need to know to get your Facebook influencer strategy on point. It details how to hone in on your target audience using an audience persona and other valuable points to consider when choosing an influencer.

What is Facebook Influencer Marketing?

Facebook influencer marketing is when businesses collaborate with Facebook influencers to promote their offerings using mentions, endorsements, reviews, and other relevant types of content. This type of affiliate marketing works well since influencers have built a reputation as gurus in a particular niche, and their audience trusts their recommendations as credible.

They'll have a significant following on Facebook and act as the middle person between the brand and the audience to create community hype and engagement, enhancing brand recognition and generating interest, leading to increased sales.

But wait? Don’t Paid Ads have the same purpose? 

Ultimately, influencer marketing and paid ads both drive brand awareness and increase ROI, so what's the difference and which one is better?

Let’s take a look. 

Facebook Marketing Influencers vs. Paid Ads

Here are some prominent reasons businesses prefer working with influencers instead of using paid ads.

Targeted audience base 

One of the main benefits of hiring a Facebook influencer is that their knowledge of your brand domain will make it easier to reach the audiences most interested in your offerings. Working with influencers offers high social proof, so you're more likely to receive high-quality leads.

However, finding the right influencer to spread the word is key. And this is where influencer marketplace Collabstr can assist you in hiring a professional, engaging, and relatable influencer in no time.

On the other hand, while paid ads target specific audiences, there is a high chance they will be ignored since 96% of consumers don't trust them. Some people see paid ads as spam; they find them annoying and disruptive, therefore, are less likely to trust them. Not to mention things like ad blockers prevent paid ads from being seen in the first place.

Content creation is simpler

Working with an influencer means you don't have to worry about creating content from scratch; you just provide them with the campaign goals and expectations. The influencer then weaves your brand message into their customized content for an authentic and skillful delivery.

By comparison, paid ads provide you with the advantage of easily targeting the right audience demographics, but since it’s just another tool, it doesn’t go any further than that. At the end of the day, providing the content for a paid ad campaign will fall on the business, and that takes a lot of time and requires end-to-end management, from research to delivery.

Influencers create user-centric content to resonate with their followers, using

relatable real-life experiences and pain points. According to research, 60% of global consumers said they would follow a product, service, or brand promoted by a creator sharing the same values and interests as them.

Higher audience engagement

In comparison to other marketing strategies, influencer marketing has a higher engagement rate. For example, Nano influencers with up to 10K followers can deliver an average influencer engagement rate of 4%.

One of the reasons engagement is better is that influencers typically have an established audience, and regularly interact with their followers to maintain closeness. The relationship between influencers and followers makes it easier to get a reaction from their recommendations or suggestions or to perform an action when asked.

With paid ads, the brand message is not customizable for each impression received. And on top of that, the customer cannot engage with the brand since communication is one-way.

Why is Facebook Influencer Marketing Important?

Renewed content strategy

Many influencers make a living out of creating engaging content for their audience and are pretty good at it. Working with them can help give your content strategy a different perspective and breathe new life into the promotional content you typically post.

In addition, collaborating with influencers offers access to user-generated content for more credible social proof. By sharing this content, you can change how your brand is perceived on social media.

Improved search engine rankings

By integrating Facebook influencer marketing into your overall marketing strategy, influencers can improve other areas of your online presence. For example, this method can potentially boost your website's search engine rankings.

More brand awareness will drive more traffic to your website. Consequently, as the content is shared, you can receive many authentic and high-quality backlinks.

Cost-effective

Many influencer skills include advanced production, so brands can save money on hiring professional models, photographers, scenery, etc. Influencers usually include all costs in their fees, which are significantly cheaper than traditional production.

Moreover, Facebook influencers charge less per view, engagement, or impression than typically paid on other Social Media platforms. Cheaper fees will suit startups and small businesses on tighter marketing budgets.

Facebook Influencer Marketing Examples

H&M

H&M collaborated with fashion designer and founder of the WeWoreWhat brand Danielle Bernstein. They worked together on an H&M-conscious clothing collection, and Danielle shared posts on Facebook about it.

Airbnb

Online rented accommodation for travelers platform Airbnb benefits from collaborating with travel bloggers. They get to showcase properties on Facebook as influencers share photos and videos of their stay at an Airbnb property. The reviews and recommendations they provide to followers help increase bookings and awareness.

Coca-Cola

Back in 2016, the popular soft drink Coca-Cola collaborated with superstar Selena Gomez in a shared campaign that promoted the product and her upcoming tour. This was an especially smart campaign because it not only motivated them to buy the product but also to increase their social media following on both Facebook and Snapchat. The level of engagement on their Facebook post almost speaks for itself in showing how successful the campaign was.

Ultimate Guide to Facebook Influencer Marketing with Collabstr

Define your goals

A successful marketing campaign begins with defining the goals and KPIs. And the frontrunner goal for most brands using influencer marketing is to reach more target customers.

In considering what you want to achieve for this particular campaign, some goal examples include:

• Increase brand awareness: get your brand in front of more eyes.

• Increase brand engagement: keep your audience engaged.

• Establish brand authority: earn trust among customers and get them to view you as an industry expert.

• To drive sales and increase revenue.

Examples of KPIs include: 

• 10 000 new followers; 

• Increase monthly revenue by 1,5%; 

• Motivate customers to create more user-generated content;

• And more. 

Why do goals matter to influencer marketing success?

When you set goals, it helps to define your objectives and provide guidance and direction so that success is measured effectively.

To see why setting a goal at the beginning is so important, especially with a small budget, let's look at the influencer marketing involved in the LED Teeth-whitening kit, Australian brand HiSmile.

They grew their $20,000 investment into a $40 million per year company with a strategic brand awareness strategy.

How HiSmile kicked off their brand awareness

Childhood friends Nik and Alex spent their initial $20,000 investment on inventory and the products they sent to influencers in relevant niches. With just a tiny sum of money to invest in marketing, they attribute their success to a strategic influencer marketing strategy.

They initially focused on advertising only in Australia and targeted the Gold Coast and surrounding suburbs. They saturated local Instagram feeds with their product by following the key to successful influencer marketing, repeat exposure.

HiSmile’s road to a 40 million turnover

The key to their success was the type of influencers they used. Their budget afforded micro-influencers (10,000 – 100,000k followers). Therefore, they focused on the micro-influencers they believed had an impact on the area. This worked out perfectly as they experienced increased sales and brand awareness on the Gold Coast.

With more money, they could send their products to micro-influencers outside of the Gold Coast. They leveraged the content created by their influencers to boost brand awareness reach by reposting it on other social media channels.

Their brand awareness grew across Australia and other places around the world. They were able to level up their influencer strategy even more by adding celebrity influencers, including Kylie and Kendall Jenner, and Connor McGregor.

Three years after the initial $20,000 investment, HiSmile made $40 million a year. Today Nik and Alex are worth approximately $125 million each.

Define your audience

You must be specific about your audience to be as effective as possible. Who are the people you're hoping to influence? Are you trying to reach more of your current audience or a completely new one?

Consider developing a buyer persona to be clear about this. A buyer persona, also called a customer, marketing, or audience persona, is information about a fictional person. Their detailed description is based on research on your current or anticipated audience.

Audience personas are used to remain focused on addressing your customer's priorities and can be used when making decisions about your overall marketing strategy.

How to create a buyer persona

Here are some buyer persona guidelines to consider when developing one to fit your brand.

1. Carry out deep research

Consider concepts such as who your existing customers are and who your competitors are targeting when defining your buyer persona. Gather audience data from analytic tools such as Google Analytics and Facebook Audience Insights to narrow down details such as:

• Age;

• Location;

• Interests;

• Hobbies;

• Other social media platforms used.

2. Identify their pain points and goals

Depending on your offerings, your audience goals may be personal or professional. Consider their motivations and endgame.

What issues are they trying to solve? And what prevents them from doing so? This type of information and more can be found by carrying out a spot of social listening. This involves monitoring the social media platforms where your customers will most likely hang out and listen for keywords, topics, or anything related to your brand.

3. Understand how you can help

Once you understand your ideal customer's goals and pain points, consider how your products or services can help them. Focus on the benefits and how it helps make your customer's life easier instead of features — what it does.

Also, consider where they are in their buying journey. For example, a customer who doesn't know your offerings exist will need more details than someone narrowing down their options.

4. Develop your buyer persona

Look for common characteristics in your research. Group them together to form the basis of your buyer persona. Bring your personality to life by giving them a name, job title, accommodation, and other defining qualities.

For example, if you identify your core buyer groups as in their early 30s, successful and driven IT professionals with a passion for looking good. Your persona may look like this:

• High-achiever Harrison

• 33 years old

• He goes to the gym and spa three times a week

• He lives in an apartment in Manhattan

• Owns a Mercedes-Benz SL-Class

• He runs a men-only podcast series for all things Men

Research Influencers

As Nik and Alex discovered, the correct type of influencer you use is fundamental to your campaign. Influencers who are authentic, relevant, engaging, and complementary to your brand values will significantly contribute to achieving your goals.

With your goals in mind, consider the following factors when finding the best Facebook influencer to represent you:

• Audience relevance. Their audience should be relevant to your brand. Look through their Facebook profiles, and consider whether you can imagine your offerings being advertised there.

• Authenticity. Authentic influencers are more likely to have a loyal following. You can gauge this by looking at the type of comments on their posts.

• Aligned values. Check that their values match up with yours. For instance, the partnership won't work if you need vegan products promoted and the influencer is a meat eater. You can use their bio and content to understand their values, likes, dislikes, etc.

• High-quality content. Since your influencer will have creative freedom over the content they create for your brand, check whether their quality fits your brand image. Look through some of their posts and look for things like creativity, consistency, and delivery to decide whether you're satisfied with their work.

• Frequency. Check how often they publish regular and sponsored content. It should be balanced well; three or more sponsored posts in a row may reduce credibility. Read through the comments on the sponsored posts.

• Reliability. Slow communication can be a sign of how reliable the influencer is. If they take an unreasonable amount of time to respond to your messages, like a week, it could be a sign that they'll uphold progress.

 

Researching influencers may sound daunting, but it doesn't have to be. Collabstr has hand-picked some of the best social media influencers around to help get your Facebook influencer campaign off to a great start.

 

Establish a partnership by reaching out personally

Once you think you've found your influencer, you could begin communication by interacting naturally with their posts. Comment and like their content where appropriate.

And when you're ready to suggest a collaboration, a DM is probably the best place to start. If you don't have an email address, message them on Facebook Messenger. Or, if your influencer is based on Collabstr, you can use the Instant Chat feature.

Rather than sending a generic message, take some time to make it personal. This will show you're serious and professional and improve your chances of moving forward. Offer the details of your brand and what you hope to achieve in your Facebook campaign. Also, highlight how they'll benefit other than getting paid.

Develop or buy content from Collabstr

Collabstr is the place to find vetted influencers for free and to buy authentic, high-quality social media content, including posts, videos, stories, shout-outs, and more that resonate with your target audience.

Once you've found the right influencer, you can instantly contact them via chat to get the ball rolling and receive your content. There are no upfront or hidden costs, and Collabstr keeps your money safe until you've approved the influencer's work.

 

 

Track and measure results

Once you've launched your influencer marketing campaign, you'll need to track and measure the results to understand its performance. Facebook Insights will track things like reach, engagement rates, and conversions. Keep an eye on this data to know what areas of the campaign work and what needs improving.

In addition, you may be tempted to focus on comments, shares, and likes. And if the influencer you're working with has a larger following than you, the numbers they can rack up may blow you away. Measuring the effectiveness of your campaigns takes understanding the return on investment (ROI) value.

Depending on your goals and objectives, there are several ways to find this. Here's an example of a basic ROI formula:

Marketing ROI = (Total revenue – marketing investment)/marketing investment

An ROI above 0 (positive) means your investment has generated money; a negative ROI means you have invested more than you earned. Alternatively, you can use a free ROI calculator to be more specific.

Stay compliant

Lastly, consider the risks that come with influencer marketing. Avoid any potential trouble by following Facebook's influencer marketing guidelines and policies.

Here are some legal bits to keep in mind:

• Disclosure. Your influencer must let the audience know that your brand sponsors the content.

• Transparency and honesty. Reviews, endorsements, and testimonials should be accurate. Your influencer's opinions should not be misleading or misrepresent their experience of your offering.

• Consider rules for giveaways. Check out the laws that govern giveaways in your state and what Facebook suggests to keep compliant when promoting giveaways.

• Use a contract. You'll be held legally responsible for the content your influencer posts. So consider drawing up an agreement to set all compliance expectations and obligations for all parties involved.

Use Collabstr to Discover Top-Notch Facebook Influencers

When brands need to drive awareness and increase revenue, an influencer partnership is the most effective, cost-effective, and time-saving method. Facebook influencers will find it easy to spread the word about your brand by weaving it into their content once your values align. Influencer marketing is especially suitable for smaller marketing budgets since Nano or Micro-influencers tend to have the most impact.

Collabstr makes it more accessible to find expert content creators. They can connect you to some of the best influencers across several niches and social media platforms. 20,000+ brands already trust Collabstr for unique content. Find and hire your next influencer on Collabstr for free.