By Ricky Ray Butler

Opinion: It is not about shooting for the biggest and most popular name on Instagram

Influencer marketing has continued to come on in leaps and bounds during 2017, but while more brands are embracing it, a worrying number are viewing it as a checklist item rather than something that should sit at the core of their businesses.

Instead of taking time to build proper relationships with influencers, brands are simply sending free products in exchange for their time. They are simply going through the motions.

This unsophisticated approach is reminiscent of social media a decade ago, with brands branching into social just because rather than having a clear rationale or strategy.

This is why today, we see so many one-off influencer projects: those dinky campaigns run by isolated digital subsets of in-house teams that lack the power or budget to deliver something transformative.

There is a misconception, too, that influencer campaigns are expensive. That is simply a lack of planning. Long-term, multiyear influencer campaigns force brands to be strategic about their social strategies and execute on content that will move their brand stories forward.

Get serious
Part of the problem is how influencers are perceived. “Today’s rock stars,” “The A-List celebs of Gen Z”—these labels might pander to the occasional influencer’s ego, but they also do the majority a disservice because brands treat them less seriously.

Influencers are not rock stars: They’re lead-generation agents that can market products in a super-authentic way for brands. Influencer is a widely adopted term. However, it is worth considering that most influencers think of themselves as creators or YouTubers. They are in tune with their audiences and can create engaging content. They really know their stuff, yet brands are treating them as glamorous celebrities and plotting campaigns based on this mindset, rather than viewing them as a sales channel.

It is not about shooting for the biggest and most popular name on Instagram, but rather, identifying the right group of influencers who are most likely to drive sales.

Go big or go home
Sales operations that are understaffed rarely succeed, however talented the team members. In the influencer space, brands that choose to go down the micro-influencer route often fail to think about scale and reach. They choose the right influencers but select so few of them that they can’t scratch the surface or the potential market opportunity.

Brands don’t realize that there are probably about 5,000 influencers that might fit their brand at any given time. They could get 50 million to 100 million organic views in 30 days if they did their planning right and put in enough money.

One-off projects don’t win prizes
Before deciding how many influencers to tap into, brands must consider what campaigns will actually look like. Unlike projects, you can optimize ongoing activity with long-term campaigns.

The conversations around campaigns should be thought of in the same way as the upfronts, where brands negotiate with the media what they’re going to spend over the entire year.

The goals and key performance indicators across influencer and the rest of the business should also be related. This allows brands to adequately collect relevant data over time so that they can get smarter about what works and what does not.

Ongoing campaigns are also the most effective way to build ongoing relationships with creators and monitor for momentum over time.

But relationships don’t need to last forever
Brand ambassador programs can fail to deliver when there are no meaningful criteria for success. This doesn’t need to be the case with influencer marketing campaigns.

Do not keep investing in an influencer without first measuring how that influencer performs. Build an infrastructure that measures the bottom line and sales in online and/or retail stores.

Remember that return on investment for influencer marketing campaigns is measured by many KPIs and can differ based on a brand’s marketing goals. Work with a variety of influencers, analyze which ones are most effective and keep the ones that work best. Re-evaluate the relationship in a few months and continue adding to the mix; it is important to remember that influencers can become irrelevant in a couple of months.

Your most important media buy
Ultimately, brands need to avoid getting sucked into conversations about guaranteed views and engagement and start looking at influencers in the same way as media buys. Influencers are not a cheap commercial: They need proper research, a compelling creative collaboration, a clear activation strategy and proper measurement to capture tangible results. This is true even of awareness campaigns as they’re still fueling the funnel.

Influencer marketing is not going away anytime soon. The brands that do it right will be the ones that build an infrastructure that supports sales measurement of influencer activity—something that can only benefit everyone in the influencer ecosystem.

ROI is top of mind for brand and agency marketers as they plan ahead for 2018, and word-of-mouth marketing via social influencers is proving successful in engaging consumers and driving revenue.

eMarketer reported a total of more than $570 million in 2016 revenue from Instagram influencer marketing alone. Investments in this space will likely be greater than ever in the new year, and while the demand is high, advertisers aren’t thinking holistically and strategically when implementing influencers into their wider marketing mix.