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After investing time, money, and resources into an influencer marketing campaign, you want to see the best results possible. Influencer-generated content (IGC) can continue to serve your brand beyond the allotted campaign period when it’s repurposed and amplified through additional channels. One of the most effective ways to continue reaching new audiences and driving conversions with influencer content is by reusing it for paid social media advertising using influencer whitelisting. In this blog we’ll explore how influencer whitelisting benefits both brands and creators, offering them the opportunity to grow their online audiences and build strong partnerships.
What is influencer whitelisting?
Influencer whitelisting is a process where brands will run social ads through an influencer’s social profile instead of their brand account. When influencers give permission to their brand partners to run social media ad campaigns using their personal advertising accounts, this is known as ‘whitelisting’. This allows brands to reach strategic new audiences and create better-performing ads than advertising via their brand profile.
What are the benefits of influencer whitelisting for brands?
Reach targeted audiences
Running ads using influencer whitelisting will help you reach highly targeted audiences based on your influencer’s followers. By selecting influencers whose audience shares the same interests, pain points, and demographic as your target customers, you’re essentially identifying high matching lookalike audiences. This strategy will help you to reach a large volume of strategically targeted people who are more likely to convert.
Reusing IGC for ads will therefore help you reach a higher volume of potential customers than through the influencer’s feed posts which were only visible to their followers. With the flexibility to continue building new audiences for social ads, the reach of the original influencer campaign will skyrocket!
Better performing ads means lower costs
Influencers are expert content creators. They are well-known for creating high-quality visuals using their personal style. Repurposing their original campaign content for advertising will help to boost ad performance. Influencer content is more personal and candid than brand-owned content so is likely to be more engaging. What’s more, IGC featuring both the influencer and your product is more authentic than typical corporate-looking ads. IGC will bring a human, and more relatable side to social media ads, making them more appealing and likely to perform better. Advertising algorithms will reward strong-performing ads by showing them to more users on the platform, naturally boosting ad reach without needing to increase your ad spend! In fact, running influencer ads in this way has proven to be 27% cheaper than brand-owned ads thanks to higher impressions and a lower cost-per-click rate.
Content repurposing boosts ROI
Brands can get additional value from the campaign content they have already paid for by reusing it and adapting it for influencer whitelisting campaigns. Repurposing influencer content for social ads collateral will reduce the time your team spends on content creation. It will also save you money spent on photographers, videographers, and freelancers. Instead of prioritizing new content creation which can be costly, you’ll get a higher ROI through content amplification.
Influencers know how to choose engaging content formats that will entice their audiences, so it makes sense to maximize the impact of high-quality content by repurposing it. Using IGC on multiple channels helps you get the most from your initial investment in influencer marketing. Content repurposing generates a higher reach, whilst minimizing resources spent on creation, leading to a higher return on investment overall.
What are the benefits of influencer whitelisting for influencers?
Influencers will grow their audience
Using their social media accounts for paid advertising increases an influencer’s visibility. Amplifying an influencer’s content using their own social media handle helps them to become more well-known on their chosen social media channel. Through paid promotions targeting lookalike audiences, creators reach audiences who are interested in their content niche and likely to start following their account. It is increasingly difficult to grow your online audience organically on many social channels. That’s why influencer whitelisting is a great way for many smaller influencers to increase their online presence and attract more followers.
Influencers can better curate their feed
Influencers share a mix of organic and authentic content via their social media feeds and stories. To generate a sustainable source of income, influencers will partner with several brands to promote their products. This can make for an overcrowded feed that’s quickly saturated with sponsored content, leaving little room for organic content. It’s important for influencers to keep their audiences engaged, and sharing too many sponsored posts could have a negative impact on engagement rates. By distributing content from brand partnerships via paid advertising, influencers will be able to strike a better balance between the branded and organic content shared on their feed. They’re able to create impactful, multichannel brand partnerships whilst curating a feed of valuable and engaging content for their audience.
Next steps
Amplifying influencer content through whitelisting is a top strategy for maximizing the value of your influencer marketing campaigns for a better ROI. What’s more, it’s a cost-effective method for driving lead generation and conversions.
If you’re a brand or an influencer interested in content whitelisting then check out this guide to Influencer Whitelisting on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
