In the world of marketing and advertising in the Philippines, influencers have revolutionized the game! In fact, they've only become more popular and successful in the last decade. Did you know that over 46% of Filipino social media users follow influencers and experts online? That's a massive number! These influencers are regarded as opinion leaders by their community, which means that their opinions have a significant impact on brand promotion and sales.
What's great is that these content creators can be found all over the internet, from YouTube and Facebook to Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. Plus, they cover a range of niches, whether it's beauty and fashion, food and travel, or something else entirely. With so many options to choose from, you're sure to find a Filipino influencer that resonates with your industry and brand values.
Brands love working with influencers, not only because of their massive reach, but also because of their authenticity. Unlike celebrities who might seem unapproachable, influencers have direct interactions with their followers, creating a strong and credible relationship. This makes them trustworthy and reliable partners for brand promotion.
If you're thinking about launching an influencer marketing campaign in the Philippines, there are a few tips you'll want to keep in mind.
The Best Tips for Influencer Marketing in the Philippines are ⬇️
Find the right influencers: Look at factors like audience, values, niche, etc.
Do background research: Check on the influencer’s history, beliefs, and issues
Allow creative freedom: Allow influencers to decide their content for more authenticity
Prioritize engagement: Look at follower interactions instead of follower count
Find a local partner: Work with a local influencer marketing agency
1. Find the right influencers
Look at factors like audience, values, niche, etc.
Creating a killer influencer marketing strategy is no walk in the park. You can't just rely on an influencer's millions of followers alone to increase your sales and conversions. There are other important factors that you need to consider, too.
Before choosing an influencer partner, you’d have to ask yourself the following questions:
Does the influencer’s audience fit my target market?
Does the influencer reflect my brand’s values?
Does the influencer’s creative content fit my goals for this campaign?
Finding the right influencer begins with knowing what to look for and where to look at. It also starts with you, as a brand owner, answering the hard yet impactful questions.
Take a lesson from the video above. Acer collaborated with influencer Alodia Gosiengfiao to promote the new Predator Helios 700. Acer made the right decision of choosing Alodia, since her niche is gaming and tech. Moreover, Alodia’s audience are also gaming enthusiasts who might be interested in purchasing a new and high-end gaming laptop. Acer and Alodia’s values matched. In turn, the video gained more than 230K views and more than 17K engagements.
2. Do background research
Check on the influencer’s history, beliefs, and issues
It's important to choose your influencers wisely, as not all of them are popular for the right reasons. The Philippines is home to a diverse range of people with varying beliefs and opinions, and there are political, historical, and social issues at play that could impact the results of your influencer marketing campaign.
It is important for you to do background research and history checks on your influencer partners. With social media’s fast-paced exchange of information, a small issue may result in inflated negative comments about an influencer. Surely, a brand who works with a content creator with questionable popularity will also be vulnerable to criticism.
The Philippines is not exempt from “cancel culture”, that’s why you have to take pre-emptive measures before choosing an influencer. Make sure to choose someone who has a clean record, and is known to be unproblematic.
An influencer’s image is extended to the brand, whether it is positive or negative. Influencers must be inspected beyond the surface level. This is unachievable through mere Google searching. If you wanna know how to avoid influencers with questionable authorities, read until the last Tip!
3. Allow creative freedom
Allow influencers to decide their content for more authenticity
Influencers have a loyal following for a reason - their original and creative content! It's what sets them apart and contributes to their popularity. So, when you're scouting for influencers for your campaign, make sure to pay attention to their creative flair and style. After all, it's a huge part of their image and influence.
Once you choose the influencer you’d like to work with, it is important to give them enough creative freedom. You can provide minimal and reasonable limitations on the content they will make, but you should not control every detail and aspect of the post. Their followers will know and feel when the words coming out of the influencer’s mouth are disingenuous and scripted.
Content creators attract audiences through their honesty, authenticity, and humanity. Unlike celebrities who memorize scripts for commercials, influencers think of their content on their own, and they try their best to formulate genuine and transparent opinions. To take this away is to take away the reason for their success.
Watch and take a few lessons from the video above. In the YouTube video, Perfect Diary worked with Angel Dei Peralta to promote the Cardcaptor Sakura Set makeup. In the video, Angel was given enough freedom to truly tell her thoughts about the product.
It was a genuine makeup review, which is her forte. Angel Dei is known for giving honest expert opinions on cosmetics. The video gained positive comments from Angel’s loyal followers.
4. Prioritize engagement
Look at follower interactions instead of follower count
There are heaps of benefits from working with influencers who have millions of followers, but the benefits of engagement are often overlooked. Not all marketing successes can be measured by an influencer’s follower count.
Having three million followers will mean nothing if the campaign did not make people buy from your brand. In this sense, engagement is a better factor to look into. Engagement is an influencer’s ability to build a community of people which are advocates of their social media presence, their opinions, and their branding.
The following are benefits from prioritizing engagement:
You can avoid influencers with “fake” or “purchased” followers. Instead, engagement verifies that the influencer’s followers are real people.
With followers who are advocates of the influencer, user-generated content may be created. Thus, your brand will be promoted to an extended community.
Influencers with high engagement rates are proven to bring more conversions in the form of sales.
Prioritizing engagement is the first step to building strong and long-lasting relationships with your target audience.
With the benefits listed above, you must remember that an influencer’s value is not merely based on the number of audience. This is also why nano and micro-influencers are sometimes preferred in Philippine marketing.
5. Find a local partner
Work with a local influencer marketing agency
Last, but definitely not least, you must find a local influencer marketing agency that can help you kickstart your campaign.
Tips 1 to 4 may seem intimidating to implement at first glance. Some information needed for choosing the right influencer may not appear on search engines. In-depth information about a content creator is often collected through years of viewership and awareness of their content. Some issues about content creators may have appeared on community groups or news outlets, but not on Google. This poses a problem for international brands without local connections.
Local marketing agencies have local offices manned by those who have been on Philippine social media for years. These agencies have the connections, network, and insider knowledge not often found on the internet. By partnering with these agencies, half of the hard work is done, and your influencer marketing campaign can seamlessly flow.
Remember, no man is an island! By finding a local partner, you will be three steps closer to your marketing objectives.
Conclusion
Numbers prove that influencer marketing is an effective marketing strategy in the Philippines. Filipino social media users follow content creators online, waiting for their original and creative posts. Some have followed certain influencers for years, making them loyal audiences who trust the influencer. This means an influencer’s opinion will be given weight by their audience, especially if their opinions fit their niche and established expertise.
Since influencers are key opinion leaders, brands all over the world have been seeking their help for marketing campaigns. A single post from these Filipino influencers can sway audience outlook, and can factor into their audience’s purchasing decisions.
Above, we enumerated several tips which can help you develop a more accurate, effective, and adaptive influencer marketing campaign in the Philippines. We hope you can apply these tips on your next project.
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