Social media influencers are no longer a cultural curiosity or a novelty for children. These days, it's become an industry. Many of them have become household names, including Keith Lee, Mr. Beast, and Tabitha Brown. Some of them have become millionaires.
More restaurants are leveraging marketing to reverse foot traffic slumps, and many are turning to influencers to generate excitement and momentum among guests. But creating a successful influencer campaign is not as simple as choosing the personality with the most followers (in fact, these influencers can be too expensive even for the big chains).
NRN Editor-in-Chief Sam Ochess spoke with Kate Finley, founder and CEO of Bell Communications, to understand how restaurants can effectively partner with influencers on TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms. I heard the story.
This interview has been edited for clarity. For the full interview, stream the podcast above.
What are we talking about when we talk about influencer marketing?
We do influencer marketing, but it's more transactional. It's like a one-time, one-time engagement. Control power is greatly reduced. It tends to be less creative and less effective. It's more like you find a bunch of influencers and you push all your content to them and they're all like, “Okay, I'm going to go to this restaurant because you sent me this.” It just doesn't resonate very well.
But on the other hand, relationships with influencers are much more similar to relationships with media. It's very cooperative. It is considered more relatable and authentic. You can be more creative. Often it's a partnership. And it puts more strategy and creativity into being more collaborative. This is an investment of resources, but the ROI is much better.
What is the main role influencers play today in connecting consumers and restaurants?
This is an opportunity to tell consumers who you are and why you exist, especially when you look at Gen Z and Millennials. They are very purpose-driven and eagerly seek out restaurant brands that align with their values. That's why smart restaurant brands are leveraging influencers in a way that not only talks about food, quality, experiences, new products and menus, but also what we stand for and how we live it. I see it happening.
Brands that do well with influencers take into account the types of creators they work with to ensure they actually represent the people they're talking to. If we can do that now, it will really differentiate us.
What are the best practices for restaurants to follow when building influencer campaigns?
I think we are starting to see things like custom menus being created in partnership with influencers. And such collaboration is most effective. So I think it goes further than just offering free food in exchange for content. We've really evolved a lot since then. What if you involved influencers in choosing the final version of your product development? Why not use them as taste testers? Think of influencers as actual people. Influencers represent people like them. They inspire people to make decisions, change their behavior and try new things because they are recognized as a trusted and aspirational source of information.
We want to ensure pay equity across influencers. If you're paying influencers who seemingly have similar engagement levels, comparable engagement, comparable reach, comparable audiences, and there's a large pay disparity between those influencers, that's vulnerable to you. is. As a brand. Also, for those who are about to experiment, please don't stop or give up too early. Maybe something doesn't go as planned. I expected the content to be beautifully presented, but it wasn't. As with any marketing strategy, learn from it. Don't throw in the towel too early.
Don't forget to measure. You have big ideas and want to implement them. You think this influencer will increase public awareness and there will be a line out the door. necessarily. Why do we do this? Who is our audience? What do we hope it will accomplish? How will we know it is successful? Finally, don't get too attached to your campaign. please. Be willing to give your influencers room to be creative and play around. If you have a very strict and restrictive contract, you definitely need a really solid contract, but don't make it so restrictive that it ties the influencer's hands. You end up with inauthentic, irrelevant content that you paid a lot of money for, right?
What should the influencer selection process be like?
A micro-influencer is someone with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers. Anything below that is considered a nano-influencer. And once he has more than 100,000 people, he has more people with more macro influence. And beyond that, there are over a million super-celebrities, or influencers.
How you choose influencers for your campaign depends on your priorities, but we tend to focus on engagement rates. Because if you have a macro-celebrity partner and you expect a very good ROI for her, and you pay for a very good ROI, you might not get it because of low engagement. not present. We often see restaurant brands using micro-influencers. Micro-influencers often enjoy very high levels of audience trust because of their relatability. They are very protective of their viewers. That's why we want more of a collaborative approach with influencers who have creative freedom and are willing to experiment. Micro-influencers are much more cost-effective because they don't have the same reach as macro celebrities.
People are now calling it the year of the micro-influencer. Don't put all your money into one bucket for these macro-related things. It's through these smaller, ongoing relationships, rather than these one-off, hopefully macro relationships, that we grow more partners, get more engagement and better results. You can get ROI.
Please contact Sam Oches. [email protected].
