What’s there in common between Coca Cola, Adidas, Hilton, Subaru, and Audible?
All of them are companies that work with influencers.
However, this article isn’t about them.
Today we’ll name those who nailed influencer marketing in 2022 and achieved amazing results. As a bonus, you’ll get the top three hacks on finding the best-fit influencers.
According to the latest statistics, 93% of marketers have already used influencer marketing at least once. If we look back into 2022, 88% of them had a dedicated marketing budget on influencer campaigns.
An influencer campaign is a time-bound promotional initiative that implies engaging influential content creators to reach certain marketing objectives.
It’s one of the most effective types of marketing campaigns that can help you do the following:
Let’s see the effectiveness of influencer marketing in action.
Take a look at the most remarkable achievements (backed up by numbers and facts) of companies that cooperated with influencers in 2022.
“Cisco Champions” is one of the superb influencer marketing examples in B2B.
Cisco gathered the top IT influencers under one roof – the “Cisco Champions” membership program. The participants (members) received perks, exclusive event invitations, sneak-peeks of new Cisco products before a launch, etc.
In turn, IT advocates provided feedback on Cisco solutions and products they had been trying. They used blogging, vlogging, and podcasting and gave a huge boost to Cisco’s brand advocacy on Twitter.
The results:
Read more about their success story here.
Dungeons & Dragons joined forces with Digital Voices, one of the award-winning influencer marketing companies, to conquer the role-playing gaming world and motivate new players from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to try D&D. A minimum of nine YouTubers and Instagrammers helped them achieve this goal.
The strategy took Bronze at the Influencer Marketing Awards 2022 in the Best Gaming Campaign category.
The results:
View the full description of this campaign.
To kick off this initiative, Vestiaire Collective, a marketplace of pre-owned luxury fashion, worked with Fanbytes. They designed a six-month strategy for TikTok influencer marketing.
The aim was to achieve a deeper connection with their TikTok audience and improve brand recognition. Majorly, it targeted British, Italian, French, and Spanish Gen Z and fashion activists. For six months in a row, several high-profile TikTokers in each territory were sharing their videos featuring @vestiairecollective and its products.
The results:
Check the complete case study.
In the summer of 2022, Goiko, a burger restaurant chain, rocked its audience on social platforms by launching a giveaway dedicated to Gamer’s Day. It was organized in collaboration with a famous Spanish influencer aXoZer – a gamer, Twitch streamer, and YouTuber.
The goal of this campaign was to enhance brand awareness, grow the number of followers, and engage with customers even more intensively.
The results:
You can analyze the general influencer marketing strategy implemented by Goiko in this case study.
Undoubtedly, it’s one of the best influencer marketing campaigns in 2022.
Cloutflow helped Elevar Sports, a direct-to-consumer sports brand, showcase the use of the innovative sole technology in their sports shoes, increase Instagram engagement, and generate more buzz around the brand.
They picked Instagram influencers who prioritize sustainability and have a large following of people interested in casual or athletic footwear.
The results:
Peer into Cloutflow’s report.
Universal hired Upfluence to coordinate an influencer campaign for improving brand reach, increasing web traffic, and promoting their All-Access program.
During a six-week campaign, hand-picked influencers appealed to Universal’s audience on Instagram and Facebook. They promoted movies and encouraged signups for Universal’s All-Access.
The campaign was so successful that it actually outperformed their influencer marketing KPIs.
The results:
Find out more about this case.
Teroz, an open-source blockchain platform, partnered with NeoReach, one of the most trusted social media influencer agencies, to run an effective influencer marketing campaign in 2022.
Their purpose was to broaden the brand’s exposure and lure potential users to the company’s website. They gave preference to Twitch and YouTube for influencer marketing.
Alex Costa and WatchMojo, with more than 3.56M and 24.4M YouTube subscribers at that time correspondingly, were among the top content creators. In total, there were nine influencers from crypto, tech, and gaming niches. They endorsed Teroz as a reputable brand and shared some educational content about the ecosystem of Teroz.
The results:
Scroll through campaign’s phases in this report by NeoReach.
You can follow these examples and partner with influencers effectively, but first, you should know how to properly search for them. Discover that in the next paragraphs.
Here are the three proven ways to find social media influencers and establish a great connection with them.
77% of marketers regard a micro-influencer as an ideal candidate for collaboration. Needless to say, 92% of customers trust micro-influencers more than traditional ads or A-list celebs.
“Your brand’s niche is one of the critical factors to consider, when planning an influencer marketing campaign and looking for suitable micro-influencers for it,” believes Logan Mallory, VP of Motivosity.
“Nowadays, endorsements by big celebrities don’t seem genuine, and people start looking for “celebrities” and influential figures in their fields of interest. These can be fashion enthusiasts, beauty gurus, food bloggers, fitness nuts, avid travelers, etc. They can engage with your audience on a more meaningful level, because their opinions sound more relevant and trustworthy to people,” Logan notes.
Motivosity tapped into podcasting with niche micro-influencers in 2021. Since then, they’ve been inviting HR gurus and business leaders to their Silver Linings Podcast. They talk about employee engagement experiences and the process of growing, leading, and supporting teams with Motivosity. Their most recent podcast guests were Angie Redmon – HR coach; Nate Spears – Founder of Clear Source; and Nate and Vanessa Quigley – Co-founders of Chatbooks, among others.
Follow trendHERO’s guide on how to find micro-influencers in your niche, connect with the right people, and let them represent your brand in the best possible light.
Brand ambassadorship is a perfect way to design long-term influencer marketing campaigns and collaborations. A brand ambassador can become your social media content creator for an extended period of time (for months or even years).
Why not encourage your customers to become your brand advocates?
Heed the call from Jerry Han, CMO of PrizeRebel, and “Let your customers unleash the power of their influence and inspire them to create user-generated content (UGC). It’s virtually any type of content (blog article, testimonial, social post, video, image, review, etc.) created by product/service users rather than brands.
For example, we ask our users to share stories about their experiences with our company: how they take surveys and get monetary rewards, gift cards, and more. We feature these UGC items on our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.”
PrizeRebel has also got a bunch of customers’ testimonials and other UGC on YouTube.
As a matter of fact, 46% of people feel that online reviews are as reliable as personal recommendations from their family or friends. While 35% of individuals trust other customers’ reviews as much as endorsements from social media personalities they follow.
You can automate and simplify the process with the below influencers management tools:
If performed well, influencer initiatives can offer a number of valuable advantages to businesses. This article has demonstrated how powerful they can actually be.
You’ve seen the results achieved by the following companies:
In case you need more examples, check some other great influencer marketing campaigns executed in the past few years by Samsung, Chupa Chups, eBay, and other brands.
Can’t sit on the fence any longer and are ready to hop from it?
Start monitoring your niche and discovering top-notch Instagram influencers with trendHERO. Connect with tons of Instagram content creators in minutes and launch your campaign in half the time.
Check any influencer's Engagement rate and analyze his or her followers growth history
Other free tools: Follower Count History, Instagram Follower Count, CPM Calculator