Instagram Influencer Marketing Strategy Guide

1
INSTAGRAM MARKETING
EBOOK BY LATER
Instagram
Influencer
Marketing
Strategy
Guide
Table of Contents
Introduction 4
How Instagram Influencer Marketing Works 6
The Rise of Micro- and Nano-Influencer Marketing 9
How to Find the Right Influencers for Your 15

Business
How to Identify Fake Instagram Influencers 22
How to Reach Out to Instagram Influencers to 26

Pitch a Partnership
How to Properly Disclose Your Sponsored 29

Instagram Posts
How to Track the Success of Your Instagram 35

Influencer Marketing
5 Key Ways for Businesses to Use Instagram 41

Conclusion 52
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INSTAGRAM INFLUENCER MARKETING STRATEGY GUIDE 4
Instagram influencer
marketing is an easy,
inexpensive, and super
effective way to grow your
business on Instagram.
You can quickly increase your brand awareness and follower base,
but best of all, you can also drive major sales with Instagram
influencer marketing!
$5.67 billion spent on Over 30 million 86% of marketers use

influencer marketing sponsored Instagram Instagram influencers
on Instagram in 2018 posts for promotion
With the Instagram algorithm limiting the reach of some

businesses, influencer marketing has become a key strategy
for promoting your products and brand on Instagram.
Here’s everything you need to know!

INSTAGRAM INFLUENCER MARKETING STRATEGY GUIDE 5
According to RhythmOne:
When it comes to
influencer marketing,
Instagram is the best
performing channel
for social action,
with an average
3.21% engagement
rate (compared to
1.5% across all social
networks).
HOW INSTAGRAM INFLUENCER MARKETING WORKS 6
How Instagram Influencer

Marketing Works
Since its launch in 2010, Instagram has grown to over 1 billion
users, with more than 500 million people using Instagram every
single day!
Because of it’s highly engaged user base, Instagram is one of the

best platforms for brands to partner with influencers to reach new
audiences quickly.
So what makes influencer marketing so effective? Well, it has to

do with trust.
Instagram influencer marketing removes the barriers of traditional

advertising because the customer is introduced to your brand
from a trusted source (the influencer) on an authentic, casual
platform (Instagram).
When an influencer recommends a product or service on their

channels, it can come across as a trusted recommendation from a
friend. So it’s a great way to raise awareness about a new product
line or campaign.
Generally, Instagram influencer marketing involves a brand (or

influencer agency) reaching out to popular Instagram users to see
if they’re interested in working together.
This could be in the form of a sponsored Instagram post or

Instagram Story, or a larger, long-term Instagram marketing
campaign.
Instagram influencer
marketing removes
the barriers of a
traditional ad
If you want to work with influencer in the 100k+ range, you may
have to pay a pretty penny for your posts.
In fact, some influencer report charging as much as $5000 to

$10,000 per sponsored post. However, it’s much more common
for influencers to charge in the $250 to $1000 range.
There are also a lot of influencers who will trade product for
promotion. According to Collectively, 54% of influencers say they’re
willing to accept free product and/or services for sponsored posts
rather than charging a flat rate.
What it really comes down to is finding the right fit for both your
business and the influencer. You don’t have to have a huge budget
to leverage the power of Instagram influencer marketing.
THE RISE OF MICRO- AND NANO-INFLUENCER MARKETING 9
The Rise of Micro- and

Nano-Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing may have grown in popularity thanks to
Instagram, but you don’t need thousands of dollars to cash in.
Thanks to a growing trend, more and more businesses are seeing

the value in partnering with Instagram influencers who have a
small but highly-engaged following. In fact, according to HubSpot,
almost 1/3 of all Instagram channels are micro-influencers with
fewer than 100k followers. Mega-influencers with over 5 million
followers make up less than 1% of all influencers.
So, what exactly are micro-influencers and nano-influencers?

Generally speaking, a micro-influencer is someone who has
significant, but not massive, social media following. This generally
ranges from anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000 followers. Nano-
influencers, on the other hand, usually have less than 1,000 followers.
While Instagram influencers have attained a sort of “celebrity

status,” micro- and nano-influencers are more like everyday
consumers, so they tend to be very relatable and trustworthy.
@lauratully.co is a great example of a micro-influencer.

Despite having just over 3,000 followers, she’s partnered
with multiple businesses and created a bunch of
sponsored Instagram posts. This is likely due to their
industry niche and engaged following. As with all
things Instagram marketing, businesses can gain a lot
by targeting niche audiences.
Instagram influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers

often lead lives that aren’t exactly “normal,” and their feeds can
look like an aspirational lifestyle catalogs.
Compare that to someone who has 5,000 to 15,000 highly-engaged

Instagram followers, who likely isn’t paying their rent from cashing
in on Instagram sponsorships. Well, it’s just way more relatable
to the everyday consumers!
When a micro-influencer features a product on their channels, it

can come across like a trusted recommendation from a friend,
rather than a celebrity endorsement.
Engagement vs. Number of Followers

One of the biggest benefits of working with micro-influencers
is that they tend to retain higher levels of engagement than
top-tier influencers. This was confirmed by two separate studies
by HelloSociety and Markerly, which found a negative correlation
between engagement rate and audience size.
So while accounts of all sizes are getting fewer likes, comments,

and followers in general than they did in the past (thanks to
the Instagram algorithm), bigger accounts seem to be taking a
bigger hit.
Like many micro-influencers, @taylormichaelburk might get

@teganklenner tends to get more engagement overall
consistently get a high amount on his posts, but it comes from
of engagement on their a smaller portion of his total
Instagram posts. followers.
This means that an Instagram post from a micro-influencer will

likely be seen by a larger percentage of their following, so you
could potentially reach more people through 20 Instagram posts
than you could by investing in 1 Instagram post with a large
influencer.
Of course, this isn’t always the case! Many popular influencers

have been able to maintain a high engagement rate on their posts
as well. Like @kyliejenner, who despite having over 100 million
followers, usually gets an engagement rate of 3 to 10 percent on
her posts.
And what about nano-influencers? Well, according to a report by

Influencer Marketing Hub, nano-influencers with fewer than 1,000
followers usually enjoy an engagement rate of 7.2% on Instagram,
which is huge when compared to the 1.1% engagement rate that
accounts with over 100,000 followers tend to receive.
Although nano-influencer marketing is a recent phenomenon, it’s

set to take off in 2019 as brands capitalize on authenticity and
the algorithm. Partnering with a nano-influencer could also make
sense if you’re trying to market to a hyper-local market.
Of course, as important as it is, the engagement rate of an influencer

is just one factor that you need to consider when determining who
to partner with!
HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT INFLUENCERS FOR YOUR BUSINESS 15
How to Find the Right Influencers

for Your Business
Finding the right influencers for your marketing campaign can be
a big challenge, but creating clear goals helps. For example, if your
goal is to rack up a lot of engagement, it might make sense to
partner with micro-influencers with smaller audiences but higher
engagement rates. On the other hand, if you’re trying to increase
your brand awareness, metrics such as an influencer’s reach and
traffic will be more useful.
Here are 6 things to keep in mind when deciding whether or not

to partner with an Instagram influencer:
1. Check their Instagram engagement
When an influencer has a high

engagement rate, it means
their followers are paying
attention and taking action on
their content. That’s why most
businesses and Instagram
agencies use engagement
to evaluate who is an ideal
influencer.
Generally, you want to see an

engagement rate of 2-3% on
influencers’ posts. A ratio of
4-6% is excellent, while posts in
the high tens and twenties are
considered “viral.”
Wondering how calculate an influencer’s Instagram

engagement rate? Check out our guide on how to do it!
2. Check their quality of followers

It goes without saying that you should be aligning your business
with influencers who have “pull” with your target audience. For
example, if you’re a fitness brand, it makes sense to partner with
influencers who share a similar audience to your ideal customers,
such as yoga instructors or powerlifters.
In order to evaluate whether an Instagram influencer’s audience

matches your own, you need to look at things like geographic
distribution (where are the influencer’s followers located), age
breakdown (how old they are), gender, language, approximate
income, and more.
Just keep in mind that the goal isn’t necessarily to reach an

influencer’s entire audience but rather to find that intersection
where your two audiences overlap. This is one of the best ways to
get in front of the “right” eyes and showcase your products and/
or services to a customer segment that’s most likely to convert.
3. Check the content they post

Like how you researched the quality of an influencer’s followers,
analyzing the content that an influencer publishes across all their
channels (including channels outside of Instagram), will help give
you a more complete understanding of their niche.
In fact, without assessing their content beforehand, you run the

risk of partnering with an influencer who doesn’t hold any influence
in the niche or “vertical” that you’re trying to market to.
When an influencer is consistent with their niche market – for

example, they may consistently post about cruelty-free cosmetic –
their followers will hold that influencer as an authority on that topic

and will grow to trust and be guided by their recommendations. If
you partner with an influencer that doesn’t mirror the same niche
market as you or your product, you risk spending money, time,
and effort on marketing a product their followers aren’t interested
in the first place.
4. Check their number of followers

As we’ve already discussed, the number of followers an influencer
has isn’t quite as important as it used to be. Because engagement
rate tends to decrease as follower count grows, influencers
with fewer followers often retain higher engagement rates on
their posts, while influencers with large audiences tend to see
decreased engagement rates and less direct communication with
their followers.
All of that being said, it’s definitely not a bad idea to partner with
influencers with big followings! Just make sure they’re a good fit
for your business.
5. Check their other partnerships

In addition to the above, you should also look at an influencer’s
other partnerships to determine whether there’s a conflict of
interest. For example, if you’re a jewelry brand that specializes in
customized wedding bands, it’s best that you avoid partnering with
influencers who rep brands that sell a similar product or niche.
Similarly, you should avoid partnering with influencers who rep
brands that go against your brand ethos.
Lululemon works
with ambassadors
that reflect their
goals and missions
as a company.
Influencers are
vetted based
on not just their
content, but
their attitude
and lifestyle.
6. Budget requirements
Something else to keep in mind when deciding which influencers
to partner with is how much they charge.
As we previously discussed, it’s quite common for businesses to

“gift” free products to influencers rather than paying them a flat
rate. However, that isn’t always the case. Some influencers only
accept flat rates, while others charge based on the number of
sales or leads they create for the business.
If you’re just getting started with influencer marketing, it might

make sense to partner with micro-influencers to begin with (this, of
course, depends on the size of your marketing budget). According
to our research, on average, when asked how much businesses
pay for sponsored Instagram posts, 66% reported that they pay
under $250 per post, while 27% pay between $250 and $1000.
Unfortunately, there’s no hard-and-fast rule about how much

influencer marketing costs – although it tends to be closely
connected to follower count. Generally speaking, mega-influencers
with over 1 million followers will charge a lot more sponsored posts
than micro-influencers. But as we’ve already learned, “following”
is just one of multiple factors to consider when deciding who to
partner with.
At the end of the day, what’s most important is finding influencers

who fit your target market and have the right audience
demographics for your brand.
HOW TO IDENTIFY FAKE INSTAGRAM INFLUENCERS 22
How to Identify Fake

Instagram Influencers
But before you get to signing any contracts, you need to make
sure that the Instagram influencers you’re working with are the
real deal.
Unfortunately, these days it’s not uncommon for influencers to

buy followers and likes to boost their appeal to businesses. So
knowing how to identify fake influencers and find authentic ones
is extremely important. Here’s how to do it:
1. Check their follower to follower ratio:

Before you even scroll down your potential influencer’s Instagram
feed, check their follower to following ratio. It’s a tell tale sign of
authenticity.
Influencers tend to follow 1 to 5 percent of their total following.

Anything much higher than that is likely the result of growth hacks
and foul play like follow, like, and comment bots that quickly grow
follow counts without growing fandom, loyalty, and personal brand.
For example, if an Instagram influencer is following 5,000

people and only has 15,000 followers, that’s a warning sign to
look closer into the authenticity of their account.
2. Check their engagement to follower ratio:

Another quick way to make sure you’re getting good bang for your
buck with Instagram influencer marketing is to see check their
engagement to follower ratio.
Technically, engagement rate is calculated by engagement:

impressions, but since impressions data is not publicly available,
the best you can go on is to see how many likes and comments
an Instagram influencer gets, relative to their following.
Check at least 10 of your influencer’s posts to verify their average

engagement. The number of comments and likes should reflect
how many followers they have. Like we mentioned above, you
want to see an engagement rate of 2 to 3% at the very least.
3. Look at the lifespan of their account:

This one is less clear-cut, especially in the world of the Instagram
archive feature, but the length of time that an influencer has been
active on Instagram is a good way to tell if the account is legitimate
and their followers are real.
While viral success does happens, it takes most Instagram

influencers years of often unpaid hard work to grow their
dedicated, loyal following. If an account is really new and has a
large following, chances are that some of their followers are fake
and unengaged.
4. Check the quality of their content:

What people “like” on Instagram is often subjective, but if you’re
in the brand world, you should know quality when you see it.
Regardless of follower size, if an influencer’s content is bad, move
onto the next one.
5. Research their past campaigns:

Once you’ve determined that their following is real, they’ve got
plenty of engagement, and their content looks great, there’s a few
more steps to take to ensure you’re getting what you paid for.
Before you pull the trigger, remember that these personalities

have plenty of “lurkable” examples of past campaigns. Take a look
at past product posts or anything tagged as sponsored to get an

idea of how the influencer approaches paid content, and how their
followers react.
6. Use third-party influencer research tools:

One of the easiest ways to vet your Instagram influencers is to
use third-party tools like Fohr Card or Social Blade to test the
legitimacy of an Instagram account’s followers.
Fohr Card offers a number of tools for businesses to determine

whether or not an influencer has an authentic following on
Instagram. For example, their Follower Health Tool provides a
breakdown of an influencer’s followers to following ratio, username,
bio, number of posts, and then calculates an overall “score” based
on how the influencer ranked in each of those categories.
Similarly, Fohr Card’s Verified Followings tool acts as a sort-of

badge for influencers to prove that they’ve built their following
organically, without the use of bots.
Another third-party tool to use is Social Blade, which provides a

ton of insights and analytics for businesses that are seeking out
authentic influencers. With Social Blade, you can see the number
of followers an influencer has gained and lost every day across a
period of time. If you notice any big “jumps” in follower growth with,
it could mean that the influencer is using a bot to grow their account.
With all that said, third-party tools are not perfect, and sometimes
spikes in new followers can also be because of a press article,
Instagram feature, or a post going viral on the Instagram Explore
Page.
If you have any questions about the legitimacy of an Instagram

influencer that you really want to work with – just ask!
HOW TO REACH OUT TO INFLUENCERS ON INSTAGRAM 26
How to Reach Out to Influencers

on Instagram
Once you’ve narrowed down a few key influencers that hit the
mark, your next step is to establish a relationship with them.
This can be as simple as following and engaging with them on
Instagram, or it can involve something deeper. The point is to
make yourself visible to the influencers so that when you do reach
out, they’ll recognize you from previous interactions.
How you reach out to the influencers also completely depends

on what your goals are. For example, if you’re looking to
build a long-term relationship with an established influencer,
it might be a good idea to create a personalized “pitch”

that includes details that are specific to that influencer.
Some businesses even create influencer “decks” or media

kits with a detailed outline of what they expect from the
collaboration, including a timeline with specific dates,
their hashtag, previous social campaigns, and more.
This isn’t necessary but it’s a good idea to have some kind of
proposal with a clear description of what you want to get out of
the relationship, whether it’s a few sponsored Instagram posts,
stories, mentions, or something else entirely. This will help the
influencer come up with a fair pricing strategy based on your
requirements.
Once you’re ready to reach out, create a spreadsheet and add the
names and Instagram profile links for each influencer that you’re
planning to contact. You should also make a note of the time and
date that you contacted each influencer so that you can follow up
again in a day or two if they don’t respond.
Many influencers these days have influencer media kits, which are
basically CVs or portfolios with all the partnerships and sponsored
content they’ve created in the past. Once you’ve reached out
to an influencer and started a conversation about a potential
collaboration, ask if they have a media kit that they can share
with you.
HOW TO PROPERLY DISCLOSE YOUR SPONSORED INSTAGRAM POSTS 29
How to Properly Disclose Your

Sponsored Instagram Posts
With the recent spat of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) crackdowns
on Instagram partnerships, a lot of businesses are wondering how
to stay safe when partnering with influencers on Instagram.
And while more often than not it’s influencers who are getting
pegged by the FTC, it’s important that the disclosure directions
come from the business first. As a business, it’s your responsibility
to ensure that your influencers are FTC compliant. Here’s
everything you need to know:
Before we get into the nitty gritty details of disclosure, let’s

talk about when and in what cases you have to disclose your
sponsorships on Instagram.
Basically, the FTC requires you to disclose endorsement

relationships whenever a “material connection” exists. This can
include everything from paying an influencer, gifting them free
products, or even having a business or family relationship with

an influencer.
Basically, it all comes down to transparency. It’s about making

sure that an influencer’s followers are aware when they’re being
paid or given something of value to promote a product.
This is key. As a business, gifting your product to influencers is a

great strategy to build brand awareness on Instagram and grow
your following (without digging too deep into your marketing
budget). But if you give an influencer a free product or service
with the expectation that they’ll promote it on Instagram, they
still have to disclose!
Here’s how to follow the rules of FTC disclosure today:
1. Disclosing with hashtags

A common practice among influencers is to include a hashtag like
#spon, #sponsored, #ad, #paid, or #partnership in the captions of
their sponsored Instagram posts.
But that’s not enough anymore, says the FTC.
If you want to disclose sponsored Instagram posts using a general

hashtag, the only FTC-compliant ones are #sponsored or #ad.
According to the FTC and Adweek, “both hashtags make it super
clear that a person is working with a brand without leaving any
wiggle room for interpretation.”
You can’t simply hide #ad in the middle of your 29 other

hashtags (especially because Instagram captions are
shortened after 3-4 lines of text). The disclosure hashtag
has to be easily noticed and understood by users. That
doesn’t mean you have to put #ad or #sponsored at the
very beginning of your caption, but it’s obviously less
likely to be seen if it’s in the middle or at the end.
There is another way for influencers to disclose their partnerships,

and that’s by using a unique partnership hashtag that uses both
your business’ name and and the word “partner” in the hashtag.
For example, Airbnb created the hashtag #Airbnb_partner and

asks their influencers to post this hashtag at the beginning of their
Instagram caption.
2. Disclosing without hashtags

What if an influencer decides to forego using hashtags to disclose
your sponsored Instagram posts? Well, they still need to make it
crystal clear when a post is sponsored!
For example, saying “thanks to @kyliejenner for my lip kit” isn’t

enough, because it doesn’t necessarily denote that you were gifted
product.
Instead, an influencer should say “thanks to @kyliejenner for

gifting me their new lip kit” as it makes your business relationship
with the influencer much more obvious.
3. Disclosing with Instagram’s Paid Partnership

Feature
In 2017, Instagram introduced a new paid partnership feature for

both regular Instagram posts and Instagram Stories to help users
distinguish between sponsored and unsponsored Instagram posts.
But while the new feature is certainly a step in the right direction
for creating more transparency, according the FTC, built-in platform
disclosures like Instagram’s don’t always meet their requirements
for clear and conspicuous disclosure.
So, in other words, while it isn’t a bad idea to use Instagram’s new
feature, your influencer partners should probably still disclose your
partnerships in the caption of their post.
4. Disclosing sponsored Instagram Stories

According to the FTC, a prominent, superimposed disclosure has
to be included in all sponsored Instagram Stories.
The disclosure should be easy to notice and readable within

the timeframe (or length) of the story. And like with Instagram
hashtags, disclosures on Instagram Stories can’t be hidden among
other text.
The FTC also notes that because many Instagram users watch
Stories with the sound turned off, a verbal-only disclosure may
not be enough.
An easy way for influencers to disclose in your sponsored Instagram

Stories is to just add the #ad hashtag somewhere in their story,
or to disclose in a written way that you’re going to show off some
of the free gifts they’ve received.
HOW TO TRACK THE SUCCESS OF YOUR INSTAGRAM INFLUENCER MARKETING 35
How to Track the Success of Your

Instagram Influencer Marketing
It’s not surprising that one of the biggest questions for businesses
that are just getting started with Instagram influencer marketing
is how to track and measure their return-on-investment (ROI).
The fact is that in order to develop an effective influencer marketing

strategy for your business, you need to understand how your
influencer campaigns perform, and that means setting clear goals
and metrics.
According to our research, 79% of businesses measure the success

of their sponsored posts by how much engagement they receive.
But that’s likely going to change!
As more businesses realize Instagram’s capacity as a sales and

customer discovery channel, we expect the focus of influencer
marketing campaigns to change too.
And this will likely be reflected in how businesses track the success
of their Instagram influencer marketing. Indeed, while engagement
(likes, comments, and shares) took priority in the past, in 2019,
more businesses are going to focus on bottom-funnel goals like
sales, traffic, and conversions.
It’s a good idea to put conversion tracking systems in place, such

as affiliate links, to reliably track conversions from your campaign.
Not only will this track the ROI of your campaign, but you can use
this campaign performance data to see which influencers drove
the best results (and why) and then use this data to inform how
you construct future campaigns.
That being said, influencer marketing can be used to achieve all

kinds of goals. Here are some of the more common performance
metrics that businesses use for measuring the impact of their
Instagram influencer marketing:
• Engagement rate – likes, comments, shares, etc.

• Brand sentiment – how people are talking about your brand
• Website traffic – customers visiting your website
• Sales – conversions and revenues generated
For more information on how to track your Instagram

marketing success, check out our Ultimate Guide to
Instagram Analytics!
All Bar One wanted to increase their brunch sales, so

they raised awareness about their brunch menu with
the help of micro-influencers. In order to do this, the
restaurant measured the campaign’s impact using a
variety of performance metrics such as engagement
rate, follower growth, brand sentiment, and sales. They
noticed an improvement in each of these metrics and
even saw a 28% increase in their brunch sales.
CREATE TRACKABLE LINKS FOR YOUR INSTAGRAM INFLUENCER MARKETING 38
Create Trackable Links for Your Instagram

With Instagram campaigns, brands will often ask influencers to
share a link in their bio and direct followers to their “link in bio”
in the post caption, because links in captions aren’t clickable on
Instagram.
If you’re trying to track how much traffic or how many sales an

influencer is driving, you should create a trackable link. We suggest
using Google Analytics because it’s free, easy to implement, and
one of the best systems out there.
To start, you need to add UTM parameters to the link in your

shoppable Instagram feed. UTM parameters are simply tags you
add to a URL. When your link is clicked, the tags are sent back to
Google Analytics and tracked.
Open Google Analytics URL Builder and start filling each of the
different UTM parameters.
• Website URL is the URL your link will click-through to.

• Campaign Source is the source of your traffic, such as newsletter,
search engine, or other referral. In this case, set it to “Instagram.”
• Campaign Medium is the medium the link was used upon, such
as email, CPC, or banner. In this case, set it to “social.”
• Campaign Name is a parameter that provides additional details
about the campaign, such as the name of the specific promotion,
and the date it was set up.
• Campaign Term is an optional parameter suggested for paid
search. Don’t worry about filling it out.
• Campaign Content is another optional parameter for additional
details. You can also skip this one.
Once you fill in these parameters, Google Analytics will build a

URL that you can then place in your Linkin.bio link to track your
clicks. You can also shorten the URL if you plan to place it in your
Instagram bio. Before Google Analytics can report ecommerce
activity for your website, you have to enable ecommerce tracking
on your website or ecommerce software. In most ecommerce
stores, this only takes a few clicks.
You can do the same for sponsored Instagram Stories. If the

influencer you’ve partnered with has the ability to add links to their
Instagram Stories, we also recommend using a third-party tool
to track your clicks separately in Google Analytics, as Instagram
Insights doesn’t currently track URL clicks on Instagram Stories.
5 KEY WAYS FOR BUSINESSES TO USE INSTAGRAM INFLUENCER MARKETING 41
5 Key Ways for Businesses to Use

1. Increase Brand Awareness with Instagram
If you’re a new business, building brand awareness is one of
your top priorities! But brand awareness is also a goal for many
businesses, small and large, and influencer marketing on Instagram
is a great way to cast a wider net and introduce your brand to new
audiences.
Think about it: if you partner with just 3 influencers who have an
engaged audience of your target market, you can reach way more
people in just 3 Instagram posts than you could with your own
Instagram account.
Lo & Sons is a retail brand that

creates purses & luggage aimed
at hip, on-the-go travellers.
In order to make their brand
known and increase product
visibility, they partnered with
Instagram influencers in the
fashion and travel industry to
post about their line of bags.
While Lo & Sons invests in working on sponsored content with high

profile Instagram influencers that have hundreds of thousands
of Instagram followers, they’re also a great example of how you
can leverage Instagram influencer marketing without paying for
sponsored posts.
Along with doing sponsored posts, Lo & Sons also gifts free products
to influencers who have under 100,000 followers, and simply asks
that if they love it, to include their handle in an Instagram post.
And it works!
Swedish fashion editor and stylist @saniaclausdemina

is one example of an Instagram influencer who has
shared sponsored posts for Lo & Sons.
Often, if you have a product that people truly love, you’ll get more
than one post out of your Instagram collaboration!
For example, @findingpaola mentioned Lo & Sons in one dedicated

Instagram post, but she’s posted about their camera bag and
tagged the brand in multiple posts, increasing Lo & Sons brand
awareness even more.
2. Drive Sales with Instagram Influencer Marketing

One of the most successful examples of the power of Instagram
influencer marketing is from Daniel Wellington, a watch company
that exploded on Instagram and leveraged influencer marketing
to create a hip and modern brand identity, while reaching millions
of customers!
Daniel Wellington rejects traditional advertising, and instead relies

on Instagram influencer marketing campaigns to increase brand
awareness and, more importantly, make a ton of sales.
In just 4 years, Daniel Wellington has grown to an annual revenue

of $220 million, largely due to Instagram marketing.
Instead of just trying to increase

their brand awareness, Daniel
Wellington uses influencers
to directly drive sales of their
watches.
They gave each influencer a free watch and a unique promotional

code that gave their followers a 10-20% discount on their purchases.
The code was only valid for a limited time, which created a sense
of urgency from their followers to act fast and buy now.
By giving influencers a personalized discount code, they were

more excited to post about Daniel Wellington and encourage
their followers to buy a watch, because they felt like they were
providing value to their followers instead of just posting an ad.
Plus, they got a cool watch.
3. Build Excitement for a Product Launch with

If you have a new product coming out, collaborating with Instagram
influencers is a great way to get people excited about your launch!
By giving influencers early access to your product, you’re able

to both position your product as something cool (because the
influencers are excited about it) and market your product before
it’s even out yet!
One popular product launch strategy is to partner with several

influencers and have them all post about your product launch
on the same day. Casper employed this strategy recently for the
launch of their Glow light.
Influencer marketing was a the heart of their product launch

strategy on Instagram, and the let the influencers do most of the
talking, choosing to amplify their content instead of focusing on
creating original content.
Because Capser had invested heavily in influencers that reached

their target market and had them all post on the same day, they
were able to reach so many more users than if they had simply
posted to their own account. The strategy essentially made the
product launch unavoidable!
Another popular way to get influencers to post about your new

product launch on social media is to host an event. For example,
Summer Fridays had a small influencer breakfast on the morning
of launch day in LA.
Another popular way to get influencers to post about your new

product launch on social media is to host an event. For example,
Summer Fridays had a small influencer breakfast on the morning
of launch day in LA, and then they hosted a larger launch event
with influencers in NYC.
Some businesses will even put together Instagram influencer

getaways, sending influencers on vacations across the globe –
inviting them to relax, hang out with their friends, and, of course,
post all about it on the social media!
4. Encourage Use of Your Branded Hashtag through

You don’t have to have a new product or discount code in order
to leverage Instagram influencer marketing.
If you’ve created a branded Instagram hashtag that you want to

get more people to post with, turning to Instagram influencers is
an easy way to get more people to use it!
The footwear brand Mgemi uses Instagram influencer marketing

in a variety of ways, one of them being to promote their hashtag.
In order to increase adoption of their branded hashtag

#stepupsummer, Mgemi worked with Instagram influencers
with large followings and got them all to use #stepupsummer in
their Instagram posts. By having more people use your hashtag,
you’ll also have more options when it comes to reposting
user-generated more.
5. Promote an Instagram Marketing Campaign

If you’re creating an Instagram marketing campaign for your brand,
collaborating with a few Instagram influencers is a surefire way to
amplify your entire campaign.
In order to promote their new flight route from Vancouver to

Brisbane, Air Canada created a big social media marketing
campaign centred around Instagram influencers.
Air Canada flew Instagram influencers located in Vancouver on

their inaugural flight to Brisbane, and gave them the trip of a
lifetime, exploring all that Brisbane has to offer.
The selected Instagram influencers

posted about their Brisbane
adventures (with the campaign
hashtag #boardingbrisbane), inspiring
their Vancouver-area demographic to
travel to the destination.
But Air Canada didn’t just leave the campaign there — they
also sent a videographer to capture the trip and turned it into a
promotional video featuring the popular Instagrammers.
This video was a huge part of Air Canada’s overall social media
marketing campaign, and was promoted to target audiences
across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
As you can see, there are a ton of ways that you can leverage
Instagram influencer marketing to help grow your business!
Whether you’re gifting product or paying for sponsored posts,

brands both big and small can harness the power of Instagram
influencers to get their products in front of new audiences and
use Instagram marketing to make more sales!
52
Conclusion
CONCLUSION 53
Incorporating Instagram
into your marketing strategy
can provide incredible
opportunities for businesses
that want to leverage visual
content and reach new and
engaged audiences.
With Later, you can plan,

curate, manage, and preview
your visual strategy to build
awareness for your brand and
incentivize new customers.
54
Put your Instagram

marketing plan
into action!
Join Later.com and start scheduling your
Instagram posts, collecting user-generated
content, planning your feed, and more!
Sign Up For Free!

55

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1

How Instagram Influencer Marketing Works 6

The Rise of Micro- and Nano-Influencer Marketing 9

How to Find the Right Influencers for Your 15

How to Identify Fake Instagram Influencers 22

How to Reach Out to Instagram Influencers to 26

How to Properly Disclose Your Sponsored 29

How to Track the Success of Your Instagram 35

5 Key Ways for Businesses to Use Instagram 41

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$5.67 billion spent on Over 30 million 86% of marketers use

With the Instagram algorithm limiting the reach of some

Here’s everything you need to know!

How Instagram Influencer

Because of it’s highly engaged user base, Instagram is one of the

So what makes influencer marketing so effective? Well, it has to

Instagram influencer marketing removes the barriers of traditional

When an influencer recommends a product or service on their

Generally, Instagram influencer marketing involves a brand (or

This could be in the form of a sponsored Instagram post or

In fact, some influencer report charging as much as $5000 to

The Rise of Micro- and

Thanks to a growing trend, more and more businesses are seeing

So, what exactly are micro-influencers and nano-influencers?

While Instagram influencers have attained a sort of “celebrity

@lauratully.co is a great example of a micro-influencer.

Instagram influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers

Compare that to someone who has 5,000 to 15,000 highly-engaged

When a micro-influencer features a product on their channels, it

Engagement vs. Number of Followers

So while accounts of all sizes are getting fewer likes, comments,

Like many micro-influencers, @taylormichaelburk might get

This means that an Instagram post from a micro-influencer will

Of course, this isn’t always the case! Many popular influencers

And what about nano-influencers? Well, according to a report by

Although nano-influencer marketing is a recent phenomenon, it’s

Of course, as important as it is, the engagement rate of an influencer

How to Find the Right Influencers

Here are 6 things to keep in mind when deciding whether or not

1. Check their Instagram engagement

When an influencer has a high

Generally, you want to see an

Wondering how calculate an influencer’s Instagram

2. Check their quality of followers

In order to evaluate whether an Instagram influencer’s audience

Just keep in mind that the goal isn’t necessarily to reach an

3. Check the content they post

In fact, without assessing their content beforehand, you run the

When an influencer is consistent with their niche market – for

their followers will hold that influencer as an authority on that topic

4. Check their number of followers

5. Check their other partnerships

As we previously discussed, it’s quite common for businesses to

If you’re just getting started with influencer marketing, it might

Unfortunately, there’s no hard-and-fast rule about how much

At the end of the day, what’s most important is finding influencers

How to Identify Fake

Unfortunately, these days it’s not uncommon for influencers to

1. Check their follower to follower ratio: