Good influencer content and how to recognize it

Influencer- and content marketing can be effective tools in strengthening your brand, if you use them correctly. Rookie mistakes or slips can generally be prevented (right?) but then there’s the difference between good content and really good content. How do you recognize really good content when you see it, and what can we learn from that?

Because this topic is interesting for both marketers and influencers, we decided to dive in. Our case studies will be influencer posts, two influencers from the Netherlands and one from the US.

Let’s start with some more background on the content marketing-campaigns. For Valentine’s day Bol.com introduced the #pakjeliefde, roughly translated to #giftoflove. This #pakjeliefde is a cardboard box you can put on, so you can actually give yourself to your Valentine. The boxes were free and could be put in the shopping cart during online shopping. The boxes sold out in no time and the campaign was a success. The hashtag #pakjeliefde also created a love of movement for the brand and for Valentine’s day. Inger Vierhout and Boris Bouten, both in the Join database, made content for this campaign.

Then we go to Mary in the United States. Mary is a vegan foodblogger and has collaborated with the brand Aloha. Aloha produces organic protein powder en asked foodbloggers what they could cook with that.

Let’s go. These are some important learnings:

The influencer and campaign are a good match

Valentine’s day, love and gifts: this campaign was full of positivity and joy. Just by looking at the profiles of our influencers we can conclude that these influencers will probably be a good match.

Okay, Boris’ biography isn’t much of a long read, but his pearly white teeth definitely steal the show. Inger’s bio also tells a lot: she encourages other people to go out with a positive mindset, just like she does herself. You go girl!

Then there’s Mary. By reading her bio we know she is MBA law student who is also a vegan cook, who likes to travel and to eat avocado’s. Vegan, cook, travel, avocado’s? Isn’t that called an Instagram-homerun?

The content looks good

Yeah, that’s what this article is about right? It is, but I mean good a little more specifically. There is a big difference with a dark photo with messy composition or a light and high quality photo that is nice to watch. Like this one:

When you decide to post a video instead of a photo, you have to realise it must add something to your content. For example, you could… make people smile! Boris used a fun effect in his video which made the content livelier. By doing so, you can use content marketing to reach your audience in different ways.

Bezorg jezelf als pakketje tijdens valentijnsdag met @bol_com ??? #pakjeliefde

A post shared by Boris (@bor_is_hier) on

Mary is obviously a professional in food photography, and that really shows in a post like this one:

The composition and the use of colour are amazing – I’m actually getting hungry!

The look and feel of the post must fit in the bigger picture

The best way to check whether this is alright, is to literally take a look from a different perspective. Look at the influencer’s feed from a distance and compare it to the content around it. Does it fit in the bigger picture and does the look and feel match the other content? Then you’re good. Here you see the posts Inger made before and after her Bol.com post. Looks good right?

@ingervierhout

This is Mary’s feed. Mary uses a theme for her posts by cooking different dishes and presenting them all in a similar way. Look at these colors! Amazing.

@upbeetandkaleingit

The post must spark interaction

Last but not least: did your post impress people, and what does that mean for the brand? We don’t only measure engagement by adding and subtracting likes and comments, but also by looking closely what is being said. Boris’ and Inger’s posts have only positive comments, are definitely ‘cute‘ and the likes and views are through the roof. Boris’ video is watched over 4400 times and his posts scores 7.7% as engagement rate. To clarify: the 5% average of this content marketing-campaign was an amazing score, but Boris scored even higher.

Are you interested in influencer marketing and about to launch a campaign? Contact us and we’d be happy to show you what we do.