Want to hear some strong opinions? Just bring up AI in your next conversation. While some decry it as the death of human creativity, others praise it as a catalyst for a new era of efficiency. No matter where you stand on this spectrum, one truth remains undeniable: AI is poised to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of marketing.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the specific realm of social media influencing. Influencer marketing has proven itself over the last several years to be a crucial piece of the marketing puzzle, especially for small and midsize brands looking to expand their reach. However, creating an effective influencer marketing campaign requires significant time and resources that can make it feel out of reach, especially for newer brands.

Fortunately, AI has become something of a secret weapon for brands who find themselves in this situation. Not only can it drastically cut down on the time and resources needed to connect with influencers, but it can also help them ensure their overall campaign success as well.

Even if you haven’t used AI before or are new to the world of influencer marketing, using AI to supercharge an influencer marketing campaign can help you unlock new doors and level up your overall marketing strategy. Curious to learn more? Read on:

Creating Connections with AI

One of the most time-consuming tasks for brands looking to partner with influencers is initial research and discovery. Finding the perfect account to partner with doesn’t happen overnight, and brands along with their agency partners, have had to dedicate significant resources in the past to finding online personalities that align with their vision, have an appropriate following of potential customers, and of course, fit within their budget.

However, AI has been able to help streamline the partner identification process considerably. By providing instant analysis of account audience, platform performance, and social media sentiment, AI can instantly identify influencers whose content aligns with a brand’s target audience’s interests, cutting down a process that took weeks or even months to mere hours.

In addition, AI can also take into account past influencer content performance, revealing the platforms and types of content that will generate the most engagement. This allows brands to know where their marketing dollars would best be used so that when they draft a partnership proposal for a specific influencer, they know exactly what to include.

Tracking Performance and Success

In the past, measuring the success of influencer marketing campaigns has been a little bit of a guessing game. Interaction-based metrics like shares, link clicks, and likes have helped measure effectiveness previously, but with the evolution of the social media influencing ecosystem, we now know that they can paint an incomplete picture, especially as interactions don’t always translate to sales. However, AI is changing this by giving brands access to sophisticated analytics tools that track campaign performance in real time.

Instead of just looking at surface-level interactions, AI can track metrics like click-through rates, website visits, profile visits, and even sales conversions directly attributable to an influencer campaign on a per-account level, giving brands greater insight into what specific behaviors are being driven by the influencer’s content. This granular level of detail is what E29 utilizes for our clients, as it allows brands to see precisely what’s working and what’s not, enabling them to optimize their campaigns for maximum impact.

The Flexibility to Change Gears

Unfortunately, not every influencer marketing campaign is a runaway success, and it can be hard for brands to know what is working and what isn’t until their marketing dollars are already spent. However, with AI at their side, brands can take advantage of something of an early warning system, which can use pre-set algorithms to look for hiccups in important engagement metrics, brand mentions, and sentiment.

When a red flag appears, AI can not only swiftly identify what elements are underperforming, but also make course correction recommendations on the fly powered by data-driven insights. From suggesting something as small as a messaging adjustment to recommending bigger changes like switching platforms, AI can help brands get the insights they need to make sure they stay on track with their influencing efforts.

Despite what some doom-sayers may think, AI is not here to replace the human touch in influencer marketing.  Instead, we believe brands can look at AI as a powerful tool that empowers both themselves and the influencers they work with to make data-informed decisions that will make partnerships easier to forge, metrics easier to track, and agility more possible in an ever-changing world.

Ready to dive headfirst into a data-driven influencer marketing campaign? E29 specializes in crafting cutting-edge marketing strategies that leverage the latest technology to keep your brand one-step ahead of the competition. Contact us today and let’s discuss how AI and other tools can help supercharge your next influencer marketing campaign.