Things you need to know about influencer whitelisting Share via

Influencer marketing has emerged as one of the most popular digital marketing tools in the last few years, and subsequently, brand marketers have increased their spending on it and made it an integral part of their marketing mix. While according to some research, as much as 82% of consumers are likely to follow the influencer’s recommendations they are following on social media, around 75 percent of marketers said that influencer marketing has been effective in garnering customer loyalty.

But off late, there has been some drop in the organic reach of the influencer’s posts across all social media platforms, and brands are looking to invest their resources and time on things that are helping them generate significant ROI and are beneficial for them. Hence, amplifying the influencer content has become necessary from the brand’s perspective, as it is helping them to reach newer audiences as well as produce greater ROI for their business. This is where influencer whitelisting comes into play.

Influencer whitelisting is a process where the influencer or the content creator permits the brands to advertise on their social media accounts, allowing brands to optimize paid media behind influencer content. This strategy enables brands to work with influencers to create content aligned with the company’s voice and image. It is a win-win situation for both brands and influencers; businesses can amplify the content to reach a broader customer base while increasing the influencers’ reach and helping them gain new followers.

Benefits of Influencer Whitelisting for Brands

Creating Influencer Dark Post

 Dark posts are paid Instagram and Facebook ads that do not appear on the influencer’s feed but appear as ads to the potential customers the brands are specifically targeting. This method helps the brands run several variations of the ads without cluttering the feed and timelines of the influencer. In addition, instead of relying on the organic reach of the influencer, the brands can decide who sees the content, targeting the customer set more likely to buy from them.

Amplifying Influencer Content

Whitelisting allows the brands to amplify influencer content to drive and measure sales. The method permits them to reach a newer and more extensive set of audiences. It uses the first-party data from the influencer and enables the advertisers to build a look-alike set of audience, significantly increasing its reach in front of the audience most like to use the brand’s products and services.

Better Targeting

Whitelisting provides an opportunity for brands to test various ads on specific audiences through targeted posts and gauge what kind of content is working for them and what is not. Advertisers can experiment with different calls to action, content types, and content copy to check for its effectiveness and impact on the targeted customer.

Benefits of Influencer Whitelisting for Creators

Extended Reach

For influencers, whitelisting helps them to increase their audience outreach. It helps them reach out to a similar-minded audience and have the same interests but never interacted with their social media channels earlier. Many industry experts feel that in whitelisting, brands essentially pay the content creator to expose them to a bigger audience who are more likely to follow them.

Increased Following

Once the influencer is exposed to a bigger and newer set of like-minded audiences through influencer whitelisting, there are high chances that their follower counts will increase rapidly. It will also provide the influencers a chance to showcase their work in front of a massive audience base.

Improved Engagement

If the content created by the influencer resonates well with the new audience base, which is very similar to their existing followers, they will start engaging with the creator’s post, improving the engagement rate. In addition, the more they comment, like, and share the post, the more it will boost the influencer’s social media engagement.

Reduced Audience Fatigue

Since the dark posts are not visible on the content creator’s feed, it opens up the opportunity for the influencer to accept more branded work without cluttering their feed with sponsored content and risk losing followers’ interest.

Influencer whitelisting has become one of the most critical aspects of influencer marketing which has shown brands how amplification of content adds value to their campaign and results in better ROI. There are certain challenges and drawbacks to this method, which we will discuss in the next blog, but overall it has proven to be a sound strategy that’s gaining prominence with brand marketers.