Top 10 Influencer Marketing Mistakes Brands Make Just Too Often

20/01/2025
Article by Kira Chesalina, Creative Director AAA Agency

Top 10 Influencer Marketing Mistakes Brands Make Just Too Often image

Crafted a campaign with well-thought brief and perfect influencers to match your audience but still got close to zero engagement? You might have fallen into one of the marketing mistakes on the way!

When handled properly, influencer marketing can be a straightforward path to all the love and connection you can have with your audience. Yet, brands often miss key details at each stage. Experts from AAA Agency are here to help you hone your focus as sharp as a blade, so nothing can slip through the cracks!

Two Common Mistakes When Preparing a Campaign

1. Your audience portrait is too narrow or outdated

The problem with a narrow audience portrait is a tricky one — you might feel confident you’ve nailed your audience analysis, and you might not be wrong. But it could still be short of what’s needed. Imagine, you are marketing a fitness product. First idea? Target professional bodybuilders! Still, focusing on such a narrow niche limits your potential and leads to poor sales and engagement. 

Solution: Think about more segments interested in your product. In our example, that could be casual gym-goers, people interested in weight loss, or those looking for general wellness products. Diversify your content to reach them — health recipe integrations or fun quizzes for yoga lovers — it’s a creative playground for you.

An outdated portrait comes from the belief that you already know your audience because you’ve worked with them before. Whereas audience behavior changes at least once in six months. To target teenagers, gaming brands still ask for influencers who focus on games like Minecraft or Roblox. At the same time, very different games are trending among teenagers compared to few years back.

Solution: Always update your knowledge on your audience’s preferences before launching a campaign. Know their lifestyle — where they hang out online, their favorite platforms, influencers, and interests. Tap into sociological research to uncover what drives them and what they care about.

2. You don’t have a proper strategy

When the results don’t satisfy you it may be because you haven’t defined specific goals for it or do not act according to them. Engagement or loyalty? Awareness or community building? Sales or brand trust? Brand ambassadorship with a nano influencer might work poorly for wide reach but will do perfectly well for trust and community building. 

Solution: Map every single step you are going to take and align it with your goal and expectations of your audience: platforms, types of integrations, creative paths you go down, the scale of influencers you work with, etc.

The #1 Mistake When Organizing the Work

3. You do not delegate tasks

Letting go of control might be scary. There’s fear that your creative vision will be changed or lost in someone else’s hands. Still, each task needs a dedicated expert, who can nail it down to the last detail. If you are a creative strategist, getting caught up in adjusting briefs or managing influencer communication can take away the time you need for your core process.

Solution: Streamline your workflow with the use of managing apps and check-up meetings to track the progress and give feedback at each stage of execution. Work towards building a team of people who see eye to eye with your creative methods and understand your vision.

Top 2 Mistakes When Partnering with Influencers

4. You only work with one scale of creators

Remember the previous paragraph: your influencer choice depends on your goals and target audience, so you should always leave room for flexibility. We’ve all heard about nano-influencers taking center stage because of the immense engagement they can get you. Should middle influencers and celebrities be left out? We don’t think so! 

Solution: Align your influencer choice with your goals and, if possible, combine influencers of different scales, or even add a virtual tinge to your campaign. This way, you’ll tap into the broad reach AND engagement. Plus, macro-influencers will create polished professional content, while micro-influencers will bring a more personal touch.

5. You do not use influence to the full

It is not enough to have an influencer appear in your ad. Think about how to leverage their ultimate superpower: the ability to move the crowd and shape opinions. Partnering with an influencer who already connects with your target audience gives you a strong advantage. However, followers may be skeptical of sponsored content, so you need to find creative ways to engage them.

Solution: Brainstorm together to create content that aligns with their voice, builds a connection with their followers, sparks conversation, and amplifies your message in a compelling way.

The Three Biggest Creative Blunders

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6. You neglect creative formats

    Standard integrations are close to a relic of the past. Since advertising is moving towards «advertainment», there’s a growing focus on creative projects that span media platforms and even go offline. Mixed-media approach holds vast potential. User attention is so fleeting that new ways to engage them should be found constantly, whether it’s transmedia storytelling, cross-industry collaborations, or something entirely new.

    Solution: Add more creative solutions to your toolkit. But remember: to yield results, they must be justified with the campaign’s objectives, and the team should be equipped with the necessary means and clear expectations. 

    7. You’re too focused on the primary brief

      There can be many reasons for the brief to fail (check the mistake #1). In any case, it happens when you are too stuck with your initial plan. Influencer marketing is ever-evolving, and new insights often emerge as you craft the campaign, so be ready to embrace those. For one thing, new trends or conversations may pop up, and capitalizing on these in real-time can make your content feel more relevant.

      Solution: Be more flexible and give more creative freedom to your influencer. They may suggest tweaks based on what their followers are responding to, such as a more casual tone or a different format for the content.

      8. You do not know trends or use them wrongly

        Influencers and everyday users set trends, leaving brands to follow. But jumping on a trend just for the sake of it often backfires. Brands should approach trends thoughtfully, adding new value to the story. Last summer, as the TikTok influencer sparked a frenzy with the ironic “very demure, very mindful” videos, some brands hopped on very smartly. Squid Game-inspired memes? Sure! And don’t forget about the ongoing social trends, like deinfluencing.

        Solution: Keep a close eye on digital trends and conversations, but approach them with creativity and smart communication. One way to stand out is by leaving witty, meme-inspired comments on viral videos, keeping your brand in the conversation without forcing it.

        Two Mistakes You Can Make While Measuring the Campaign 

        9. You mistake influence for traffic tool 

          Influencers are not so much about ROI as they are about engagement, loyalty, and building trusted relationships with the audience. Instead of thinking of influencers as a quick-sales tool, brands should view them as a means to drive lasting impact on the audience’s behavior, so the true results of your campaign lie in how it’s perceived and whether it’s talked about.

          Solution: Besides the ROI, track other metrics, such as engagement and sentiment. They provide insights into how the audience views the campaign and allow brands to optimize it in real-time. You may also include earned media value (EMV), which focuses on the content creator’s efforts and simultaneously looks at engagement and reach. 

          10. You measure results right after the campaign

            Brands may expect immediate sales and direct clicks from the first post, however, the impact of influencer marketing campaigns is often delayed. Influencer audiences are real, engaged people who build connections over time. While they may not buy immediately, after getting familiar with a product, they will become your most loyal customers. It usually takes at least three integrations to kickstart the funnel.

            Solution: When developing your strategy, plan for the audience’s journey from awareness to consideration, and ultimately, conversion. As you track results, don’t forget to consider long-term tools, such as the increase in brand recognition over time, the quality of new followers and lifetime customer value (LTV).

            From Fail to Flourish

            Mistakes are a natural part of growth, so don’t worry if you’ve spotted a few you made once… or twice… It all comes with experience and the willingness to give energy into changing your patterns. At AAA Agency, we learned our way through errors and blunders. If you’re looking for guidance or support, reach out to us, and we’ll help you get back on trAAAck!

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