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The era of short-lived content began with Snapchat but has since taken the digital world by storm, with interest for transitory or ephemeral content spiking on Facebook and Instagram. Marketers now structure influencer campaigns to include these kinds of posts in a bid to be more interactive, relevant and in-the-moment.
At GetCraft, 7 in every 10 influencer briefs we hand out to creators include short-lived content as a requirement from clients, often to complement regular posts but increasingly also as standalone executions. Beyond observing that Stories help other content types perform, clients tout short-lived content for its ability to make content more genuine and the relationship real-time and warm.
We teamed up with Facebook on June 27 for a forum titled “Is Content Still King If Short-lived?” at the Facebook Philippines Office. It featured a panel discussion between Laurie Lee, client partner at Facebook, Traveloka social media manager Ces Vitan and influencers Vern and Verniece Enciso.
From left to right: Ces Vitan, Social Media Manager, Traveloka; influencers Verniece and Vern Enciso; Kate Delos Reyes, GetCraft Managing Director - Philippines; Laurie Lee, Client Partner, Facebook
Here are some of our takeaways from the event:
While your influencer brief should generally include clear goals, expected results and required deliverables described in detail, you must keep in mind that authenticity is key in influencer marketing. Briefs that are too stiff not only turn your audience off with hard-sell messaging, it also makes influencers iffy, something that will likely show in how they present your brand.
Vern and Verniece Enciso said the freedom to experiment sparks much more creativity and excitement than working with a brand that is unwilling to compromise with their briefs. One of their favorite brands, they added, gave them a clear brief which simply included the campaign’s message and the product they had to feature in the sponsored post. “The execution was completely up to us,” Vern recalled, resulting in posts that felt real and candid.
Traveloka’s Ces Vitan agreed, as she encouraged fellow marketers to stay open to new ideas from content creators. “We get a lot of creative ideas when we let influencers do their magic,” she said. Vitan shared that they’ve had campaigns based on ideas from influencers in their most sincere moments such as when using Stories or Live features of platforms.
Click here to work with SoutheastAsia's influencers
Another benefit of including short-lived content in your influencer marketing strategy is that it can effectively create hype around promotions or events. Vitan vouches for Instagram Stories as strong promotional tool for flash sales and offline activations. In the same manner that a limited edition of products creates a scarcity effect, the time-sensitive nature of short-lived content is more likely to prompt immediate action than the usual static post.
The stream of engagement is a welcome result, of course, but Vitan noted that it also challenges their team to be more agile amid comments and an influx of inquiries. “Every one of us has to commit to answering each inquiry to keep the engagement going,” she said.
Metrics provide good benchmarks for brands when choosing influencers to work with on campaigns. So while it makes sense for you to ask influencers about the performance of their engagement with other brands in previous campaigns, you also need to keep in mind that numerous factors impact the success of a campaign. “The performance of posts for one brand will differ from those for another brand, since the briefs are also different,” Vern Enciso explained.
Some questions worth asking are: Does the influencer embody the lifestyle of your product? Was there a clear brief? Did you use the right influencer marketing channel to send out your message? Addressing these factors might help keep your expectations in check.
Influencer marketing on social media can be challenging. An even greater challenge is to extend the relationship online. Vitan said that at Traveloka, they make the most of this strategy through influencer-led events and workshops aligned with the brand’s marketing goals. “The product of influencer marketing is not just a post on social media,” she said. “There is always a possibility of an on-ground event.”
Our surveys of influencers in the Philippines and Indonesia show that event attendance is the second most common influencer service brands require. To Verniece Enciso, for her part, cited being at the Facebook office that day as an example of how she leverages short-lived content to share her own real-time experiences—even stating that her first instinct upon arriving was to post a tour of the Facebook office via an Instagram Story!
Much like how influencers share the performance of their posts to prove the value of the service they provide, marketers must also share the same figures (to their bosses, mainly) to justify the need for such campaigns. For you to get enough marketing budget to sustain executions on Instagram, Vitan said it is crucial that you showcase how each of the posts performs. She then passed the question onto platforms, noting that marketers will benefit from more easily retrievable data.
Vitan was quick to say yes when asked whether Traveloka is willing to pay for Instagram Stories by influencers even when the posts will only be up for 24 hours. “It’s great if influencers just add it as a bonus, though!” she joked. Traveloka’s experience with influencer campaigns led to impressive results in terms of Instagram Story reach, convincing them, Vitan said, to leverage more on short-lived content for their brand this year.
