The No-Nonsense Guide to Gaming Influencers

Everything you need to know in 10-15 minutes

The rise and rise of influencer marketing

The influencer space has seen an unprecedented boom in recent years. By 2022, the influencer marketing industry is on track to be worth up to $15 billion.

Businesses are using this to their advantage to drive greater awareness of their brands and products, boost advocacy, and generate sales and leads. For every $1 spent on influencer marketing, businesses are making $5.20.

In fact, 89% of marketers say the return on investment from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels.

However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach and getting the strategy wrong can be costly.

The risks

Slow progress

High costs

Reputation damage

Failure to engage with gaming influencers in the correct manner poses a number of risks:

• Reputation damage: Influencers aren’t employees and aren’t under your control. Their content belongs to them and they can make mistakes. For example, if an influencer you partner with makes a racist or sexist comment during a livestream, this will reflect badly on your brand. Therefore, partnering with an influencer who ‘fits’ your brand is critical to minimise risk.

• High costs: There’s a misconception that high follower numbers and wider reach guarantees higher return on investment. This isn’t always the case –in fact, micro-influencers have seven times more engagement with followers than those with large followings. Budget should be carefully invested in influencers that will deliver the best return.

• Slow progress: Building relationships and trust with influencers can take time. Getting it wrong and not seeing results can mean having to start from scratch – months of work is wasted. Implementing the correct strategy is the only way to ensure this doesn’t happen.

Get to know themGet to know them

The two must-know categories for gaming influencers are ‘type’ and size of following.

‘Type’ refers to what kind of content the influencers posts. The main types for gaming to be

aware of are streamers, modders, PC builders, and reviewers.

Size of following dictates cost of collaboration and has a direct impact on budget allocation. A

common breakdown of size of following is:

• Celebrities: Famous influencers with at least two million followers on a single platform

• Stars: Known on social, but not in real-life, with between 500K – 2m followers

• Macro-influencers: With 100K – 500K followers, this group are on the way to being stars

• Micro-influencers: Showing early signs of success, this group has 5K – 100K followers

• Nano-influencers: Yet to establish themselves but growing, nanos have 1K – 5K followers

• Users: Any channel owner with less than 1K followers is deemed an average user

Also important is the platform that the influencer posts on. This is covered on the next page.

Where to find them

The number of platforms available to gaming influencers has

increased significantly compared with five years ago. Many

influencers prioritise posting via one main platform and

supplement this by reusing content on other platforms or using

those other platforms to reach a wider audience and drive

potential viewers back to their content.

The most commonly used platforms are: YouTube, Instagram,

Twitch, Facebook, Mixer, Twitter and SnapChat.

Ways to work with themThe more followers an influencer has, the more they’re able to charge. It’s

important to understand the various options you have for collaborating with

them to get the best possible value for money.

Product reviews: The simplest option. Influencers post content giving their review

of your product. This is often free at nano- and micro-influencer level.

Partnering on content: Here, you collaborate on content ideas. For example, the

content could be a build, a challenge you set, or a competition you fund.

Sponsorship: With many influencers seeking to make this their full-time focus, an

increasing number are requesting sponsorship.

Advertising: Influencers will run your ads on their stream/videos/social media

channels. This can be especially cost-effective at micro-influencer level.

Paid-for content: Typically influencers only post on their own channels, but savvy

brands are seeing the value in publishing contributed content from paid

influencers on their own website, social channels and PR materials.

The process for success

There may not be a one-size-fits-all strategy, but there is a straightforward six step process that should always be followed for implementing effective influencer marketing:

Define

your

goals

Research

and

diversification

Outreach

and

engagement

Ongoing

influencer

management

Reach

an

agreement

Measure

and

refine

When embarking on

influencer marketing, it’s

easy to let the excitement

take over and dive

immediately into outreach.

Before you begin though,

it’s important to agree

clear goals.

Increase awareness of a brand, product or service

Reach new audiences

Generate sales

Improve brand advocacy

Drive lead generation

Define your goals

Five common goals are:

Research and diversification

Your goals will directly impact which influencers

you work with. Once they’ve been set, the next

step is to research and identify which influencers

satisfy your goals and which align with your brand.

A common error is to target influencers of a similar

‘type’, but diversification is important – creating a

bench made up of different types of influencers

(streamers, modders, PC builders, and reviewers)

enables a wider reach among audiences with

different interests.

Research and diversification cont’d

0

2

4

6

8

10Audience size

Audience quality

Target groupaccuracy

Engagement as a %of followers

Brand fit

Regularity of posting

Micro-influencer Macro-influencer“Which influencers should we target?” is a question we’re

asked frequently. You shouldn’t be choosing based on

audience size alone. The following criteria should inform

your decision:

• Audience size

• Audience quality

• Target group accuracy

• Brand fit

• Regularity of posting

• Engagement as a % of followers

As you can see on the graph, micro-influencers can often

be a better option than the bigger macro-influencers.

Even if the audience is bigger, the quality may be lower, it

may not suit your campaign, engagement may be low,

and the content may not fit your brand. They’re also

much more affordable.

Outreach and engagement

Outreach is a stage of the process that is often underestimated in terms

of complexity. After all, it’s just sending an email or making a call, right?

Wrong.

Influencers receive hundreds of emails from brands. Why should an

influencer partner with you over any other brand? What if you can’t

compete with another brand’s higher budget – what can you offer

instead?

No outreach should begin before you know the answers to these

questions. Otherwise, the likelihood of engaging your target influencers

in the right way is low.

You’re not simply offering money in exchange for a post, shoutout or ad.

You’re trying to engage the influencer in your brand, to get them to buy

into what you’re doing and become loyal. Think of outreach and

engagement as more of a sales exercise than procurement. You’re

winning them over, not buying them.

Reach the right agreement

In most marketing activities – conducting surveys, advertising, design projects, etc –brands are in control. This isn’t the case with influencers. They’re in control, despite the fact you’re paying for their service. They answer to themselves and their audience, so your proposal has to align with how they operate their channel, the type of content they post, and their personality.

As a result, reaching the right agreement can be a challenge – because the ‘right agreement’ for you, will likely not suit many influencers.

Based on our experience, the best way to ensure a mutually beneficial agreement is to propose a collaboration that you’ve tailored to that influencer. An influencer that doesn’t do product reviews isn’t going to post a video all about your product, for example. But if that same influencer does PC builds, you can propose the use of your product in a series of build videos they produce.

Getting this right from the start will save you a lot of time early in the campaign and help build relationships with influencers who can be long-term brand advocates.

Measure and refine

Working with influencers is like any other marketing activity in that it mustbe measured. Key performance indicators should be set early and all activities must be measurable against these.

Engagement, clicks, impressions, conversions, and reach are all common KPIs used in influencer marketing. Where possible, having insight on incoming traffic to your website will enable you to identify which influencers are channelling potential customers to your product pages and which are contributing to sales.

With the above data, you can make informed decisions. You can strengthen relations and assign more budget to influencers that are helping you reach your goals. Whereas, where other influencers haven’t delivered the returns anticipated, you can consider alternative ways of working with them or pausing activities planned with them.

Over time, this will help refine your influencer marketing efforts, so time and resources is invested in the influencers making a meaningful contribution.

Ongoing management

Influencers offer value long after they’ve published the content you’ve

collaborated on. Take a PC build as an example – it’s not often the influencer will

be sponsored by every component supplier, which means they’ll often use a

product they already own when they’ve not been supplied. It offers an

opportunity for brands to be included in content over and over again, without

further investment.

This is where ongoing management comes in – it’s the final piece in the puzzle.

You want to make sure you’re consistently up to date on what they’re working on

and if they require support, to make the most of low/no cost opportunities.

Focus on building a good relationship during the initial outreach period,

strengthening this during the collaboration, and keeping in touch after. It’s

simple, but often overlooked by brands who turn their attention to others.

Remember that the gaming influencer world is small – an influencer you

previously worked with will see you working with other brands, so don’t let them

feel you’ve forgotten them or weren’t happy enough with their work.

Firefly: Proven experience, proven results

Firefly is a pan-European PR agency that specialises in shaping the reputations of global technology

companies. We work closely with influencers on behalf of our clients to hit their goals by delivering

results that matter.

Recently, we developed the influencer programme of Micron Technology brand Crucial from scratch,

implementing a strategy that engaged micro- and macro-influencers in cost-free inclusion in content

published on two priority platforms: Instagram and YouTube.

By building mutually beneficial relationships with influencer targets and adding value, Crucial saw

maximum return from a strategy that required only product to be supplied to influencers. We agreed a

mix of content to be produced, from inclusion in PC builds, to dedicated product reviews.

In January 2020 alone, we secured Crucial products zero-cost inclusion in 19 separate Instagram posts

by TechRaptor, a well-established macro-influencer with 216K followers. This is in addition to zero-cost

inclusion in content from TechBlock (132K subscribers) and micro-influencer MXDOUT (16.1K

subscribers) in the same month.

For most brands targeting gaming influencers, there is significant opportunity to secure high volumes

of no cost and low cost coverage on well-known influencers’ channels. We can support you with this.

Do any of the below apply to you?

• At the start of your influencer journey and could

benefit from support

• Already engaged with influencers but progress

is slow

• Disappointed with the results of your influencer

marketing efforts

If so, we can help.

To discuss your influencer needs further, Firefly’s

expertise and how we can support you, please

contact Charlotte Stoel via:

Charlotte.Stoel@fireflycomms.com