Business and Bloggers: How Much Latvian Celebrities Charge for Advertising on Social Media

Undeniably, the growing popularity of such a promotional tool as “advertising with bloggers”, or “influencer marketing”, deserves attention. Many goods and services, online stores, restaurants and bars, fashion brands and handicraft makers are successfully promoted with the help of blogs. Latvian celebrities’ social media accounts now feature advertising for both small businesses and exceptionally successful brands.

How Much Does Advertising with the Most Popular Bloggers Cost?

Advertising with bloggers who have millions of followers costs between 1,000 and 10,000 euros per post or video. For example, one of Latvia’s best-known YouTube bloggers, Stas Davidov (the show “This Is Horosho”), charges around 4,000 euros for a single video integration; within its framework, your brand can be seen by one million people.

However, there are only a few bloggers in Latvia with millions of followers, while there are very many macro- and micro-influencers.

“Micro-influencers – the most affordable channel for native advertising. Advertising with a blogger whose audience is up to 10,000 followers costs approximately 50–100 euros. But beginner bloggers, with an audience of up to 5,000 followers (often called nano-influencers), frequently agree to work on a barter basis as well—in exchange for a product or service. Moreover, advertising on such accounts often performs even better than on macro-influencers’ profiles, which have already ‘overfed’ their audiences with commercialised posts,” says Alīna Lisina, a marketer and organiser of the influencer-marketing conference Click&Connect.

Where to Find “Your” Blogger

While there are specialised agencies and platforms abroad, in Latvia you have only two options—contact bloggers directly or turn to the organisers of Click&Connect, the Baltics’ only conference and networking venue for getting to know bloggers.

“We work with both micro- and macro-influencers. Working with bloggers with the help of marketers has obvious advantages—we always recommend how to create advertising copy as effectively as possible. We select the right influencer and help find a creative solution acceptable to everyone. Because it is no secret that, for a post to work, it must be created skilfully, and it must not look like cheap advertising. If you contact bloggers directly, be prepared for some of them not to respond: some have a waiting list for placements, while others accept only highly specific advertising or work, for example, only with large brands,” says Dmitrijs Krasnovskis, a marketer and organiser of Click&Connect.

Mistakes Businesses Make When Working with Bloggers

Mistake 1: Assessing Only the Number of Followers

Followers are important, but the most important factor is the level of audience engagement. For a good account, the number of comments reaches 8–10% of the number of “likes”. Comments should be natural and relevant to the topic, rather than written in a bot-like manner: “Nice pic”, “This is awesome”, and so on. When you visit the account of an authoritative blogger, you will understand this immediately—just read the comments below the post. Commenters view advertising from a genuine influencer as a recommendation. They thank the blogger for the advertising content.

Mistake 2: “Likes” as the Main Measure of Advertising Effectiveness

The main indicator of advertising effectiveness is whether the post pays for itself. If, within a week of the advertising being published, you manage to earn more than the post cost, the advertising was successful. To track purchases made following a blogger’s recommendation, you can assign them a promo code or a unique link.

The number of people who started following you after seeing the advertising is also important, as they are potential future customers.

Mistake 3: Businesses and Bloggers Do Not Understand Each Other

Businesses often put pressure on bloggers, forcing them to engage in direct and overt advertising. Bloggers value their audiences highly and know what their audiences will respond to best. That is why such dictation does not work.

On the other hand, bloggers sometimes refuse to experiment as well, because the only thing that interests them is money.

Quality influencers are always ready for cooperation and dialogue. And if you hear, “Send me the photo and text, and I’ll publish everything tomorrow,” that is a reason to be cautious and look for another influencer.

Mistake 4: Advertising with Bloggers Is Expensive

Advertising with the wrong bloggers is expensive because it does not pay off. If you have published advertising with one or two bloggers and have not achieved the expected effect, that is not a reason to conclude that this tool does not work. You may have chosen the wrong blogger (for example, you advertised a bar in Riga, but the core of the blogger’s audience is from Russia), or the post may have turned out to be too pushy/boring/untruthful.

Our recommendation is to correct your mistakes and try advertising with bloggers again. But it would be better to attend the Click&Connect 5 conference in March to understand this topic and meet interesting influencers.

Information prepared by the agency “Advanced Learning & Communications”, www.alc.lv