Some businesses assume that influencer marketing is a new trend when, in fact, it’s something derived from celebrity endorsements. Like celebrities, influencers come with their own audience, and businesses use the influencer as a medium to make potential customers out of their fanbase. Influencers usually gain prominence on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and they build an audience through niche interests like fitness, makeup, cooking, and more.
Many social media agencies are actually shifting their marketing strategies to accommodate influencer marketing. Even big brands like Gucci and Samsung are incorporating influencers into their marketing strategies. If you’re not contacting influencers to expand your brand awareness, consider starting as early as now.
You may still be skeptical about whether influencer marketing even works and if it’s worth investing in. This article will walk you through the importance of influencer marketing and how you can get started.
Advantages of influencer marketing
Influencer marketing won’t have gotten this big and widespread if it doesn’t work.
Back then, marketers had clear avenues for marketing their products: print media or television. Nowadays, with the creation of the internet and various social media platforms, user bases are splintering into different niche categories, and it has become increasingly difficult for brands to reach their intended audience. Additionally, consumers take measures to avoid advertisements, even going so far as to pay a premium for an ad-free browsing experience. This is where influencer marketing comes in. Most influencers have a specific demographic to which they cater. Locating and collaborating with these influencers allows a brand to advertise to its target audience.
While some marketers still swear by celebrity endorsements, others argue that influencer marketing is more valuable nowadays. Even though an established celebrity has a bigger fanbase, they cost more to book, and more people assume that all their endorsements are paid for and ingenuous. Influencers hold a more intimate and trusted relationship with their audience thanks to their active social media presence, so any recommendation they make is treated with more weight. In fact, recent studies have only proven this hypothesis. Only 1% of millennial consumers trust advertisements and commercials, while 33% trust reviews from top blogs and influencers. On top of that, 40% of consumers claimed to have bought a product after seeing it used by an influencer.
Building consumer trust has always been crucial for a brand, but even more so now, with the growing public distrust of big businesses. By working with someone, your target audience already trusts, you stand a higher chance of converting them.
Building your influencer strategy
Those of you who are new to the social media game may have no idea how to get your influencer marketing strategy off the ground. If you’re not careful, you can easily make a few rookie mistakes that end up being detrimental to your brand. Seattle Social Media Agency offers some sound advice on what steps to take for a solid influencer social media strategy.
Choose the right influencer
You can’t just choose the biggest influencer on a certain platform and pay them to promote your product. Consumers are smarter than most brands think, and most of them will know immediately if an influencer’s recommendation is ingenuine. To avoid this, you need to create a more organic partnership with influencers who share your target audience. If you’re a brand selling vegan food alternatives, reach out to influencers who have publicly expressed being vegan or those who promote the lifestyle.
Be careful of falling into the trap of fake influencers. Don’t just look at the number of followers since some influencers buy followers to inflate their numbers. Instead, look at their posts’ engagements. The numbers on their engagements are more indicative of their active audience than their follower count. An ideal like-to-follower ratio is around 1-3%. There are other red flags you can look out to catch fake influencers, so research well before sending any emails or DMs.
Build a relationship
Once you’ve chosen an influencer to work with, decide how you want to work with them. There are multiple approaches to building a brand-influencer relationship. You can either send them your products with no strings attached and hope that they enjoy them enough to share them with their audience, or you can make the terms, expectations, and fees clear from the start by formally hiring them to work with you as a brand ambassador. You can also offer a middle ground where you can send them products specifically to review and feature in exchange for discount codes and giveaways for their audience.
You can’t expect this step to succeed overnight, and if you’re targeting bigger influencers, don’t expect a quick response since they’re probably receiving hundreds of emails daily from other brands. Patience is key.
Be a brand influencers will want to work with
Most influencers have high standards for the brands they will work with because their reputation is also on the line. They won’t recommend unknown or suspicious brands to their audience, so you have to prove your brand is trustworthy. Have a professionally designed website or a strong social media presence at the ready should they decide to do a background check on you.
Monitor the outcome
Once your influencer collaboration takes off, track your metrics to see how this partnership affects your business. Generally, brands expect a spike in site traffic after a post or a YouTube video. Bigger success indicators would be unpaid PR coverage and increased social mentions. If you obtain results you’re happy with; it’s a sign that you should pursue a stronger partnership. Otherwise, try working with another influencer.
Influencer marketing will produce great results for your brand when used effectively, but a social media agency still warns against the various risks posed by choosing the wrong influencer. With the cutthroat attitude of social media users, your business can just as easily come crashing down if an influencer you work with behaves offensively. Be careful about influencers who are too young, unprofessional, and immature, as they can impact your business negatively.
