What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is a form of collaboration. A business collaborates with an influential person to promote something. It could be a product, service, or campaign.
Celebrity endorsements were the original form of influencer marketing.
But in today’s digital world, social content creators with niche audiences can often offer more value to brands. These people have dedicated and engaged groups of followers on social media. They are known simply as “social media influencers.”
More than two-thirds of North American retailers use some form of influencer marketing. And almost half of US and UK digital marketers spend at least 10% of their marketing communication budget on influencer marketing.
Not convinced influencer marketing can lead to real business results? A survey found that 34% of daily U.S. Instagram users bought something because a blogger or influencer recommended it.
Instagram is the platform of choice for social influencers. 89% of marketers identify it as one of the most important channels for influencer marketing.
About a third of the influencer content on Instagram appears in Stories. This number will likely grow this year. The swipe-up feature to link out from Instagram Stories is now available to accounts with just 10,000 followers. This makes Stories a great place to share and link to brand content.
But don’t ignore the other platforms. Nearly a quarter of daily Facebook users have made a purchase based on a blogger or influencer recommendation. So have 29% of daily Twitter users.
What is a social media influencer?
Quite simply, an influencer is someone who can influence others.
A social media influencer is someone who wields that influence through social media. The form of influence can vary and no two influencers are the same.
The right influencer can reach your target audience, build trust, and drive engagement. They create original, engaging content. They won’t be keen to follow a template advertising style provided by your brand.
So, it’s critical to work only with social media influencers whose vision aligns with your own.
Influencers can have millions of followers. Perhaps the world’s best-known influencer is Kylie Jenner. She has 135 million followers on Instagram and regularly gets millions of likes on her branded posts.
Consider the three R’s of influence
Influence is made up of three components:
- Relevance
- Reach
- Resonance
Relevance
A relevant influencer shares content relevant to your business and industry. They need to have an audience that aligns with your target market.
Reach
Reach is the number of people you could potentially reach through the influencer’s follower base.
Resonance
This is the potential level of engagement the influencer can create with an audience relevant to your brand.
Bigger isn’t always better. A huge follower count is meaningless if those followers aren’t interested in your offer. And a smaller follower count can be very powerful if it’s a niche area. Niche influencers can have very dedicated and engaged followers.
Be willing to give up some creative control
A social media influencer who has worked hard to build a following will not accept a deal that makes their own personal brand seem inconsistent. After all, influencers are content creation experts. You’ll get the best value from their work by allowing them to showcase those skills.
Measure your results
When you launch your influencer campaign, it can be tempting to focus on vanity metrics like likes and comments. If your influencer has a much larger following than you do, you might feel a little dazzled by the sheer number of likes that can rack up.
But to measure the effectiveness of a campaign, you have to understand its value in terms of return on investment.
Not sure where to start
Communication is vital. Having an agency who knows how to communicate and communicates well is the key to a successful Influencer campaign. You can view us as your middle-man, we deal with the research, we handle the communication and then we deliver quality influencer content at your finger-tips!
If you have any questions about our influencer marketing service get in touch to discuss your requirements.
