The rise of social media has opened new avenues for digital marketing. One of the fastest-developing techniques is influencer marketing. But what is influencer marketing, and should you try it out? Discover what you need to know about this marketing technique.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is when a business partners with an online influencer to promote services or products. Social media influencers, unlike celebrities, can be any person and on any social media platform. The only qualification is that they must have massive followers on social media. For example, an influencer can be a cybersecurity blogger on Twitter or a fashion photographer on Instagram.
What Are Types of Social Media Influencers?
The main attribute of a social media influencer is a large following, but influencers do not necessarily need millions of followers. Some brands prefer working with niche influencers for better engagement. In addition, niche influencers charge less than influencers with millions of followers.
For instance, you can work with nano influencers with a few thousand followers or a micro-influencer with tens of thousands of followers. Another category is that of macro influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers but not more than a million. If your budget allows, you can go for mega influencers with millions of followers.
What Should You Look Out For?
In contrast to digital marketing methods, influencer marketing will only work if the brand and the influencer trust each other. Trust is essential even when you sign legal contracts with the influencer.
As a brand, you must ensure that the influencer’s content won’t have a negative impact on your brand. For example, offensive content can have major negative consequences on your brand’s reputation.
Your business should also determine whether the influencer’s followers are real people. Some influencers might buy fake followers to create the impression of a bigger fan base than they actually have. Check whether the influencers have organic followers manually or with an online tool. The tool analyzes the influencer’s social media pages for any signs of spam or anomalies in overall activity.
Learn how you can create your influencer marketing strategy:
- Choose a platform. Select the social media platform that you want to market on. You can either ask your regular customers for suggestions or get advice from influential players in your industry.
- Set a budget. Create a budget for paying influencers as well as for planning, executing, and managing their influencer program. If you have a substantial budget, you can even work with an influencer agency and get access to a lot of influencers.
- Create goals and determine the message. Most companies use influencer marketing to boost sales and increase brand awareness. You can go further and create more specific tools, like increasing engagement with your content or targeting a specific demographic.
- Contact influencers. Get legitimate influencers who typically post about topics related to your services or products.
After you hire the influencer, remember to review and fine-tune your strategy continually.
What Are the Benefits of Influencer Marketing?
The main advantage of influencer marketing is to increase your brand awareness and get new leads. Influencers can also help your company nurture new relationships and create trust and credibility in a new market. People often trust influencers more than direct advertisements. You can also use influencers if you don’t have enough content to put on your social media pages.
Creating an effective marketing strategy is not easy. A better solution is to let Grow Team connect you to digital marketing agencies that can help you. We help our customers connect to the right marketing agency. Contact us for more information.