The digital world is vast. It's a landscape outgrown of its boundaries. There is always some innovation happening, and eventually, the significant organizations and industries surrender to the growing fashion of social media. The size of social media is enormous. It covers all kinds of audiences, from millennials to adults to aged ones. The dominating prevalence of social media in our lives has given a scope of opportunities to companies by approaching us through influencer marketing campaigns. Like each social media platform is designed differently according to their audience, the companies can quickly identify their target market and conduct a campaign accordingly. To stay abreast of the latest trends and statistics, your marketing teams have to be updated with their homework.
Image Source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/influencer-marketing-mistakes/
One such trend that has moved the dynamics of social media is Influencer marketing. But the question is, what exactly is influencer marketing? Well, Influencer Marketing is a trend that involves working with influential people who are well-known on social media platforms to promote the brand, its product/services, and the marketing campaigns.
This
is a fresh way to drive traffic and educate the audience about your brand and
its products. As per the experts, it
is considered to be one of the most effective manners of business expansion.
This helps the organizations to hold attention among the crowd and reinforce
brand awareness and engage the audience. Many big brands are already practicing
influencer marketing and witnessing the power of it. According to one of the reports by
Linqia, Influencer marketing was used by 86% marketers in 2017. And 88.5% of
them considered it to be an excellent initiative for their marketing
strategies. Therefore, it is pivotal for
business leaders to explore the other side of marketing, which is trend-based,
influencer marketing irrespective of the size of their company.
What is Influencer Marketing, and who are these influencers?
It is essential first to understand the method of Influencer Marketing. It is the process of collaborating with influencers to promote your brand and its services. To put influencer marketing into action, you must spot the right influencer first. Now, we need to seek a better meaning to the term "influencers," who are they and how do they promote your brand and its services. So, social media is a platform where many known names, celebrities, and fame- holders are holding themselves. They have the potential to influence their audience to look into the brands they are endorsing. These celebrities share a friendly relationship with their followers, which helps organizations have the face of the brand.
Through these influencers, companies can make a significant impact in the lives of the followers/audience. The social media influencer holds plenty of followers who personally connect with their fan base and interact from time to time. Social media platforms help these influencers to develop a trusted community of audiences called "followers" who look up to them as role models. Through their social media handles, these influencers increase their followers by showing their talent or skills. With as many posts as they share, the engagement keeps growing and followers too. Surely, influencers have a powerful impact on their followers. And this power can be put to promote brands to reach out to the target audience in a friendly manner. Since these influencers are the face of your brand, the trust factor becomes a natural part. They promote your product and services in their unique style. The process of influencer marketing helps in increase in sales, higher ROI, and brand reputation spikes up too.
By
working with them, you can create a potential marketing strategy and execute it
centering the brand. According to experts,
social media users are expected to be around 3.5 billion. It is such a massive
platform for all kinds of industries to hold the attention of their target
audience in a short period. For any business to progress, reaching out to the
target audience is very crucial. Influencer Marketing aids you to do it with
much ease. However, due to the cutthroat competition and ever-changing social
media trends, you need to be sure of the right influencer to make a fierce
impact on your audience. Influencer marketing saves your time and innovatively
does your task. When an influencer voice out for your brand, automatically, the
credibility of your brand increases. This drives the trust factor among the
followers and boosts your promotions too. When an acquainted face talks, the
trust factor is undoubtedly higher and yields better results than a new face.
What
kind of strategic content do these influencers use for the marketing campaigns?
The
content created by an influencer is considered more authentic as it comes from
the real people interacting with their followers daily. Their understanding of
the audience is more authoritative than any. They create content based on
engagement in the form of Likes and comments on social media posts. If the
influencer's followers like the post, it is very likely it will be further
shared and enhance your brand reputation. When an influencer recommends a product
service, it is natural for the followers to notice and get drawn to it.
These
factors are beneficial as they help in lead generation, increasing sales, and
higher ROI. It also grows your business. Therefore, collaboration with an
influencer has a positive impact on your business. They ensure more engagement
and web search rankings.
Influencer marketing also works on your inbound marketing and backlink profile. An influencer marketing campaign aids in high-quality backlinks. As they create a highly entertaining user-centric campaign, that aces the marketing history of your organization.
How
does Influencer Marketing help your business grow?
According to a survey, influencer marketing ranked on top of the list of fastest-growing customer acquisition marketing methods. The practice of influencer marketing has encouraged many business leads and marketers to take a keen interest in it. Therefore, the influencer marketing campaign is much more likely to give fierce competition to your competitor brands and drive your desired results.
1) Set Your Goals: You need to be aware of your expectations from the influencer marketing campaign, like do you want a high- quality backlink, or do you want more engagement on your website or if you only want increased sales. Be prepared with your answers. Your goals will center on which kind of influencers you should collaborate and what your marketing campaign looks like. You should ensure the final impact of your campaign should get you closer to your set goal.
It is essential to have a well-shaped list of objectives laid before you, so your approach is sorted when you collaborate with the influencer. This will make it easier for the influencer to evaluate the success and scope of your campaign. Moreover, it is crucial to specify your budget to the influencer for your marketing campaign. Your budget matters a lot as that decides the influencer you will work with. Regardless of the budget, you must attempt to provide the chosen resources to the influencer as that determines the future and quality of your marketing campaign.
2)
Look out for the Right Influencers: The future dynamics of your marketing
campaign depends on the kind of influencer you choose to collaborate. It is one
of the trickiest practices to identify the right influencer keeping your target
audience in mind. If your product won't resemble the influencer's social
handle, it can mislead the viewer and may lose their interest.
While
looking out for the right influencers, you must consider the following points:
- Influencer's
Fan base: You
must notice how large the fan base of your influencer is. That will
identify the scope of your campaign.
- Relevance: Secondly,
you will need to identify the significance of the work of your influencer.
It is crucial to see the style and method of communication the influencer
adopts to target the right audience. This will give a close idea of their
mindset.
- Experience: This
counts a lot as it will speech his stand on the social media platform. If
your campaign is holding potential for a larger audience, there's no point
collaborating with a new influencer.
- Social Platform: Some influencers are specialized at one kind of platform. To choose the right influencer, you must determine which social media platforms work best for your brand and marketing campaign.
After spotting the right influencer to collaborate with, you will have to build a relationship with them to make it easier for both to understand the goal and campaign expectations.
3) Don't be negligent to Micro-Influencers: While looking for big fish in the water, don't neglect the smaller ones. You mustn't forget micro-influencers. They have a low budget and can make small moves for you, which will benefit you too. Most known influencers charge a large sum to promote your campaign. For smaller campaigns, it is best to approach the micro-influencers. They can be impactful for their reasons like, for the freshness, they bring along.
4) User-centric content: The social media trends are always shifting, to stay updated with the most trending content, you need to do your homework. The basic idea of any influencer marketing campaign is to have meaningful and creative ideas that uniquely connect the audience with a desirable result.
The best approach is to let the influencer work solely on the content part. They are on a platform where they communicate through user-centric content regularly with their followers. Henceforth, they have a fair idea of what will be appreciated by the audience and whatnot.
5) Product Review & Testimonials: This is one of the most visible but forgotten parts of influencer marketing. When an influencer reviews your product, discuss its benefits and features over a speech or video. The impact is profound and fruitful. In brief, it helps in boosting product awareness.
6) Interactive Contests & Giveaways: Lastly, this is one of the most engaging techniques for increasing brand awareness and expanding the network. When an influencer announces a contest like tagging your friends or uploading your picture, the audience is interested in doing it. Also, when there are free giveaways, people take an interest in winning the contest. Promotional giveaways never fail. In the meantime, your marketing campaign does its magic by spreading across people faster in a unique manner with 100% engagement. It brings your brand and audience much closer.
Conclusion: Social media is a vast space with a plethora of opportunities for everyone. The audience and the influencers live under the same roof and hold a relationship with each other. Most of the known influencers have regular postings on their account to connect with the followers. This active engagement and already developed relation are very beneficial for brands like you to grow immensely with the help of influencer marketing campaigns.
