A Detailed Guide to Influencer Marketing
In the era of social media, marketing techniques have entirely revamped. One marketing strategy that is relatively new, but is used widely by almost all brands, is Influencer Marketing. Here is a complete breakdown of what is influencer marketing, and how can it be helpful for your business.
Who is an Influencer?
Many people think of influencers as big movie stars and TV personalities, with millions of fans dying for their autographs. Although movie stars and TV personalities are influencers too, they are not the only people that can be influencers.
By definition, influencers are people that can “influence” the purchasing decisions of their audience because of their authority or relationship with them. Simplifying this definition, any individual that has a significant following and engagement in a specific niche is an influencer in that particular niche.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that involves product placements and endorsements from influencers or organizations that have considerable engagement and following in a specific niche. Let’s understand this whole concept of influencer marketing with an example.
Suppose you own a fitness company, and you are launching a new fitness supplement. Now instead of running paid ads all over the internet, you will contact an influencer. An influencer in the fitness niche can be any individual that is a fitness enthusiast, is an expert in fitness, and has a large following of people who are involved in fitness. You give your product to the influencer, and the influencer promotes your product on his/her social media handle. That is, in a nutshell, influencer marketing.
Who is an influencer? Who is a micro-influencer?
As mentioned earlier, an influencer is a person that has a large following in a specific niche. However, that definition is incorrect, well, partly incorrect. The number of followers doesn’t determine the “influence” of a person. A movie celebrity with a ripped body and five million followers might not be a good influencer. Whereas, a fitness professional with 50,000 followers can have a significant influence over his audience.
For you to understand the concept of “influencing,” let’s consider three types of influencers that brands use for influencer marketing.
-
Celebrities
These are big movie stars and TV celebrities with millions of followers. They don’t have expertise in any specific niche, and most of their followers are their fans who want to follow the lives of these celebrities.
-
Influencers
Influencers are people who, in addition to a large following, have significant expertise in a specific niche. When it comes to influencers, most of their followers follow them to receive value and information.
-
Micro-influencers
Similar to influencers, micro-influencers are influencers with a comparatively smaller following. Different brands have different categorizations for micro-influencers.
Factors to be Considered when Identifying an Influencer
Influencer marketing is one of the most accessible forms of marketing, but finding good influencers is the hardest part of it. With the rise in social media, every fifth Instagram account has more than 10k followers. With so many influencers in the industry, choosing the right influencer for your brand can be a burdensome task. Here are a few factors to consider while selecting the ideal influencer for your product or brand.
Reach:
One of the first things you should check is the number of followers or audience the influencer has. However, bot following is common nowadays. Therefore, it’s crucial to make sure that your influencer’s audience is the real people.
Engagement:
More crucial than the reach, engagement determines the number of people that interact with the influencer. As a rule of thumb, more than ten percent follower to like ratio and more than one percent follower to comment ratio can be considered as good engagement. Make sure to check reach metrics and engagement metrics to get an insight into the influencer’s popularity.
Platform:
The Instagram influencer marketing industry is worth $1 billion! But, apart from Instagram and Facebook, Tik Tok, Twitter, and Snapchat are also popular choices for brands. Lately, YouTube also has emerged as one of the favorite platforms for influencer marketing. Identify the platform that best suits your brand, and then choose the influencer accordingly.
Reputation:
The reputation of influencer plays a vital role in effective influencer marketing. If influencers are considered as experts by their audience, it can help brands position themselves as trustworthy entities. Whereas, if influencers are viewed as tastemakers or creative wunderkinder, brands can use them to please their audience with the coolness or approachability of the brand.
Price and Budget:
Different brands have different marketing budgets, and the key to successful marketing is to spend less and gain more. Since influencer marketing has no standardized rates, different influencers charge different prices for endorsements and product placements. Therefore, keep your marketing budget in mind and choose an influencer accordingly.
Does Influencer Marketing Really Work?
If you have been reading this all along, you certainly have some plans about influencer marketing. But, is it worth offering thousands of dollars to people for saying a few good words about your product? Like any other type of paid marketing, influencer marketing also has a positive and a negative side.
On the positive side, influencer marketing is an excellent way to engage with millions of targeted audience. Reaching out to the right audience is one of the biggest challenges brands face. But with influencer marketing, brands are allowed to get unlimited reach without putting in any significant marketing efforts.
On the negative side, influencer marketing, like any other form of paid marketing, is a gamble. Yes, a gamble! If you blindly select influencers and pay them money, it is a blind gamble. And if you do your research and choose the apt influencer, it is still a gamble, but a calculated gamble.
A good influencer marketing strategy is to partner with numerous influencers instead of giving all your money to one big influencer. One single influencer may not be able to create a significant impact, but if various influencers promote your product, you are more likely to get attention, exposure, and sales.
How Can We Help?
As mentioned above, influencer marketing is easy, but finding the right influencer that is perfect for your brand is a challenging task. With more than three years of experience in facilitating successful influencer marketing deals, we make sure your brand gets the ideal influencer. Every product is different, and choosing an influencer depends upon the goals that you want to achieve.
Moreover, a separate marketing strategy depending upon the influencers’ audience is crucial, and failing to do so can exhaust your marketing dollars. With professional expertise in influencer marketing, Einfach Digital provides you the ideal support and strategy required for profitable and result-oriented influencer marketing.
