The trend of influencer marketing is on the rise. With social media being a prime component of digital marketing when it comes to marketing campaigns, there are new tactics to add to your business model. The uprising of social media presence has made influencers partnering with brands a staple when it comes to promoting a new product or service.
Influencer marketing is still a fairly new concept and as experimental as it is, it provides a variety of possibilities and direction for a brand to go in. Having influencers helps develop a strong connection with your market. They are essentially the living representations of a Yelp review that have a platform for your potential audience. Influencer marketing has proved itself to be a powerhouse in the marketing world because it brings a great deal of trust into the equation. Individuals are more inclined to make a purchase or learn more about a product if it is highly regarded by someone they trust.
Whether you use an SEO company or not, the knowledge of new digital marketing techniques can come in handy. Keep reading to learn why leveraging influencer marketing in your campaigns is important for maximizing engagement and how you can implement it:
The Importance of Influencer Marketing
Although there are various avenues a marketing department can go in in regards to boosting brand image, influencer marketing has come up on top over the past couple of years and continues to dominate the game. From its low costs to the results it obtains, the statistics behind it showcase that it is a vital component of any marketing scheme.
Public Perceptions and Conversions
An influencer will have a platform with users that may not normally be susceptible to regular marketing techniques. They go beyond running an advertisement on their Instagram story or giving a brand a shoutout on their Snapchat – they provide a sense of reliability for your potential consumers.
For example, influencers may showcase that they are promoting a new product they use every day. Users that follow said influencer will be prompted to try it out as well because they have been influenced by someone they trust. This is essentially a twist on the idea of word-of-mouth marketing. It is equivalent to someone referring a new product to their friend circle but influencers have the added value of furthering the online reputation of the brand.
High-Value Traffic
Bridging off the online reputation of the brand, the more high-level influencers are involved with a product or brand, the bigger your market based becomes. Based on data in the past couple of years, influencer marketing has helped a multitude of companies grasp a larger piece of the market.
Since the concept of influencer marketing is relatively new, the costs associated are lower than running a nationwide campaign via commercials but still effectively sends the message across. Even for small companies or startups, the cost-benefit analysis indicates that this is worth an experiment because it can result in high-value results.
Learning about Target Demographics
Beyond getting the brand’s name out there and potentially obtaining leads to convert into customers, influencer marketing provides a great way of understanding the demographics your brand reaches.
Depending on the promotional tactics in collaboration with the influencer, you may have access to the demographics that engage with the posts or stories. For example, if a contest is held for a giveaway, users that are interested will leave a comment and their email. This information translates into data points that your brand can then use to see their conversation rates. It will assist with providing further insight on the types of users who tend to purchase more, engage more, or both.
Implementing Influencer Marketing
Understanding the importance of it is one thing, but to implement it requires an in-depth knowledge of the type of campaigns and collaborative work to take on. The following are a couple of methods that have seen quick success.
Live Broadcasts
Whether it be on Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat, live broadcasts of an influencer provide an authentic feeling produced by their viewers. No matter the level of promotion or money pushed into a campaign, if an influencer genuinely loves the brand or the product, live streaming will showcase that. This method, if done effectively, engages the viewers 100% and ensures that your message is sent across.
Account Takeover
If your brand has its own social media, having an influencer take over for a period of time (whether a day or a week, for example) will generate new followers and new potential leads. With both posts and stories being posted, viewers will feel engaged with the brand and associated with their favourite influencers through that medium. This provides organic growth and visibility for your brand in a way that is not forcing marketing on to anyone.
Influencer Pod
Depending if your brand can connect with this concept, this can be really effective. An influencer pod is a group of influencers that work with your brand so that when your social media pumps out new content, they are engaging with it.
It allows your social media platforms to amplify in nature and organically grow new followers. A combination of influencers from different sectors associated with your brand will generate a higher volume of diverse users.