Practical Guide To Influencer Marketing For Brands

The world is changing and traditional marketing strategies that were used for decades are no longer effective. Although many can make an argument for the tried and true methods, if you don’t adapt, the competition can crush you.

Nowadays, people prefer visual content and fun and engaging social media personalities. These social media personalities, better known as influencers, have changed the way we think about content marketing and social media strategies. 

However, finding the right influencer for your brand and maximizing the potential of increasing your Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram followers might be difficult. Read below and inform yourself of everything you need to know about influencer marketing and how it can help you improve your brand awareness.

What is an influencer?

Influencers have the power of persuasion, and it’s been proven that their opinions carry a lot of weight. They’re not only known for their opinion but also for their ability to reach an audience. With over 4 billion people active on social media, it’s easy for someone with a large following to have the power to persuade others to take action.

Businesses usually chose influencers depending on their number of followers and their demographics. If a business aims to focus on customers from a certain age group, it might opt for an influencer that can boast a large following of the same.

Influencer marketing and how it works

Influencer marketing refers to a type of marketing, where an individual or group influences the decision-making process for a target audience and receives payment to endorse or promote products, services, or brands.

Businesses can benefit from this approach by using the authority and fame of others. Because they are experts in their field, influencers have more successful interactions with customers and can incentivize them to take that leap and purchase a certain product.

Influencer marketing is the use of multiple media channels to communicate your brand message, which is an integral part of any digital marketing campaign.

How to find the right influencers?

It is important that you select the right influencers for your new marketing campaign. They can either make or break your whole marketing strategy. It is common to mistakenly believe that multiple influencers with a significant amount of following will do better in promoting a brand, but this is not usually the case. While big social media stars may have millions of followers, micro-influencers have only 10,000 to 500,000 followers. However, micro-influencers might be more trustworthy and suit your brand better.

Before you settle on your influencer, take a look at their engagement. Analyze everything, from comments and likes to shares. If the influencer has a large following but they don’t engage with their followers, then that might be a red flag. The influencer in question might have used bots or other illegal methods to acquire a large following.

Once you have shortlisted a few influencers that you are interested in, you will need to evaluate if they are the right fit for you and your campaign. To get a better understanding of their posts, you need to monitor the social media pages for the influencers that interest you for at least a week.

Checklist to find a great influencer

• The brands they share content about align with your company’s values and visions.
• Their followers are people you want to reach through your campaign.
• The influencer is reaching enough people in your industry to be of any real benefit.

Influencer marketing vs. content marketing

A lot of debate surrounds the merits and limitations, or potentials, of influencer marketing and content marketing. Both influencer marketing and content marketing have a track record of success. There are however important differences that distinguish them.

Content marketing is about adding value to the reader, while influencer marketing is designed to increase brand awareness and create social proof. But even if influencer marketing is more effective, it can be a bit pricier than in-house content.

Even though there are many differences between the two, influencer marketing is still considered a type of content marketing. For example, content marketing is used to create high-quality content, visual or written, and then brands spend money to share them through influencer channels.

So, if you are a brand with strong content marketing, but still want to improve your strategy, consider using influencers to promote your products and your content as well.

Final thoughts

Influencer marking is gaining traction with each passing second. One of the best ways to allow your business to grow organically is to collaborate with an expert on social media that knows how to paint a picture through content. 

However, influencer marking shouldn’t replace traditional content or paid advertising, although it can be used supplementary when the budget allows for it.