Wherever people are watching, there will be advertisements. It’s always been a long-held cornerstone of creative promotion. Newspapers, radio, television, or film – no matter what new media emerges, ads will always find their place within it.
Today, some of the largest audiences follow private individuals. Regular folk who decided to start their own channels, create their own content, and amass their own followers. We’re talking, of course, about the rise of social media. Suddenly, these individuals on sites such as Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, have subscriber counts in the hundreds of millions.
That’s not just one-time views. They have that many people subscribing to their channels. Channels which are producing new content several times a week, or even per day.
These content creators have to make money somehow, right? It’s not as if Twitter is paying anybody to spam out dank memes.
Well, that’s where the advertisements come in. Businesses can now reach massive audiences through influencer marketing. Retailers wholesalers and other outlets are currently seeing the marketing potential of these platforms.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is an arrangement between businesses and individuals on social media platforms with a large enough influence. These individuals are known as influencers.
Businesses can contact certain influencers and request that they publicly endorse a product or service. The endorsement could take many different forms – a video, an effective blog post, or even just a picture and a shout-out.
It’s a great way to reach an enormous, interconnected audience, with a personalized endorsement. It’s not just the size of the audience that has value. Influencers’ audiences are often dedicated followers, because they usually build their following, from the ground up.
Furthermore, because of the intimate nature of most social media content, audiences are more personally connected to the content creators. This means, when influencers publicly endorse a product, their followers will have more trust in that product. Sure, everyone knows, deep down, that it’s a paid promotion, but they still make it look amazingly attractive.
Ultimately, they see a personality they trust, enjoying a product. This is a level of intimacy and trust that’s worth more than its weight in gold. It’s the direct result of years of hard work, on behalf of the influencer. They’ve spent a lot of effort building up a following that truly listens to what they have to say.
So, as a business, one of the best things you can do in this modern era is to have social media influencers publicly use your product. Getting your brand associated with the right people on social media is one of the best strategies you can have to increase your company’s gross profit percentage. For a great business, you need a great website. And to build a great website you need the best fonts. Therefore use tattoo fonts to make your website more attractive.
1. Choose the Right Influencers
For your influencer marketing campaign to be effective, you’ll need to make sure you’ve got the right influencers backing your product.
Choosing the right platform is also just as important. When asked, most brands found that Instagram influencer marketing offers the best ROI (Return on Investment), but that doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone.
Think about your demographic, where they are active, and the kind of influencers they’ll respond to.
Imagine if Kim Kardashian started recommending inventory management software. Not to overly generalize, but we can safely assume that the majority of Kim’s target audience might not be that interested. Sure, millions might see it. But it probably won’t translate to actual sales.
Furthermore, because Kim Kardashian hasn’t ever shown much interest in this market, people will view this as a disingenuous endorsement. Remember, the core of influencer marketing hinges on its authenticity, or illusion thereof. Being selective with your influencers will give your brand a higher level of integrity.
2. Do Your Research
You may find what you think is the perfect influencer to endorse your product. But first, make sure to do some more in-depth research, regarding the validity of the influencer and their history.
There are a lot of fake accounts out there, trying to take advantage of the boom in influencer marketing. Such accounts will simply buy followers, or use bot followers, to attract brands to their platform.
To avoid offering business to fake accounts, do some background research. Check out how often they post, and how often they engage directly with their followers. You could also easily check if they’ve had any past experiences with legitimate companies.
If you’re in any doubt, leverage sites like Heepsy that can help you determine the validity of influencers or key opinion leaders you choose to work with from your niche. But, It’s not just fake accounts you need to look out for. Even if the account is real, and seems like a good fit, you should find out what other public ties they have that could possibly end up hurting your brand.
There are often features on social media platforms that can give you a good sense of this. YouTube, for example, has a “people who watched this, also watched this” feature.
These algorithms are designed to help the viewer find more content they might enjoy. In reverse, however, it can be a useful way to see what kind of culture a certain creator is associated with. It could just be something that doesn’t correspond with your company’s values.
3. Let Them Do Their Thing
Sometimes, you’ll see different influencers advertising the same product. And, funnily enough, they’re all using the same words, verbatim. This is a classic sign of a company that has given its chosen influencers a rigid script and allowed for no deviation.
The result can be jarring, for viewers. Once again, it reeks of inauthenticity and can alienate the potential customers you’re trying to attract. It proves that the influencer is not endorsing your product from their own experience. But rather, parroting the same spiel as every other influencer who took the gig.
Of course, it’s fine to give guidance. Ask that they mention certain features or meet a certain word count, for example. But, other than that, let them have some freedom over how they endorse the product.
Remember, the influencer’s viewers are there to see them doing their thing. So, chances are, the way they choose to present your product will be the way that their viewers will best respond to it.
It may be unnerving to hand over creative control. But remember, these people have built their own following. They can probably even find a creative way to showcase the latest VPN.
4. Try to Use The Same Influencers
Having a popular influencer using your product is great. But having them use it repeatedly is even better.
Some things never change, and having a brand appear repeatedly is going to build a stronger connection with audiences. However, with influencer marketing, there’s another factor to consider. If you pay an influencer to endorse your product once, and they never mention it again, audiences will perhaps assume that it wasn’t a very good one.
5. Nurture the Relationship
The driving force behind the success of social media platforms is their interconnectedness. One post on Twitter is liked by one group of people, then suddenly everyone they know sees it. If it gains traction, a good post can snowball incredibly quickly and reach millions of potential customers, across multiple different social media platforms.
Facebook is still the biggest platform, but most social media users use more than one. And content can travel fast between platforms.
A clever marketing campaign will use this potential to their advantage. If your product is being endorsed by an influencer, then make some noise about it. Share their content and show that you are proud to be collaborating with them.
Remember, both you and the influencer’s revenue rely on being seen by as many people as possible. So, promoting and supporting each other is mutually beneficial. Doing this successfully will also produce a trickle-down effect.
Large content creators have huge followings, but many of their followers will also have followers of their own. Many of those followers will then also be eager to promote your product.
Some of them will even do it for free. You might have a great product, and be able to make your own website, but nothing compares to the ripple effect that influencer marketing can have.
6. Respect Their Time, and Yours
It’s commonplace now, to hear various horror stories of entitled young influencers demanding free products and merchandise, only to be turned down by business owners.
Conversely, there are plenty of stories out there of big companies, bullying content creators into restrictive, demanding advertisement deals. Either way, whenever this happens, nobody comes out looking very marketable.
The best way to avoid this is to show your chosen influencers the right amount of respect. Some will be happy to promote your product for some free merchandise, and that’s great. Others will be looking for more. This is just a simple matter of negotiation, much like with any contract.
“It’s just a make-up tutorial, shot in some twenty-year-old’s bedroom. They should feel lucky that we’ve even shown interest!” The old, exaggerated caricature of a businessman might say. A twenty-year-old may have more followers than the Wall Street Journal. So, respect the craft, even if it doesn’t appeal to you.
Remember that there are different ways that you can compensate influencers. Gifting free products is one, but you can also pay per post, create affiliate deals, or mix the two with performance bonuses. Either way, making sure a creator is fairly compensated is a great way to build long-term relationships.
Of course, respect is a two-way street. And, as such, you shouldn’t be expected to just hand out free products to anybody with a Twitter account. Again, this is a business negotiation. If everybody treats each other with respect, things will usually turn out amicably.
The Social Circle
Whether you’re building a new business or trying to increase customer retention in a changing marketplace, social media has become a huge part of the sales conversion conversation.
If utilized effectively, it’s one of the best avenues of marketing available. Now, more than ever, it’s time to get social.
Author Bio:
Xiaoyun TU – Brightpearl
Xiao is the Global Head of Lead Generation at Brightpearl, a leading ecommerce automation platform. She is passionate about setting up innovative strategies to grow sales pipelines using data-driven decisions.
