What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is the method in which you use influencers to market your product to their followers on the internet platforms and social media. The influencers are a prominent personality in the society who people look up to and tries to emulate. These people can easily use their fame, credibility, and authority to persuade people to purchase your product.
We can all tell how celebrities’ fashion always goes viral, and people would love to eat the same food they eat to look like them. Therefore, influencer marketing is all about turning their influence into your favor. Still, it shouldn’t be mistaken with celebrity endorsement, meaning that influencer marketing does not necessarily need a celebrity to market your product. An influencer can be a famous blogger, popular photographer on Facebook, or business executive who specializes in the same niche as your product. Moreover, such a person must have followers of 1000-10000 in two different social media platforms.
Is influencer marketing working out for business?
According to results and what marketers are saying, influencer marketing is very useful. Research by Linquia shows that 92% of marketers claim that influencer marketing works effectively, while another reveals that there is a 325% increase in Google searches on influencer marketing.
In fact, it produces better results than the common content and social media marketing, in that businesses realize $6.50 on every dollar invested in influencer marketing. This happens because consumers prefer getting product recommendations from other consumers than brands. They believe that brands advertisement is too sweet and self-centered but develop some trust when a friend or respected figure advertise the product.
Influencer marketing is not only meant for big businesses, but it is a perfect marketing strategy that small businesses should also employ in getting more sales. Do not be too concerned about your industry as there are influencers in every niche to help with your marketing strategy.
How to get started with influencer marketing
Unlike other marketing strategies, influencer marketing is such that demand proper monitoring and examination of caution to achieve the desired result. For this reason, it is wise for a small business owner to hire a professional who will manage the business digital marketing affairs. With that in place, then the following steps can be taken to commence an influencer marketing experience;
1. Define the goal of your influencer marketing?
In this stage, you state what you want to use an influencer for, and the platform you would like to use for your campaign. Entrepreneurs either use influencer marketing to drive more traffic to their website, increase sales, or improve brand awareness. However, most businesses always adopt influencer marketing to enhance the brand awareness of a product or an event. Research carried out by Linquia shows that about 89% use influencer marketing for brand awareness, 77% for enhancing customer engagement, 56% for gaining more website traffic.
Having defined your aim, you carry out a study to know the channel that leads visitors to your site. Is it Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube? Finding an answer to this question will enable you to know which channel to grow.
2. What’s your expectation from an influencer?
A small business can’t just contact any influencer on Facebook or Instagram; it has to be someone who is grounded in the same niche as your product. It must be a person that can recommend your product, and people would believe it. For example, let say Neil Patel in one of his blogs mention a business strategy that he saw on other people website. People would love to check the new site out because Neil Patel is a famous blogger of digital marketing.
Another mistake small businesses make in selecting an influencer is choosing based on a large number of followers. However, influencers with millions of followers often receive little likes and comments on their posts. Therefore, a small business should go for micro-influencers, who has a reasonable number of followers and a high rate of engagement. The following are the qualifications of a right influencer;
- A diligent influencer that posts helpful content regularly.
- He or she receives thousands of likes and comments on every post.
- The theme of their post must be related to your product.
- Have a real passion for the niche.
3. Select an influencer for your small business.
Now that you have the profile of your potential influencer, the next thing is to approach one on social media. Below, we suggest some tools that you can use to find your potential influencer.
1. Facebook.
You can find your influencer on Facebook by searching for the name of your product. Then you will browse the results to select a person who posts regularly on your product and has a large number of followers.
2. Instagram.
You can also use the “Search and explore” feature to search for posts related to your products.
3. Buzzsumo.
Buzzsumo is an online tool that helps the entrepreneur to find competitors and influencers on major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google+.
4. Rewarding your influencer.
Having selected your influencer, it is high time you make a deal, which includes payment. Influencers love payment that goes beyond financial rewards, the best is to give him or her product discounts, free products per month, and other fascinating rewards.
5. Measure results.
There are numerous ways by which you can measure the result of your influencer marketing. One method is by evaluating the increase in the number of likes and comments your business page receives on social media. Other methods involve using online tools such as Leadfeeder for measuring Google Analytics data, or netvibes.com to check new changes on your social media channels.
6. Maintain a good relationship with the influencer.
If you genuinely realize success in your influencer marketing, the next thing is to maintain the deal with the influencer. Build trust with your influencer and they will become a key part of your marketing platform.
