If you want to reach a wide audience with your product or services, you should become interested in influencer marketing. It is an extremely popular and effective form of marketing. In the rest of this article, you will learn what exactly influencer marketing is and why it is worth investing in it.
Influencer marketing is a relatively new term that was born in the era of social media development. While the word marketing is quite known and means all activities, techniques leading to the sale of products and services, the meaning of the word influencer is not so obvious. Broadly speaking, an influencer is a term used to describe popular people who influence the decisions and opinions of others. In our understanding, such a person is known on social networks - Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter and more. It is usually assumed that a person can become an influencer if he has a large audience on all social media (from several thousand to even several hundred million people).
What is influencer marketing?
The essence of influencer marketing is to use the influence of famous people on recipients who are potential customers of the company. By means of the content published on their social media, an influencer is able to influence the decisions of his fans, for example regarding the purchase of a given company's service. Influencer marketing is also defined as any marketing activity that relies on influencer cooperation with the company. In this case, the influencer is the intermediary between the company and the consumers who can help a given brand a lot reaching the customer.
Influencer - a person of social trust?
Why do consumers trust influencers? As research shows, almost 90% consumers admit that they are guided by the recommendations of famous people when buying. And such people can be not only newspaper celebrities, but also people known in social media. The data also shows that especially young recipients (between 15 and 25 years of age) feel a certain kind of personal bond with the influencer.
Internet creators address their fans directly and thus shorten the distance considerably. An influencer - unlike an inaccessible movie star - is close to their fans and usually posts new content every day. To all this, the so-called halo effect.
Thanks to this psychological mechanism, we unconsciously assign consistent, positive traits to an object on the basis of first impressions. So when we see aesthetic pictures with a pretty and smiling girl, we automatically think she is sincere and kind.
Micro-influencer and macro-influencer
Influencer marketing includes influencers who can be divided into two categories - according to the achieved reach: macro-influencer and micro-influencer.
- macro-influencer - it is an influencer with fans from tens of thousands to millions. Content published on social media by a macro-influencer is practically always of high quality.
- micro-influencer - it is an influencer with 1,000 to 10,000 fans on social media. Very often, the content created by micro-influencers is of lower quality, but this is not always the case. These types of influencers can be very valuable, especially if their content reaches the niches desired by the company.
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How to choose an influencer?
Planning your internet communication strategy, it is extremely important to choose the right influencer. You might think that a macro-influencer with a huge group of fans on social media is a better choice. However, nothing could be more wrong, because the engagement rate is more important than the number of followers. This indicator shows how many people are active on influencer profiles, and what percentage of them are the so-called ghost followers.
People unfamiliar with influencer marketing can be tricked by influencers who buy followers to raise their stats. Statistics are also more important than the number of followers on Instagram. They show what percentage of followers comments, links on the profile or "heart" the photo.
The influencer's image must also be consistent with the company's message. Thanks to this, the recipients will be more favorable to the products offered and the presented content.
Influencer marketing in practice
Influencer can take care of PR of the company, being the official ambassador of the brand. It can also short-term support the company's marketing and sales activities, offering discounts on purchases or presenting new products. In addition, the influencer advertises products - by placing sponsored content on its social media channels in the form of posts, photos, videos. An influencer can get discounts on purchases, free products or a monetary reward in return for advertising. Influencer marketing is a relatively inexpensive form of advertising. For example - in return for products worth several hundred zlotys, a company can reach thousands of potential customers. Entering the world of influencer marketing is a great option for both small and large companies.