As consumers, we often hear the buzzword “influencer,” which some mistakenly believe to be just about anyone with a popular social media account. However, an influencer is much more than that – and, you can harness the power of influencers to increase your own digital brand exposure through influencer marketing.
Who is an influencer?
Historically, businesses have often used celebrities as brand ambassadors to help sell their products. But an influencer is not a celebrity – instead, an influencer is an expert in a specific industry who can use their knowledge to convince their large online followings to invest in a product or service.
One easy way to differentiate a celebrity versus an influencer is that influencers often are not famous outside of their specific industries, and they are only followed by others in that same capacity. For example, a baking influencer will only be popular with people who love to bake, while a celebrity could be popular due to his or her appearance, brands or media.
What’s influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is a mix of both traditional and new marketing tools – it takes the idea of celebrity endorsements and fuses it with modern digital marketing campaigns that rely on engaging and metric-driven content.
In influencer marketing, a brand collaborates with an influencer to market its product or service to the influencer’s niche online audience. This way, rather than sharing your message to the general public, an influencer will share the word for you digitally to their dedicated audience who is already interested in your industry and already trusts the influencer.
How do I get started with influencer marketing?
First, you must determine what your goals of an influencer marketing campaign will be. Do you want to drive sales? Increase brand awareness? Or maybe create cost-effective and authentic content for your social media channels or website?
Then, you can begin searching for the right influencer for your specific goals. Search for an active influencer who shares digital content on a regular and frequent basis; has a large audience that often engages through comments, likes, questions and feedback; is authentic; and has a style that resonates with your brand.
Next steps
Coordinate with your marketing team today to begin determining how you would like influencer marketing to help your brand, and then begin scouting for influencers using social media and other outlets.
Then, negotiate what rewards you will provide to the influencer to convince them to collaborate. These could include increasing their own reach and engagement, finesse their image, receive discounts or free products, earn income or simply live new experiences.
With these tips in mind, you're ready to take your brand to the next level with influencer marketing. To share these tips with your followers, click the ‘Share’ social icons below.