Leveraging Influencer Marketing

Social media is transforming the advertising landscape, providing brands with new opportunities to showcase their products and services to the world. Influencer marketing allows businesses to harness the power of social media to improve their online visibility, connect with a larger audience, and cultivate relationships more organically.

Influencer marketing is an online marketing strategy born out of celebrity marketing. Instead of focusing on just celebrities, brands also tap into “people of influence” to promote their offerings in exchange for payment and other incentives.

What Makes an “Influencer”?

Gone are the days when the term “influencer” was reserved exclusively for film stars and athletes. Now, the label extends to individuals with a significant following on social media, brand advocates, and niche promoters.

Influencers can be categorized into four different types based on the number of followers they have. These are:

Nano-Influencers: Influencers with a following of 10,000 or less
Micro-Influencers: Comprise of people with a 10,000 to 100,000 online following
Macro-Influencers: Influencers with 100,000 to 1 million followers
Mega-Influencers: Influencers with an impressive 1 million+ followers

The Power of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing works similarly to word-of-mouth marketing but on a much grander scale. The marketing ROI is impressive—according to a report by HypeAuditor, brands are estimated to get $4.87 of earned media value for every $1 they spend on influencer marketing through Instagram.

It offers many other benefits, including:

Increased Brand Awareness and Reach

A mega-influencer has millions of followers—that’s millions of potential customers that you can target with your marketing campaign. If an influencer with that number of followers recommends or simply mentions your product on their social platform, it can improve your brand’s visibility and place your business on the radar of potential customers.

Boosted Credibility and Trust

Influencers are known to be experts in the niche that they are in. They have also cultivated a strong and respectful relationship with their fans. Naturally, their fans will trust their opinions and recommendations on products and services. If an influencer vouches for your brand, their followers are likely to be more open to trying what you’re offering.

Increased Sales

Influencers have a massive impact on consumers’ purchase decision-making process. Studies show that when influencers like vloggers and “Instafamous” personalities swear by a product, it evokes positive emotions in their followers and encourages them to make a purchase.

How to Get Started with Influencer Marketing

While there’s no one way to create an influencer marketing strategy, there are steps that you can take to maximize its benefits.

Identify Your Brand Goals

Every good strategy should begin with a clear-cut goal. While there are several goals that you could achieve with influencer marketing, driving sales and increasing brand awareness are usually at the top of the list for many brands. However, collaborating with influencers can also help you in areas like attracting a new target market and increasing engagement.

Determine Your Target Audience

Your target audience should be a driving factor when deciding which influencers to reach out to. For instance, if you’re a makeup company, then you’d benefit from working with lifestyle and makeup gurus on YouTube, as there’s a great likelihood that most of their viewers are makeup enthusiasts. The more you narrow your target audience, the easier it will be to identify the right influencers for the job.

Understand Advertising Guidelines

As with any form of marketing, influencer marketing must comply with the US Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) guidelines. Be sure that the influencer you choose to work with is aware of this responsibility and what is required from them.

The FTC highlights the importance of disclosure. Influencers must place a disclaimer or disclose to their viewers that they are working with your brand. If you’re targeting a global market, be sure to research the guidelines in the relevant jurisdictions, as rules may be slightly different for each country.

Create a Short List of Influencers

With countless influencers to choose from, it can be challenging to narrow down your list. Trust should be one of your top criteria when identifying influencers to work with. Your target audience must have complete trust and confidence in the opinions of your prospective influencers.

Reach Out to Your Chosen Influencers

To get an influencer to endorse your products, they must first believe in your brand. While this may take time, it can serve as an effective means of generating more leads for your company.

Once you’ve cultivated a good working relationship with an influencer, you can utilize these steps to increase your brand’s visibility further:

Ask influencers to upload photos and videos of themselves using your product or service. Have them tag you on the post, then request permission to share their content on your brand’s social media profiles.
Provide incentives for the influencer’s followers. For instance, you can sponsor giveaways and offer exclusive discount codes.
Send out PR kits or product samples for the influencers to try or review on their social media.

Track Results

Be sure to review the performance of your marketing campaign regularly. Don’t rely solely on vanity metrics like comments, likes, and shares. Instead, utilize analytics tools that offer rich insights on metrics like audience engagement and referral strategy. Finally, adjust your strategy based on your findings.

Build a Powerful Influencer Marketing Strategy

Influencers offer you an effective way to meet prospective customers, raise brand awareness, and boost conversions via their engaging content, numerous supporters, and unlimited sharing capabilities. If you want to maximize influencer marketing, partnering with an experienced marketing agency is key.

At Synapse Research Ltd., we will help you leverage social media influencers to drive conversions and provide more value to your consumers. Our team will match your business with the right personalities to boost brand recognition. Build credibility, forge winning partnerships, and expand your reach with Synapse Research Ltd.’s influencer marketing solutions.