Big Steps: Influencer Marketing
Welcome back to another post in Marketing-101’s Big Steps series. Let’s jump straight in with…
…Influencer Marketing! You may have heard the term influencer being thrown around more and more over the last few half a decade, especially with the rise in popularity of TV shows such as “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” and “Love Island”.
What are influencers?
Well, an influencer is a person who has a large following on social media, who promotes a brand, product or service. This is usually in exchange for either free products/services, or a fee for their time and content creation. An influencer can be any of the following:
- Bloggers
- Vloggers
- Journalists
- Celebrities
- YouTubers
- TikToker’s
- Social Media ‘A-Listers’
Put simply, an influencer is anyone with a crowd/following.
What does influencer marketing actually involve?
Normally, an influencer will work with a brand to create some content endorsing the product or service that the brand is offering. For example, a popular fashion brand would send an influencer some clothes to either model or review, and in return the influencer will take photographs or produce a video about the content, either reviewing it or modelling it. A lot of the time, influencers will have their own unique discount code to promote to their followers offering money off a product or service using their code/personalised link (usually the influencer will get some form of commission).
But why is influencer marketing a good way of promoting my business?
In short, influencer marketing is more believable than your standard advertising (TV/Radio adverts) – you’re more likely to believe something if you see somebody else using it and vouching for its usefulness.
Influencers already have built up a rapport with their followers, which means that their following is more likely to listen to what the influencer has to say. This means you have a dedicated ‘fan-base’ of people who will see the influencer advertising your product/service and want to try it/copy the influencer.
Show me the numbers!
A lot of people use social media. 2022 statistics show that there are 4.62 billion social media users around the world (January 2022), equal to 58.4% of the world’s population. 424 million social media users started their social media journey in 2021.
Does it matter how many followers an influencer has?
There are different levels of influencers, depending on their following size…
- Mega Influencer: Over 1 Million followers
- Macro Influencer: 500k – 1 Million followers
- Mid-Tier Influencer: 50k – 500k followers
- Micro Influencer: 10k – 50k followers
- Nano Influencer: Under 10k followers
There are benefits to using both a mega influencer and a nano influencer. The glaringly obvious thing is the fact that by using a mega influencer you will reach more people, however by using a nano influencer, their followers are more likely to have a higher engagement rate to their posts and therefore your product will be seen. By using a nano influencer, your costs and risk will be down, however by using a mega influencer their experience and reach will be greater. There’s pros and cons to both ends of the spectrum!
How do I find an influencer?
There are several ways to find an influencer. It depends on what your business is, but you will be able to find an influencer for almost any niche by:
- Research
- Looking at competitors (who are your competitors using)
- Influencer forums
- Becoming an influencer
- Influencer fan events
- PR Company/agency
- Advertise
One thing to watch out for are “Bloggers bloggers” – these are the influencers (usually nano influencers) whose engagement rates are high because they’re engaging with other bloggers. Their audience mainly consists of bloggers and other nano influencers, as opposed to your target market.
What are the 4 Rs of influencer marketing?
Created by Marketing 101 founder, Alex Ryan, the ‘4 Rs of influencer marketing’ will help you ensure that you get a good match for your business. Do your research and answer these 4x questions thoroughly before making any commitments.
Relevance: How relevant is your product/service to the influencer that you wish to use? If an influencer posts about their cats as their niche, they won’t want to promote dog products.
Reach: How many followers does your chosen influencer have?
Resonance: Are your influencer’s posts getting engagement? Are people liking, commenting and sharing their posts?
Realness: Does your influencer post genuine and regular content?
So there you have it, the ins and outs of influencer marketing in a nutshell! If you want to chat more about influencer marketing, you can get in touch with us by calling 01273 569108 – or even pop us a message on Facebook!
