A decade earlier, influencer marketing was largely restricted to celebrities and a couple of dedicated bloggers. However, with the increase in the use of social media, influencer marketing is no longer a fringe tactic, only for particular industries. Rather, it’s a popular and well-known strategy that allows you to showcase your brand to a new audience and establishes credibility for your business. Searches for influence marketing have increased by nearly 1500 percent in the past four years, which clearly indicates its massive growth!
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Fundamentally, influencer marketing is a form of marketing primarily conducted over social media platforms that uses product mentions, endorsements, testimonials, and reviews from influencers – people who have a committed social following and are believed to be experts of their niche.
Influencer marketing has proven to be effective because of the large amount of trust that social media influencers have garnered from their following. Hence, the recommendations they offer serves as a kind of social proof to your existing and potential customers.
Role of Influencers in Your Marketing Strategy
Here is a list of ways in which influencers can help you market your brand.
- The influencer can add a link to your blog post, product, or service on their social media handle website or post. For instance, this can be a text link in a caption or blog post.
- The influencer can attend an event where they market your product or service. Depending on the type of event, the influencer can talk to potential customers at your booth, wear your merchandise, etc.
- The influencer can develop a blog post about your brand. The blog can be dedicated to a complete review of your brand or compare your brand to other similar ones.
- The influencer can mention your brand in a video or podcast that focuses on similar content but not particularly on your product or service.
- The influencer can share a social media post about your brand. Depending on the social media platform, this could include videos, images, text discussing why they recommend your brand and their experience with it.
Value of Influencer Marketing
Even though Instagram influencer marketing is quite a popular tool, several other platforms are increasing for influencer marketing. As per Adweek, the influencer marketing strategy is expected to hit $10 billion in 2021.
Other social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat have their own set of influencers with varying demographics.
Mediakix, an influencer marketing agency, conducted a survey at the end of 2018 to determine how marketers felt about influencer marketing. The survey results revealed that 89 percent of influencers said ROI from influencer marketing was better than or comparable to other networks.
Last Few Words
Influencer marketing should be an indispensable component of any contemporary marketing strategy. Like any other marketing tool, there are benefits and drawbacks to consider. But when you get influencer marketing, you can garner considerable traction without the high costs of conventional advertising.
