WRITTEN BY Caitlin Jardine
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is a successful marketing tool used by brands, incorporated into efforts for a long term strategy. Influencer marketing is a great way for brands to be relevant across so many different target groups and can be carried out through gifted or paid collaborations as well as hosted events.
Establishing a brand- influencer relationship
Not only is it important to find the right influencers for your brand, but to work closely with them to most effectively connect with their followers. This includes building a relationship with the influencers themselves, treating them as real people and not just as a tool to deliver messages. This is important in contributing to the long term strategy of brand loyalty, that ultimately, you want them to be projecting onto their audiences.
This could be meeting with them regularly, providing them with seeding kits and by giving them creative lead on campaigns. They are the content creators and as much as a brand will want to give them direction in relation to what they need help promoting, this is an opportunity for the influencer to consider the best way to make it relevant to their fans and followers. This is because at the end of the day, no one knows their audience better than the influencer themselves. Whether their audience demands sustainability and consideration of political matters, or whether they are largely weighted by context of the time (e.g with inflations and the rising cost of living), all are factors important to consider when creating content that’ll successfully resonate with them.
Why is it effective?
It’s seeing this opportunity as not just a paid collaboration, but to breed a longer term advocate and representation of the brand. An influencer can become a walking embodiment of a brand and by maximising the attributes associated with the name, you can cultivate those subconscious links made by consumers.
Authenticity – Finding the right influencers for your brand
Another factor to take into consideration when creating this always on/ long term approach, is choosing influencers that fit best to the brand to begin with. Asking questions on whether the influencer consumes the brand themselves and the impact that the brand already has on them, ties into the importance of remaining real and authentic, if you’re wanting them to translate that message to their audiences.
This is where it is important to work with professional individuals who really do know their audience and love the brand they are working alongside. Their association needs to hold value and make sense for the audience, in order to create a strong campaign and one of which their followers will ultimately like and relate to.
In order to retain authenticity and project a genuine message, you want this collaboration to be believable.
The increasing use of micro influences
Influencer marketing has evolved due to a lack of authenticity and the cost of upkeep. With this emphasis on legitimacy and transparency, micro-influencers will be prioritised because they have a more specific and niche following, which can lead to more authentic and targeted promotion of your products and services.
Businesses must partner with influencers who align with their brand and are able to deliver authentic content that resonates with their target audience, and not just because they have a large following on social media.
UGC – Are we all become influencers?
Because it is created by customers, free of artificial embellishments by brands, UGC is a more authentic and experiential form of content than brand-pushed content. User generated content is a new form of word-of-mouth marketing, which has always played a vital role in influencing consumer buying decisions.
It provides social proof that your product is worth purchasing and increases consumer trust and is an extremely effective way for a company to influence its target audience and convert them into customers. It also fosters community-building, which can result in increased loyalty and advocacy.
With the rise in UGC, influencer marketing is quickly losing its ability to influence people’s purchasing decisions, as consumers are becoming increasingly suspicious of influencers as inauthentic and/or un-relatable. This is with a large number of consumers admitting that only a small amount of influencer-created content can positively affect their perception of a company.
The takeaway
Having influencers representing your brand can be effective in extending your brands reach and placing content in front of a larger audience endorsed by a figure they choose to follow and trust.
However it is to be considered that all paid promotions must be transparent and mention within the content that it is brand endorsed. So for the influencer partnership to have the desired effect the collaboration must make sense for your brand and for the influencer promoting it, and will depend on type of budget you have to work with.
Alternatively utilising user generated content where possible is another great tool if you are looking to influence audience’s purchasing decisions with an authentic and trusted review of your product, that you can share across your platforms without any cost involved!
Want to learn more? Check out our blog post on User Generated Content, where we delve into what it is and how you can utilise it for your brand – Read Here.
Looking to read a case study that talks about influencers and how we carried out social monitoring? Then read this case study.