In an effort to keep with the marketing trends, online marketing keeps on adapting itself every now then. It should, considering that the modern consumer is well aware of his environment which for a significant part is spent online. With that said, marketers have to strike the right cords if they need consumers to dance to their tunes. It’s hardly easy but they manage through concerted effort and a concoction of experimentation till they hit the right notes, figuratively speaking.
Simply put, digital marketers have to devise ways to retain the customer’s attention. One of the innovations in digital marketing strategy is influencer marketing. Basically, influencer marketing is a type of offline and online marketing that focuses on specific leaders who have amassed themselves a large following typically on social media. It’s a peer to peer type of marketing whereby these leaders endorse or push a brand or its product to the large group of people who trust and follow them.
Ideally, influencer marketing should be driven by credibility and expertise in the field of influence. However, most brands relay on the number of followers the prospective influencer has before anything else. To some extent it is fine; however the brand should try to fit itself in the subject matter regularly discussed by the prospective influencer. Is the overall presentation and methodology employed competent enough for your brand to be associated with the influencer?
Where do you find influencers?
Since this is an article about digital marketing, we will focus more on the largely online based homes of influencers. Perhaps, to veer off topic for a moment, it’s good to mention that influencers have taken their influencing ways offline through public speaking and charitable works. In most cases influencers are based online, providing good content in form of blog posts, videos, images etc. You will locate millions of influencers on major social media sites offering relevant information to their followers.
The demand for influencers has created a market that is worth multi-million dollars in brand sponsorship, production, retainers etc. In addition, content marketing and social media marketing complement each other. Influencer marketing falls under the broader category of social marketing. In a sense they need each other to achieve optimum success. Actually, most of the influencers are discovered through their personal social media channels. The content aspect plays a lead role in providing fodder for the followers to feed on. In collaboration with the brand or their agency content creation strategies are applied to ensure the brand is positively exposed while the influencer retains his style.
Influencer marketing shouldn’t just be relegated to the key people with large following on social media. On the flipside lies another large group of critical people who may not command mammoth crowds but rightfully earn the tag ‘brand advocate’. They too influence their family and friends on a smaller scale but effectively so.
Small brands that have optimally played out this version of influencer marketing have ended up creating wide networks consequently pushing their brands to unimaginable magnitude.
What a brand needs to execute successful influencer marketing
First off, a brand needs to identify a suitable candidate who will run the influencer marketing campaign. Secondly, a marketing strategy design with the influencer participation needs to be created. In the same case, the overall marketing strategy subscribed to by the brand needs to be incorporated into the influencer marketing. Finally, measures need to be put in place to ensure that key metrics pertaining to the influencer marketing are monitored and analyzed to understand the growth process.
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