In this blog, “What Influencer Marketing Is About,” We are going to help you not only to understand what influencer marketing is about, but also how your brand can benefit by utilizing this strategy.
Popularity Of Influencer Marketing
Few years back, the one type of influencer that was commonly known was the influence of celebrities. However, influencer marketing today, has become a main stream strategy. As different kinds of influencers have emerged, given brands, valuable and effective ways to expose products and gain conversions.
Since brands have come to recognize the value of influencer marketing, we continue to see a positive trend of influencers as a marketing strategy.
Positive Trends
For example in 2020, influencer marketing was worth over $10 billion. In 2021, it grew to $13.8 billion. How much is it worth today? It is estimated to be worth over $15 billion.
In addition, Influencer MarketingHub, provides these statistical figures, that highlights the popularity of this marketing strategy:
- More than 75% brand marketers intend to dedicate a budget to influencer marketing in 2022
- 68% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing spending this year.
- There has been 465% increase in searches for the phrase “Influencer Marketing,” on Google.
- 90% of survey respondent believe influencer marketing to be an effective form of marketing.
So clearly then, the above figures prove that influencer marketing is a popular strategy, and will continue to be so for a long time.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
It is a marketing strategy in which an influencer, recommends a product or service of a brand, to his followers. If the recommended product is bought, the influencer is rewarded financially or receives a free product.
In essence, it involves a brand working with a person of influence in a particular segment of a market.
Why Influencer Marketing Is Beneficial?
Influencer marketing is important because, it gives you access to huge global audience. How so? For the fact that most influencers gain their followings, from social media platforms. And globally, there are 4.70 billion social media users around the world.
In view of this, influencer marketing as a strategy, makes available to you a huge audience. As a result, you can introduce these to your product or service by way of influencer marketing.
Further, influencer marketing does not only give you brand awareness, reach and ability to generate sales, it can instantly give you trust and credibility. This is true, especially if you are a new brand. People will buy your product, not based on your credibility and trust, but of the influencer’s, built over many years.
Cost Effective
In addition, utilizing influencer marketing as a strategy, can save you money. How so? The traditional way of advertising has proven to be very expensive. AS a matter of fact, you can end up paying thousands and thousands of dollars, as you run an ad spot.
On the contrary, an influencer will generally charge a flat fee for each post that you create. In some instances, you can even utilize their services in exchange for a product. So we can briefly, see what influencer marketing is all about.
Who Are The Influencers?
When influencer marketing has not yet become a household world, the only type of influencers that were known, were those in the sports and entertainment world.
However, things have changed. The celebrities are no longer the only influencers, in the marketing world. Others have assumed the role of influencer marketers.
Hence, influencers can be found anywhere, in every industry and they can be famous or just ordinary people like you and I.
These are considered to be influencers, because of their followings, which might be due to their accomplishment, position or expertise in a particular field.
The Different Types Of Influencers
Mega-Influencers
The mega-influencers are at the top of the hierarchy. They seem to be the oldest form of strategy as far as influence marketing in concerned. AS mentioned earlier, these may include persons in the sports and entertainment world.
As the word “mega” suggest, they have a huge following. They typically have more than a million followers with different subject of interest.
And this holds true for the mega-influencers also, because they do not have the expertise in a subject matter.
However, because of the huge number of those who follow them, they can provide a brand, greater exposure and reach. On the other hand, because of the huge audience they command, the mega and his audience are not closely attached. They have a distant or loose relationship, with a low engagement rate.
Hence, it could be expected that the influencer, will have less of an influence on his followers. In addition, their ability to convert their influence into sales will also be less. As a result, brands can end up paying for lots of followers who are not interested in the product or service.
As stated earlier, mega-influencers are capable of providing a brand with greater reach. But this usually comes with a hefty expense. A mega-influencer service, particularly the celebrities can be costly, usually up to $1 million per post.
Macro-Influencers
The macros are next in the hierarchy of influencers. These can also be identified, by the large number of their followers. The numbers can run anywhere from 100,000-1million.
These are considered, unlike the mega-influencers to be experts, and they appeal to a cross section of the population.
The macros are not celebrities in the entertainment world, but by their own right, they have gained fame by their online activities.
Like the mega-influencers, the macros also have because of their huge following, the ability to reach large audience but less targeted at a high cost. In addition, the engagement rate with their audience, might be slightly lower. Furthermore, the tight bond that exist between the nano and micro-influencers and their audiences does not exist between the macro and his audience.
The macros however, have the ability to regularly produce high quality content. They can also be useful, if you intend to target specific type of customers, and at the same time want to reach the masses.
Micro-Influencers
In view of the lower engagement rate, conversion rate and cost involved in the other types of influencer marketing, brands are now taking notice of other forms such as, micro-influencers. The micros are below the macros in the hierarchy.
A micro-influencer is an influencer that has a following of about 1000-100,000.
Rather than focusing on a broad market, they focus on a segment of that market. They have a concentrated audience. As a result, their narrow market has allowed them to gain the expertise they need, and are therefore viewed as authority figures in their niche. Hence, their opinions are much respected and trusted.
The micros are also better able to produce high quality content. A content that is relevant and helpful, and takes into consideration the needs and pain points of their audience.
In addition, a strong relationship exist between the micro and his audience. As a result, such a relationship can easily translate into better engagement and conversion.
Since they view the influencer as genuine, trustworthy and value his opinion, they are more inclined to follow his recommendation without any hesitation.
Additionally, the micro-influencers are cost effective. They normally charge about $100-$300 per post.
Nano-Influencers
These are people who normally have a measure of influence within their community, The reason for nanos, is to get the regular everyday average people, to influence a brand’s product or service to friends and family.
As already mentioned, the nano-influencers have good relationship with her audience. These are friends, family members and maybe workmates, so a close bond exist. And you can also expect a measure of loyalty and trust, between the nano and her followers.
In view of this, nano-influencers have the highest level of engagement, and the ability to influence the purchasing decisions of their followers.
In addition, nanos are cost effective in comparison to other influencers, who are paid huge amounts because of their following. On the other hand, a nano-influencer will usually work for a free product or proceeds from affiliate link.
Nano-Influencer does not have a great reach
Nanos as stated previously, have a very small following. As a result, a nano does not have a great reach or much exposure. He will not provide your brand especially if you are a large company, with the exposure that you might desire.
Should this limitation deter a larger brand from utilizing the service of a nano-influencer? In view of their cost-effectiveness
, large brands could utilize hundreds of nano -influencers, provided of course they are willing to deal with the organizational and tracking headaches this might pose. This is something that a large brand must consider.
How to measure Influencer Success.
We have clearly seen the positive impact that influencers can have on a brand. It has been stated that influencers can contribute to brand awareness, engagement, growth and conversion.
However, should a brand decide to partner with an influencer, it should be prudent to measure the effectiveness of the brand. Won’t you agree? As this will help you determine, if the services of the influencer can be employed in the future.
Kiely Kuligowsky outlined ways that you can judge the success of an influencer campaign:
- Use affiliate links- You can create a link that has a unique code, which identifies a person’s ID or username
- Track impression- Impressions tell you the number of people that have seen a content
- Track engagement – engagements such as likes, comments, shares, retweets and reactions, can be tracked. It demonstrates the level of engagement an audience has with the post of an influencer.
- Monitor traffic before, during and after the campaign, and make comparison to determine how successful, the influencer is.
- Determine your key performance indicators, that have a bearing on your brand and industry, that you can measure.
- Ask for access- Ask them to share with you their personal data and analytic, which can also help you determine whether your campaign was successful or not.
How To Choose The Right Influencer
For you to be able to choose the right influencer, there are factors that must be given consideration. You should consider factors such as:
- You Goals – What do you aim to accomplish? Is your goal to gain greater exposure for your brand? Or are you aiming for higher engagement and conversion? So you have to carefully determine what your goals are.
- Your product – Does your product have a general or broad appeal? If it has a general appeal, then maybe you should consider using the services of celebrities or influencers with a large following.
- Specific Market – If your goal is to reach a specific market, and you are looking for high level of engagement, then the brand should consider partnering with nano or micro influencers.
- Focus on relevance – The influencer you select, should have values, and interest that are in harmony with your brand’s. This should also be the case with their followers.
- Consider their following – You have to make sure that his followers are a match for your brand. If there is no match, then obviously the partnership will fail.
- Check engagement rates -You have to select an influencer with a high engagement rate, as this will also contribute to the success of a campaign.
- Other factors to consider – You don’t want to select just about any influencer. You have to choose influencers that have a good reputation. Those that will have a positive impact on your brand. Hence, avoid those with a troubled past, who can damage the reputation of your brand and company. It is therefore vital that before partnering with an influencer, that you contact other brands, who might have worked with the influencer, to see what kind of experiences they had with him.
Conclusion
In this blog, “What Influencer Marketing is about,” we have learned that influencer marketing is when a person of influence, recommends a brand to their followers, trying to influence them to purchase.
It was mentioned that influencers can include celebrities, and just about everyday ordinary people.
We also discussed, the different types of influencers, the mega, macro, micro and nano. The number of their followings varies. Some have huge followers and others very few audiences.
Which Influencer might be right for you? It was stated that it depends on many factors. However, one in particular, that was mentioned was your goal.
If your goal is brand awareness or exposure, then the influencers with the very large audiences, will be ideal for your brand. Conversely, if the goal is to reach a specific market, where the level of engagement is very high, then your ideal influencers will be those with the few numbers, the nanos and micros.
Finally, in this blog, “What Influencer Marketing Is About,” we further stressed the need to measure influencer success. It was made clear that you:
- Use Affiliate links
- Track Impressions
- Track engagements
Appreciation
I will like to take this opportunity, to thank you for reading this blog. I hope that by applying some content of this blog, your brand will not only experience greater brand awareness, high level of engagement but also conversion.
Further, should you find this blog,”What Influencer Marketing is about,” of value to you, I will appreciate it if you could share it with others. Also, should you find areas of this blog, that you feel I need to make improvements, please leave me a comment.
Sincerely,
Sten