Ever wondered what influencer marketing is? Our Social Media Executive Suzi takes us through what it is and why brands should consider it.
As social media continues to grow and become a bigger part of our daily lives, there is an emergence of social media influencers evolving on each platform. Brands are now harnessing this trend and using these influencers to market their products on their native channel. This type of activity is done with the hope of influencing consumers decisions. Rather than turning to the brands, consumers are increasingly more likely to listen to fellow consumers and “real” people whom they trust, when deciding whether to purchase a product or not. These people are social influencers in the form of bloggers or Youtubers who often have a huge presence on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr and Vine. Harnessing their potential to reach your target demographic is called “influencer marketing”.
Put simply, influencer marketing is when a company approaches someone with a substantial online following who have an influence over potential buyers in the right target market. They then talk about the products on their blogs or YouTube videos or share photos on social accounts, predominantly Instagram, in turn potentially influencing the opinion of hundreds of thousands of followers.
(image: https://www.superdream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Untitled-design.png alt: Influencers )
Here are our top 4 reasons why brands need to recognise this form of marketing as the next big thing, and put it into serious consideration:
1. A trustworthy & powerful source
This may be the biggest reason as to why influencer marketing really does work. People are more likely to listen to a real person who they trust, as oppose to a faceless corporate brand. A lot of the time a brands messaging will be very biased and focussed on pushing positive sales messages which may not always be a authentic reflection of their products. Whereas, an opinion from someone who doesn’t work for the company will be much more trustworthy. Although influencers often get paid a fee for mentioning certain products, for the most part they will give a truthful account as to what they truly like and believe are worthwhile purchases or not.
2. We’re tired of paid ads
On average in the UK we are exposed to anything from 250-3000 adverts a day, from TV, radio, magazines, the internet etc, this sheer amount means we start to unconsciously tune out and a lot of ads will go unnoticed, due to a lack of authenticity. Put simply we are tired of constantly seeing paid ads thrown in our faces, and they are starting to lose the effect they once had, meaning a new form of advertising and promotion is needed in order to create standout.
3. It can help with SEO
Having a buzz around a product and links back to product pages, as a result of influencer marketing, whilst also having lots of people sharing and talking about your product online will do wonders for a brands search engine ranking. As well as this it will also build and improve their reputation and in turn their sales figures.
4. Trackable & Targetable
In the past traditional forms of advertising have lacked the ability to accurately target specific audiences, and without the correct data it just becomes a shot in the dark. However with influencer marketing and the digital world this is changing, brands are able to target much more specific groups of people who they know will have a vested interest in their products. The growth in digital also means that everything is trackable, every website visit, click, social interaction, tag, user generate content post can all be stored and analysed. This gives a company richer, and more reliable results which, in turn, can be turned in to valuable insights about the audience and marketing performance, enabling further improvements to marketing activities in the future.
It is clear that influencer marketing is certainly the next big thing in the marketing industry, it is a fresh new way brands can get their products noticed in an authentic way whilst creating a buzz online about themselves. As traditional forms of advertising become more and more saturated consumers are turning to trusted sources or “influencers” to learn about the latest products and form an opinion. However, how long will this last? It’s currently popular as it is new and substantially different to other forms of traditional advertising we are used to as consumers, but will it still be as effective when it becomes more popular? Or will it go the same way as other traditional forms of advertising, saturated, over produced and unauthentic?