INFLUENCER MARKETING 101
Gone are the days when billboards, print ads and TV commercials were effective ways of getting your message out there to the world. Now it’s all about digital media like Facebook and Instagram ads, viral posts and the blogosphere. But as any online business owner knows, it’s not always easy to develop a strong following on your own. Sometimes you need a little help from people who already have cred to put the spotlight on your brand. This is why so many businesses are turning to influencer marketing to broaden their audience and boost sales.
WHAT IS INFLUENCER MARKETING?
Basically, influencer marketing is utilising people who have a lot of pull and sway in the online world to promote your brand to a larger audience. Influencers could be anyone from bloggers to prominent people in a community to experts in a given genre who already have a significant number of followers and great engagement with their audience. The idea is kind of similar to word-of-mouth marketing in that the Influencer is vouching for your products and services to a loyal following of people who trust their opinion.
HOW TO FIND INFLUENCERS
Before you begin looking for influencers, you need to know your market inside and out. Think about who your ideal customers are, and then find out what kind of things they like, what topics they are interested in and what kind of media they follow. Once you know this, you can start to look for people who are influential in those areas.
One good way to find influencers is to search for keywords, social media groups and hashtags that are relevant to your market. This can be super time consuming, so we suggest using some handy content research tools like Buzzsumo, Inkybee and Keyhole and Peoplemap.co for Instagram. These tools allow you to search for the top posts and influencers for any given topic or keyword, and some even allow you to create influencer lists right in their platform.
Of course when it comes to Influencers numbers are important because you want to make sure that the Influencer you choose has a decent reach, but a huge number of followers isn’t necessarily the be-all and end-all. More importantly, you want to make sure that the Influencer is able to actively engage their audience. One way to determine this is by looking at their engagement rate, which is their engagement (number of likes, comments, etc.) over a period of time divided by the number of followers.
REACHING OUT
So now that you have some influential people in mind, it’s time to reach out and see if you can get some brand love going on. One way to do this is to speak to the audience you already have and encourage them to post great reviews or share your content on their social media channels. Simply asking them to share is a start, but sometimes it takes a bit more to get people to post. You may want to offer incentives like a contest giveaway, promos, discounts, or the opportunity to be featured on your website or social media.
If you’re planning on contacting individual influencers directly, then incentives are a must. Remember that influencers have their own businesses to run, so they probably don’t have the time or resources to promote other people’s products or brands out of the kindness of their heart. Try to think of a way you can collaborate with them so both of you benefit. You may want to offer them free artwork or print that they can review, great discounts for them and their audience, or some sort of financial compensation like commission on sales.
Influencer marketing is so much more than just throwing an ad up. By working with influential people you gain exposure to their audiences and boost your reputation, which can result in more traffic and sales. Moreover, it kind of forces you to get out there and meet other people who are doing great things in your field, and it allows you to form alliances and collaborations with those people, which could turn into something huge later on down the road.
