Social Media: Why Influencers are Important for Your Business?

Influencers can be bloggers, journalists, industry analysts, and even consultants. They have a strong following and are often used to help build the credibility of different companies.

Also, there is another genre of influencers (Micro-influencers) these influencers would be your everyday people who have created an online following within a specific industry with consumers that have that interest in common.

Using an influencer that has a strong following can help you in marketing your product, often by getting their seal of approval or favorable review, you would more than likely see a boost in sales.

The problem that most companies have is locating influencers within their industry. That’s the big challenge when it comes to influencer marketing.

There are many free tools that you can use to locate influencers within your industry, but you’ll have to invest your time. If you are willing the following list should at least get you started in identifying influencers within your industry.

Twellow

Twellow is a database of Twitter users that categorizes them by subject. You can use the search feature to drill down deeper when searching for exact topics. Users are ranked by the number of followers, so the algorithm is fairly simple, but it may take a little time finding an accurate listing of influencers that isn’t dependent on only the number of followers.

Klout

Klout used to have a bad reputation, but it’s starting to recover. All you have to do is connect your social media account to Klout and immediately you can start searching influencers to reach out to.

FollowTheHashTag

FollowTheHashTag makes finding influencers easy by just simply typing in a hashtag that is of interest to you. You select the keyword that you want to search and within a second it will provide you with the top 10 influencers by just clicking on the influence link in the sidebar. It can’t get much easier than that.

Influencer Marketing Tips

Influencer marketing is very popular and many marketers are looking for ways to use influencers to help increase brand awareness and drive sales. Marketing with influencers has become one of the popular tips of marketing.

There are many small business marketing ideas and influencer marketing is just one of them. Here are some tips you need to know.

Influencer Marketers And Celebrities

Consumers trust people and brands they know and respect; this is the main reason celebrity endorsements are so popular.

Celebrities are influencers because they have reach and popularity. However, you don’t need to be a professional athlete or movie star to be an influencer. Companies can be influencers, websites, and bloggers. They have authority. Even your customers can impact another person’s opinion of your brand.

Many businesses send free samples to their loyal customers and other digital influencers in the space. The results are organic social media posts, blog articles, reviews, and genuine excitement about the new release.

What Influencer Marketing Is

Influencer marketing is one of many digital marketing strategies that involve an organization and influencer collaborating to promote a brand, product, initiative, or idea. The term itself is the tip of the iceberg. Several activities fall under the influencer marketing umbrella-like:

Sponsorships
Product placements
Referral programs
Celebrity endorsements
Guest blogging

The ultimate goal of influencer marketing is to use another entity’s reach and influence to share or promote your brand. You’re trying to create and publish branded content that naturally aligns with the influencer’s voice and fits organically within the context of their communication channel.

Rather than investing money to build your communication channels, you find a platform your customers are actively using and work with an influencer on that channel to immediately increase your reach and communicate to a highly-targeted audience.

Why Influencer Marketing Works

A whopping 94 percent of marketers who used influencer marketing find it effective. Influencer marketing follows the logic that an influencer’s audience has shared values, similar opinions, and some level of trust in what that person says or does.

When they mention a brand in a positive light, the trust and interest are transferred from the influencer to the product.

A study revealed that in a crowd, it takes five percent of people to influence the other 95 percent, without the majority realizing they are being influenced.

Influencer marketing is so successful because it breaks the barrier between consumers and traditional digital ads.

The more consumers become aware of advertisements, the less successful the tactic becomes. For instance, display ads in sidebars, headers, or other areas of a web page see an average click-through-rate of .05 percent.

However, influencer marketing removes the clutter and helps you communicate directly with a targeted audience.

What to Consider Before Doing an Influencer Marketing Campaign

While there is certainly value to adding influencer marketing into your digital marketing mix, there are some considerations to make before you start designing a program or outreaching to influencers. Try answering these three questions before you get started with influencer marketing.

Find out where your audience spends its time online.

You should be using influencer marketing to reach a highly-targeted, location-based, engaged community of potential customers. Therefore, to get the results you want from this strategy, you need to make sure you pick a platform that your audience uses.

Pick the right influencer.

After you decide on the platform, start looking for the right types of influencers. Focus on finding micro-influencers in your niche that can generate buzz on a smaller scale.

This quantity over quality approach is the best place to start for businesses that are new to influencer marketing.

Find a blogger who writes about topics relevant to your industry, or find a podcaster whose audience overlaps with your customers. While their reach may be smaller, their audience is still engaged and relevant to your brand.

Know the value of the influencer.

When an influencer shares your brand, you are getting increased recognition, website traffic, and sales growth. But, what does the influencer get in return?

Maybe they are sharing a piece of content or product they genuinely love, or maybe they are being compensated.

Regardless, there needs to be an exchange of value between you and the influencer. That exchange doesn’t always need to be monetary, but it does need to be obvious and communicated beforehand.

Whether it’s sponsorships, free products, exclusive interviews, cross-promotion, etc, the influencer needs to receive something in return for promoting your brand. The relationship also needs to follow the FTC’s guidelines for endorsements.

Influencer marketing isn’t going away, and if you’re an entrepreneur trying to grow a new venture, it can be one of the most effective methods to market your brand. It’s estimated that influencer marketing yields an ROI of $6.50 for every dollar spent.

Remember, find the best platform, look for influencers with relevant and engaged audiences, and start a mutually beneficial relationship. That is the core of influencer marketing and the best way for entrepreneurs to generate an immediate return on their investment.