Who, What and Why are Influencers important?

Create great content, and let others do the hard work for you. Influencer marketing grows your business. Here’s how to find and define them.

Buzzword breakdown

Personas = Target audience (your ideal customer)

Influencers = People online who’s opinion carry weight

Collective = Like minded people within a group

In today’s world of content marketing, you create your best content to educate, inform, and subconsciously persuade your audience. Each persona in your audience will react differently to the types of content you create. Influencers are those who will fly the flag online for you, be an advocate of your service, and ideally become a brand ambassador. There are many forms in which people can turn into influencers.

First of all, the most influential type ‘Influential influencers’ are those who are notably famous in their field and others, not necessarily business focussed.

Secondly, you will have the ‘Collective Influencers’ who are part of a group or institution that are valued highly to your personas. Once again depending on each of your personas will require a different collective focus.

Thirdly, the ‘Brand Influencers’ I like to class as those who are journalists working across the publications your personas read and follow online. One of the most powerful types of influencers around. Easy to find, but difficult to build a lasting relationship. Start slow, as building relationships with these influencers takes times, very much like PR.

Fourth and final type is the ‘Local Influencers’, the most cost-effective type of influencer who heavily spreads positive word-of-mouth about your brand online and offline. These types of influencers come about from being an extremely satisfied customer, happy with the service you offer while being a high valued customer in your eyes. Treat them with promotions and new material before official launch dates, and they’ll keep advocating your brand.

Now what?

With each of the Influencer types, you will have to segment them down into your buyer personas. Prior to selecting initial influencers, a study of your buyer personas will have to be put in place, either through a workshop or a review. One of the ways you can start your buyer persona research is by looking at your current customers and segmenting them into groups. Each one of the groups will represent a buyer persona, and in turn be influenced and motivated by different types of influencers, messages, and use different types of mediums to receive this communication.

Any questions give us a tweet! More to come on Influencer Marketing.