Influencer Marketing: Best Practices and Tips Recommended in 2020

Influencer marketing is on the rise in the last few years. Most businesses are seeing influencer marketing as a viable option, as opposed to other forms of marketing. Businesses are also seeing the value in investing in this more.

In this piece, you can get an in-depth understanding of what it is, and why it is on the rise. You can also get a sense of who influencers are and which of them are the better ones. Additionally, the article provides a few data points of why and how influencer marketing is working. Finally, you also get a sense of why an influencer could be a bad choice or a campaign could potentially fail. Hope you find this article to be an interesting read.

Do you know what is influencer marketing?

Source: Salesforce

So, let me tell you what it is. Influencer marketing is when a brand gets endorsed by an online influencer for their product or service. Different people are considered online influencers. These people have multiple followers and can impact and influence the opinion of their followers.

Brands improve their brand recognition by working with influencers.

No matter which industry the brand belongs to, with the penetration of social media, every industry has its set of influencers. As a brand, you must find those influencers, identify the most effective ones and convince them to inform their followers about your products and services. These influencers cater to your specific industry and therefore bring greater conversions by targeting specific target audiences.

Needless to say, as much as it may sound like a cakewalk, many things can go wrong while implementing an influencers’ marketing campaign.

• You could potentially not identify the right influencers,
• the messaging that you send out could be all wrong,
• the timing you choose for the messaging could potentially be wrong,
• the campaign may fall flat, and more.

Therefore, it is important to ensure that you have the right strategy while adapting to influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing could be something similar to a recommendation made by someone you trust in your family or friends. However, the only difference is the influencer here is online, a stranger but certainly believed by his or her audiences as an expert in the subject. This form of marketing has been increasing over the years with more people adapting to the online or digital world.

Who are influencers?

With more people going online, influencers are taking on an important role in brand awareness and spreading the word. They are not “celebrities” they are experts in their field, who have a lot of followers.

According to the Digital Marketing Institute, “70% of Teens Trust Influencers More than Traditional Celebrities”.

Influencers can be anyone and be from anywhere. Meaning they can be popular for their sheer knowledge on a particular subject or have expertise in certain areas.

An influencer can be:

• An Instagramer who is a fashion photographer, or
• A blogger dealing with online security,
• A trusted source for news or politics,
• A respected source on LinkedIn for market information;

All of these can be influencers. They typically have many followers in the millions or could have as few as 10,000 or less. However, what makes them tick is the amount of influence they have on their audiences and the authenticity of their support.

Source: socialbakers

For instance, if you want to invest in Instagram influencer marketing, you must look for not the influencer who has the maximum number of followers but the ones with the most expertise in the field and have the most engaging posts on the topic relevant to your target audiences. The more the engagement with your influencer’s post, the greater the chances that they can change the reader’s mind and impact your businesses directly.

An influencer is also someone who can interact and stay away from the straight-jacketed promotion of the product. They tend to be more engaged with their audiences and the product or services they vouch for. This means, to be an effective influencer, they are usually convinced and have all the knowledge of the product or service to back up their recommendation.

Why is Influencer Marketing on the rise?

Over the last few years, influencer marketing has been on the rise because of the sheer increase in the number of online participation. Many people have started to join the different social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, and more. This has introduced creators and curators of content themselves. This has also given a lot of talented people the opportunity to rise above the noise. This has helped people craft and share their own experiences using their different forms of expression, be it videos, infographics, photos, stories and more.

Some of the reasons the influencer marketing is on the rise include:

#1 Attract the right customers

Influencers have the right kind of audience for your brand. The best way to find them is to find the influence who is involved the most with your industry. Additionally, one can filter down further to the particular type of product or service. This ensures that the per capita return on investment is higher.

#2 Efficient use of social media platforms

There are different types of influencers across different social media platforms. This includes platforms like blogs, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and others. These platforms are huge and influencers use these social media platforms efficiently. Brands find it easier to ride on the efficiency of the influencer and gain conversions. It is believed that Instagram posts are the most used format of influencer marketing.

According to bigcommerce “78% of marketers chose Instagram posts as the number 1 choice.”

#3 Builds customer trust: When a legitimate influencer talks well about your brand, the trust, and reliability of your brand increases. An influencer has the clout to change public opinion, and people often look to them for recommendations. This is better than serving your brand up as an ad.

The Digital Marketing Institute in its study mentions that ‘49% of Consumers Depend on Influencer Recommendations’.

#4 Conversion and better returns

Targeted marketing always gives better returns and higher conversion rates. The most effective thing about influencer marketing is that you are not just targeting the right audiences, you are targeting audiences using influencers who they already trust.

It is believed that 89% of organizations say the ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels as specified by bigcommerce.

#5 Cost-effective option

Over the years, marketers are finding influencer marketing to be a more cost-effective option, as compared to other marketing options including email marketing, ads, and others.

#6 More efficient than organic growth

Organic growth is time-consuming and requires a lot of effort on something you might not necessarily have the experience of doing. The learning curve is steeper. However, influencers already have the reach, they have already established themselves. This makes the process more efficient.

#7 Better SEO

A good influencer marketing strategy increases SEO making it more effective. The more people mention your product, the better the SEO rating gets. A better SEO on a brand means that anyone looking for a similar product or service gets the brand’s product or service as a higher-ranked result. This not only makes the influencer increase sales directly but also indirectly increase conversions through search.

Read the best influencer marketing framework to boost your brand reach.