Does Influencer Marketing Actually Work?
Social media has very much forced us to re-evaluate how we look at fame. It used to be that famous people were generally those on TV, movies, and at the top of the pop charts. Nowadays, though, the lines have become a little more blurred. The rise in popularity of reality TV has made regular people famous overnight, but it is social media that is the real game changer when it comes to measuring fame. Instagram and YouTube are where stars are being born, with some people able to create accounts that pull in millions of followers.
Influencers have followers that tend to want to wear what they wear or eat and drink what they do — essentially they attempt to influence the lives of their followers. Online influencers have become the celebrity spokespeople of the modern generation, which has made big companies sit up and take notice. Most of those big brands will gladly tell you that influencer marketing is part of their overall advertising strategy, but is it money well spent?
Like most internet trends, there is the belief that influencer market will eventually be a bubble that bursts, but there are other strategies — article marketing, SEO, email marketing — that have had the same “flash in the pan” label attached, but are still thriving and proving to be effective marketing strategies today. Let’s take a moment to dig a little deeper into influencer marketing.
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The Current Status of Influencer Marketing
While there are many folks willing to declare that influencer marketing is dead, the data would appear to put that notion to bed. The reality here is that businesses still believe influencer marketing is an extremely effective way to quickly reach a massive audience, with the reported return on investment of the majority of these campaigns proving to be very strong. There are, of course, failures to be found within this form of marketing, but that is true of any type of ad campaign. While the influencer plays a role in selling a product, businesses still need to get creative in how they use the talent available to them. Simply asking an influencer to endorse a product isn’t always enough.
Some Things that Marketers Need to Consider
Okay, so let’s imagine for a moment that we believe influencer marketing to be alive and well today, which it is, but also for the foreseeable future. What do businesses need to do to make the most of this booming trend? The one thing that they cannot do is simply throw out their products to a host of influencers to see which one sticks. Just because someone has 5 million followers on YouTube, it does not mean that they will be the best fit for your brand. Here are some things to consider before jumping into influencer marketing:
Be smart in selecting an influencer — Bigger numbers do not necessarily mean an automatic bigger return on your investment. The fact of the matter here is that someone with 100,000 Instagram followers may deliver better results than someone with 1 million. The larger the number of followers, the more likely it is that the influencer is going to have several different products and services to peddle, which may mean less time devoted to yours. The micro influencer will almost certainly not be juggling a wide variety of different products to endorse, but that is not the only reason why they may be a smarter bet. Smaller influencers very often went the organic route when building a following, which means that the people they interact with tend to be a little more on-board than most. There is a level of authenticity that you hear there which simply doesn’t exist with an influencer trying to appease millions of fans.
You also need to consider the followers of the influencer that you might be looking at to talk about your products. If they have a mainly younger following, there are going to be some items that are not a good fit, and vice versa. It’s also a good idea to look at the past history of the influencer. Do they have a squeaky clean image or have they made headlines in the past for all the wrong reasons? If it’s the latter, is that really someone you want associated with your brand?
Know what you want — Marketing success is dependent upon results, so you really need to know from the outset what it is that you hope to get when partnering with an influencer. For some, it’s all about building a brand, which may mean that sales are not immediately a major concern. For example, if a business has undergone a re-branding in search of a younger audience, they might turn to an influencer to show that their products are cool or edgy in a fun way.
For some, it’s all about the sales, so while your brand may suddenly be seen as cooler when you deal with an influencer, that may not necessarily lead to a major spike in sales. You need to establish what it is that you hope to get out of this type of marketing and then you need to pay serious attention to the metrics. If the data is not delivering the results you want, you either need to pull the plug, or perhaps shift focus. All of that brings us nicely to the third and final point.
How long should you stick with an influencer? — Again, the length of time that you choose to partner with an influencer will likely depend on what it is that you hope to achieve. If it’s brand building that is on the docket, then the likelihood is that a long-term contract will be the goal. This would also probably mean that some sort of non-compete clause would be added in, as you don’t want your influencer promoting a product similar to yours from a rival competitor.
In other cases, such as the release of a new product, a short-term deal might be the way to go. This is an approach that many marketers within a business are looking at, as it gives them a quick insight into how future partnerships might pan out. It might also give clearer insight into whether or not one particular influencer is the right one for your brand. This is where paying attention to the metrics is really important, as it may well shape the future of your marketing efforts. A great return might mean shifting more focus onto influencer marketing, while less than stellar returns either mean changing the message, the influencer, or getting out of that type of marketing altogether.
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The Future of Influencer Marketing
It is tough to say where influencer marketing will be 5 years from now. What we can predict is that there are still going to be plenty of influencer types on social media for years to come, but the question remains whether businesses will continue to look at them as a viable face for their brand. Part of the problem is that the positive results seen in influencer marketing tend to get lost among the disasters, which always garner more attention. A couple of years back, the Fyre Festival was an event that generated a lot of buzz via influencer marketing. When the festival collapsed and turned into a total nightmare, companies that were on the fence about going the influencer route quickly backed away. When you use high-profile people to sell a product or service, it’s always going to get more headlines when it fails in the way in which the Fyre Festival did.
In Conclusion
While influencer marketing is still very much alive and well, it is something that does have a bit of an uncertain future. Like any other form of marketing, it’s something that should be used as just a single element in a larger, more varied campaign. You don’t see big name companies hiring a celebrity endorser and then sitting back and doing nothing else. Paying attention to trends is important. The tried and true methods of marketing, including creating video content, which is very hot right now, should still remain a part of all of your future campaigns. Diversity rules, all the way.
