Influencers, Does Your Small Business Really Need Them?
Marketing is an essential aspect of a successful business; therefore, it must be done in the right manner and with the right strategies in place. The recent increase in the number of social media users and the popularity of its channels especially Instagram, Twitter and YouTube have led to the upspring of people who refer to themselves as ‘influencers’. Our goal with this post is to help you find out if your business actually needs them and if they are worth your investment.
Before things get too fast, you need to understand the concept of influencer marketing. An influencer is an individual who can reach many people through various communication channels and can potentially, influence them to like or dislike, adopt or shun, buy or skip buying a product/service. The act of influencer marketing involves an influencer getting to market your product within their community to create brand awareness, manage brand reputation, improve brand advocacy, drive sales or meet your set marketing goals.
You should read: The iroko jump: How to measure growth in your business.
For the purpose of this article, we have categorized influencers into three broad groups, namely:
Celebrities/Top Influencers
These are highly recognized individuals who have created a name for themselves in their industry and have over a million followers. One common misconception around influencer marketing is that brands believe big name celebrities guarantee big success. Your small business really has no business here; simply put, you don’t need them. Bear in mind that all that glitters isn’t going to transform your business. As a small business, you need to be petty about your business processes, streamlining them to derive more returns, treating your customers right and gaining free influencing through word of mouth marketing from your loyal customers.
Middle Influencers
This category of influencers are those who have between 100k to less than a million followers. They have a wide and almost niche reach and are slightly able to manage their engagements, you can easily tell what their content categories and interests are and most likely be able to know if your product is a great fit for these influencers. However, your small business might not be able to afford their services as well, so finding yourself a micro-influencer who connects with the right demographics of your business can be cheaper and far more effective than a middle influencer marketing stunt gone wrong.
Micro Influencers
Their figures are not as high as the rest but their level of engagement is impressive and would usually drive sales. They connect very personally with their audience and have most of the time grown their tribe very intentionally. They might not be all hyped up but are worth spending your time and money on. Apart from them being easily accessible and affordable, they will care about your marketing campaign and put in the required work because they have a smaller number of clients than the celebrities. You would be surprised at the amazing ideas they are able to come up with if you give them the chance to co-create the advert message with you. They usually have between 10k- 100k followers.
Check out: The Startup Landscape in Africa is exponentially growing, here’s why.
If you must use influencers to market your product, here are 2 major things to look out for.
Authenticity of followers
Most times you can tell from the engagement on their posts; it is expected that an influencer with a certain number of followers should have a significant amount of engagement on each post. So if it quacks like a duck, then it is most likely a duck… What do we mean? It’s odd for someone with 100K followers to have 10 likes on the average on each post… quack quack.
Relevance
Before selecting an influencer, you must determine if they are relevant to your niche and if their values are in line with that of your business as you have your reputation to protect. Be specific and intentionally pick someone who would actualize those goals for you.
You should hear what Tracei Reuter has to say about influencer marketing as she draws the line between popularity and profitability.
In all, remember that all the hype and shiny things on social media don’t always lead to a sale. A successful marketing campaign is one that still drives sales after the completion of the campaign.
Check out this post: win new customers, then keep them.
Have you tried an influencer marketing campaign before? If yes, feel free to share your experience with us in the comment section. Our free Profitability Checklist for Entrepreneurs is still available, and you can connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Let’s help this post get up to 50 claps, just hold down the clap icon, I’d love to see how much you loved this post!
