Is influencer marketing worth it?

In the age of oversaturation with information, traditional media like newspapers, radio, or television are not as good of a platform as they used to be. But what about the Internet? Nowadays, there are banners on almost every site, there are AdSense ads, and paid commercials in social media. A lot of social media users developed so called “banner blindness,” which means they subconsciously ignore advertisements. So the next step for marketers is to cooperate with influencers. But how exactly does it work?

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer is a person, who has a platform with people, who follow them and trust their opinion. A number of companies decide to cooperate with influencers while creating their marketing campaigns. Such cooperation is an agreement between a business representative and a creator, where the latter recommends the products of the said business to their audience. That kind of agreement can be barter or a paid collaboration. There are a number of benefits of this type of partnership, however, there are also some threats.

Benefits and threats of influencer marketing

One of the main benefits of such form of marketing is the efficiency. By offering their platform, an influencer gives you the opportunity to reach the particular group of people. When you sign the contract with them, they also give you their unique image, personality, and charisma. Viewers usually trust the opinion of their favorite creator, so they are more likely to buy the product recommended by them.

When influencers mention your brand, your sites are positioned better in search engines. Every reference with a link counts, and as you know, the higher you are on the search results, the bigger chance for someone to notice your brand.

Another main advantage of this type of marketing is that the audience often want to relate to their favorite influencers. That’s why they play such a huge role in a campaign. People prefer to have an interaction with other people to a corporate talk. Influencer can really show that the product really works in practice.

Now let’s talk about the threats of badly planned campaign with internet celebrities. If you overestimate the influence the person has on their viewers, your money will go to waste. Don’t get fooled by the number of followers they have. Always check if the numbers are authentic. You can do it by asking the owner of the profile to show you their statistics, or use a program like Hype Auditor.

Another issue that may occur is choosing a person who don’t fit your brand or a product. You won’t hire a middle school student to advertise a mortgage credit, as their viewers are probably their peers. You won’t gain anything, but your company image can suffer.

The criteria of choosing influencers

Now you know, what you can achieve by collaborating with internet creators. What you should consider while choosing a person that could represent your brand on social media?

• The number of followers: it’s obvious, however, remember that in this case the rule “the more the better” don’t always apply.

• Engagement of their audience: it is slightly more important factor. Check if the audience is engaged and interact with the influencer often. If the creator has a lot of followers, but not many likes or comments, it is usually a bad sign.

• Quality of their content: look into the content the creator publishes. Is it a high quality material? If not, your ad will not look good on their profile.

• Compatibility: ask yourself if the influencer and their content fit your brand. Will the collaboration be received well by your existing clients and the audience of the creator?

• Controversies: check if the creator is free from any scandals and they don’t publish offensive or controversial content. You don’t want to be associated with a person who has mixed opinions about their work.

How to find and contact and influencer?

Directly – you can do a research and write an email or a DM on the platform, where they are the most active. Professional content creators often put contact information on their profiles, or they direct you to their manager.

Via influencer agency – there are agencies which represent influencers and help you to organize a campaign. Such a collaboration can be a good thing for the people who are not experienced at influencer marketing and have a budget for it.

Micro influencers – why is it worth to choose smaller creators?

Micro influencers are creators with the following from a couple thousand to a couple dozen thousand people. But if they don’t have millions of fans, can such a campaign be successful? Sure! Below you can find the reasons why I recommend reaching out to the smaller artists.

People don’t trust celebrities

When influencers reach a million fans, you can confidently say that they are celebrities and their lives look completely different than the life of average Joe. If such person recommends a product, people don’t necessarily trust them, as they can’t relate to the luxury lifestyle. The biggest influencers have huge financial resources and products have different value for them. Smaller creators are usually regular users with slightly bigger platform, so their audience trusts their opinion.

Engagement

When we talk about bigger influencers, they usually don’t have close contact with their audience. If you has a million followers, would you be able to answer every single message or comment? Micro influencers often have a good contact with their community. It is their huge advantage.

The price of ads

Bigger influencers will obviously need to be paid more for their work. But is the money always adequate to the efficiency of marketing actions? Not necessarily. There are ongoing problems with algorithms on many social media platforms, so the sponsored post may not reach as many people as you estimated. It is also connected with the previous point, that is engagement. If you plan your budget well and collaborate with few smaller influencers, instead of a celebrity, your campaign can be much more successful.

I hope you liked this entry and you found useful information here.

Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter! Have a nice day!