Have you ever won­dered what is influ­encer marketing?

Well, influ­encer mar­ket­ing is a pop­u­lar mar­ket­ing tac­tic used to pro­mote a brand mes­sage to a niche audi­ence in an authen­tic and trust­wor­thy way. 

As social media plat­forms diver­si­fied and gained trac­tion with much of the pop­u­la­tion, many pro­file fig­ures rose to fame, gain­ing mas­sive attrac­tion and fol­low­ings of over a mil­lion plat­form users. 

Brands imme­di­ate­ly sought out these social media celebri­ties, lever­ag­ing their reach to pro­mote prod­ucts, ser­vices, and brand mes­sages. As the tac­tic became more pop­u­lar, its authen­tic­i­ty dilut­ed, and con­sumers began to ques­tion the intent of social media celebri­ty messages. 

While shar­ing brand mes­sag­ing through online celebri­ty pro­files has lost some of its clout, social media users still avid­ly fol­low a vari­ety of less famous online pro­files that are con­sid­ered influ­encers in their industries.

Who Is a Social Media Influencer?

A social media influ­encer is a pro­file or char­ac­ter that has an author­i­ta­tive voice in their indus­try of con­tent con­tri­bu­tion. A social media influ­encer speaks can­did­ly and con­ver­sa­tion­al­ly to users, cre­at­ing a nat­u­ral­ly trust­wor­thy tone of mes­sage, and is invites fol­low­ers to engage in a par­tic­u­lar opin­ion or dis­po­si­tion with­in an industry. 

Social media influ­encers rep­re­sent a pow­er­ful way to con­nect with con­sumers in the social media envi­ron­ment, who favor gen­uine inter­ac­tion and are oth­er­wise skep­ti­cal of adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing initiatives. 

Benefits of Influencer Marketing 

Here are some of the biggest ben­e­fits of uti­liz­ing influ­encer marketing.

  • Reach niche audience

    Con­sumer groups are con­tin­u­al­ly greater in num­ber, and each is increas­ing­ly diverse, adding a sig­nif­i­cant amount of labor to cre­at­ing mar­ket­ing approach­es par­tic­u­lar to the group. 
    Work­ing with social media influ­encers elim­i­nates the need to craft a mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy for each niche con­sumer group and allows you, instead, to reach said group imme­di­ate­ly and effec­tive­ly through one of the trust­ed lead­ers in the audience. 

    Addi­tion­al­ly, niche influ­encers allow you to enter a niche indus­try with few­er bar­ri­ers to entry. 

  • Credibility

    Where your brand out­reach lacks cred­i­bil­i­ty, an influencer’s voice picks up the slack with mes­sages that users enjoy­ing lis­ten­ing to and believe. Deliv­er­ing a mes­sage to a new audi­ence can take sev­er­al cycles and mar­ket­ing strate­gies; an influ­encer has already built a reli­able rela­tion­ship with fol­low­ers, mean­ing that mes­sages are unprece­dent­ed­ly accept­ed and processed favorably. 

  • Increased reach

    It’s hard to con­nect with con­sumers as a brand! Guards are up for adver­tise­ments and mon­ey-mak­ing tac­tics, even if your inten­tion is to bet­ter a consumer’s life. Social media influ­encers help break down the wall of mis­trust and deliv­er your mes­sage in a trust­wor­thy way. 

    Con­sumer groups are also con­tin­u­al­ly seg­ment­ing across social media, ren­der­ing it a chal­lenge to reach and meet each group’s expec­ta­tions and win­dows of availability. 

    Influ­encers are your brand ambas­sadors, keep­ing con­sumer groups ral­lied and primed for mes­sages, ensur­ing that they under­stand the best prod­ucts and ser­vices avail­able to the respec­tive industry. 

  • Affordability

    Com­pared to grass­roots mar­ket­ing approach­es and tai­lor­ing mes­sages to mul­ti­ple con­sumer groups, work­ing with influ­encers to reach cus­tomers is a cost-effec­tive mar­ket­ing tactic. 

    How­ev­er, it is nec­es­sary to work with the right influ­encers in order to achieve your high­est ROI; if you are inter­est­ed in work­ing with a pro­fes­sion­al mar­ket­ing team to locate your ide­al influ­encers, reach out to our team at Rosy Strategies. 

  • SEO boost

    Every time your brand is men­tioned online, par­tic­u­lar­ly on social media, your web­site receives a boost in its search engine rank­ings. When you get an influ­encer chat­ting about your brand on social media, shares, likes, and com­ments spread rapid­ly, result­ing in an SEO boost that allows you to con­nect with more con­sumers inter­est­ed in your prod­uct or service. 

  • Drive sales

    Work­ing with social media influ­encers does more than give your brand voice cred­i­bil­i­ty in a niche indus­try; it encour­ages shop­ping and dri­ves con­ver­sions. As you cre­ate con­tent and mes­sag­ing strate­gies with your social media influ­encers, be sure to include calls-to-action in each post and outreach. 

    When fol­low­ers are prompt­ed to make the next step after con­tent con­sump­tion, they are one step clos­er to pur­chas­ing your prod­uct or service. 

How to Find Social Media Influencers

The best social media influ­encers are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those with the high­est fol­low­er counts, but those with the high­est engage­ment. Look for influ­encers with audi­ences who clear­ly val­ue their shares, posts, and opin­ions. These are the types of influ­encers that can effec­tive­ly reach the audi­ence you are hop­ing to con­nect with.

How to Find Social Media Influencers

Trust Your Choice

Trust your social media influ­encers to cre­ate a cam­paign around your prod­uct or mes­sage that they know the audi­ence will respond to. Remem­ber, their pro­file is their active social media voice; they know which words to use, when to present prod­ucts, and how to encour­age fol­low­ers that pro­mot­ing your prod­uct is about more than mak­ing mon­ey; that they actu­al­ly want to share what you have to offer

Work with Rosy Strategies

Social media influ­encer mar­ket­ing is a vital com­po­nent of any brand’s mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, espe­cial­ly in the upcom­ing 2019. 

If you are seek­ing guid­ance in curat­ing a high­ly effec­tive influ­encer strat­e­gy in the com­ing year, get in touch with our team at Rosy Strate­gies. We can help with every step of the way, from unearthing ide­al tar­get con­sumer groups to locat­ing opti­mal influ­encers and cre­at­ing an appro­pri­ate influ­encer approach that match­es your over­all mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy goals.