In a time where consumers spend the majority of their free time scrolling through social media, breaking through the noise is more important than ever before. Influencer marketing can place brands directly in front of their target audience, and more importantly, get them to engage. An influencer marketing agency can help you develop an influencer marketing strategy that uses the right influencer to build a community, drive sales and downloads, and increase engagement.
Influencer Marketing is Essential for New Entrepreneurs
For new businesses, finding a foothold in the crowded social media landscape can be tough. The space is highly saturated, so building an audience from scratch can take a significant amount of time and resources. Using influencer marketing can help you build a following of engaged and relevant potential customers.
When using influencer marketing, you are able to discover and select influencers whose niche and tone of voice align with your brand messaging, and whose audience base consists of the right ages, demographics, and psychographics of your target audience. If you are unsure where to begin looking for influencers, you should consider working with an influencer marketing agency. These agencies have access to industry-leading influencer platforms and databases that provide accurate audience breakdowns to ensure all influencers selected are relevant.
If one of your initial social media marketing goals is to increase brand reach, you should work with a few select macro-influencers (those with over 100K followers). If you are just starting out, you might not have the budget for hero influencers (those with over 1M followers), so starting with macro is a good idea. These influencers still have a large following, so your brand will reach new audiences.
If you want to increase engagement or followers, you should work with micro or even nano influencers. These influencers have smaller follower counts (hence less reach), but their engagement rates are significantly higher than the average. Because of their smaller size, their audiences are still hyper-engaged with their content and trust their opinions more than larger influencers. Utilising these high-engagement influencers will help encourage their audiences to follow or research your brand.
The real power of influencers lies in the trust their followers have in them. Influencers have worked hard to establish a strong relationship with their followers, and their audiences respect their recommendations and view them as relevant, reliable and relatable.
We now live in a time where consumers are automatically untrusting of brands online. Working with an influencer provides an authentic testimonial that builds trust. Not only that, you can strengthen your brand’s reputation and credibility.
When first starting your social media strategy, creating content can be overwhelming. You can partner with content creator influencers to create high-quality and engaging content to flesh out your own content strategy. The content can be posted on an influencer’s own channel (to boost reach) and your brand’s channel, which will provide social proof; when profile visitors see an influencer they recognise on your page, they will be more likely to consider following or investing.
The best thing about influencer marketing is the abundance of influencers available. There is a community for every niche you could possibly imagine, and there will be prominent figures within those communities. When working with influencers, you don’t need to stick to those popular within your overall industry. Understanding your audience means understanding their other interests. You can partner with influencers in niches outside of your own industry and target your audience’s other passion points.
If you are just stepping into the influencer marketing space, you should think about working with an influencer marketing agency. These agencies can handle all elements of an influencer strategy—from creative concepts to negotiations and briefing, to campaign activation and reporting.