Table Of Content
The modern trend in the market is that most brands are using influencer marketing campaigns as part of their marketing strategies. It is one of the best ways to get an edge against your competitors. Influencer marketing will help you irrespective of the nature of business or industry.
A research that was carried out in 2016 reveals that influencer marketing delivered excellent results to companies that were using it. It is a crucial technique that has a high potential for growth in the future.
In another study, most marketers who used influencer marketing in 2016 were more likely to double the investment in this technique from 2017 onwards. The reason for this is that more and more audiences and brands are turning to influencers and social media for good intentions in the industry.
Google trends also reveal a significant increase in the use of influencer marketing all over the world. It is a marketing tool that you cannot ignore if you aspire to grow.
Research by Linqia who provides marketing solutions in the United States reveals that more enterprises are likely to increase their budget on influencer marketing strategies in the future. He sampled 170 marketers in the United States, and 48% of them stated that they would be increasing the budget on influencer marketing the following year.
Only 4% of these respondents stated that they would be reducing their budget on influencer marketing. While it appears as if time is up to pay more attention to the use of ads, there is a need for marketing professionals to tap in this lucrative strategy because it guarantees quick results.
Besides, influencer marketing has a high return on investment as long as you get it right. Marketing Land statistical analysis indicate that overwhelmingly using social media platforms such as Facebook is helping brands to attract online traffic.
For this reason, there has been an increase in the adoption of influencer marketing in the global market. The technique entails the use of well-respected and reputed personalities to refer more people to your website. It is a bit different from the use of organic search.
Most of these personalities have a long list of followers who trust their word and hence, product recommendations. Currently, Facebook is leading when it comes to driving referral traffic and stands at approximately 25%. This report was provided by Shareaholic (a social media management company) on Marketing Land.
There is a high possibility that potential clients will buy from your company once they get to understand that you have fantastic products from these third party personalities. Therefore, it is essential to include influencer marketing in your promotion strategy.
It is one of the best ways to drive more sales and boost brand visibility for your business. The primary responsibility of influencer marketers is to create and share content about your brand. For this reason, you need to take advantage of influencer marketing to help you in marketing your brand.
However, you should not go into this strategy blindly. There are several things that you need to put into consideration while choosing a perfect social media influencer for your brand. In this article, we will only look at ten of the things to keep in mind.
However, it is good to read more on this topic if you want to make informed decisions on influencer marketing. The market has so many content marketing experts, and you have to make sure that you are choosing the right one.
Read more: Top 10 Inbound Marketing Tips for Brands
Here are some of the things that you need to keep in mind to make the right decision;
How to Choose the Best Influencer Marketing Professional:
1. Relevance:
The best influencer marketing expert should deliver high-quality content for your niche. Therefore, you need someone who has a lot of knowledge about the products and services that your industry offers. Remember you want to build trust with the people who are following these personalities on social media.
You cannot meet the above objective unless the influencer knows what he or she is saying about your products or services. Do your research well and get someone relevant to your niche. Relevancy is what will determine whether online users will trust the word of the influencer marketer or not.
For instance, choosing a man to market sanitary towels may not be the best choice. The influencer could be having a lot of knowledge but has no personal experience in using sanitary pads. It is better to choose a woman who has a close connection with these products to push the marketing campaign.
With this in mind, relevance comes top on the list when choosing an influencer marketing expert. You have to make sure that your audience will trust the influencer you want to market your products or services naturally.
2. Engagement:
The number of social media followers that the individual has is not enough to qualify him or her as a perfect influencer for your business. You need to choose individuals who are engaging their audience by sharing and updating relevant content regularly.
The best influencer marketing expert will also respond to comments from his followers and comment on all the relevant blogs. Don’t choose a professional who is so busy to engage with his or her audience. It is useless to have millions of users if you are not engaging with them.
Look at the level of connection that the influencer has with his or her followers. You will benefit more from the influencer marketing strategy if you choose a professional who is in close touch with his or her audience. Choose an influencer who has the right qualities for managing and sharing the right content to those people who follow them.
3. Reach:
This element is also crucial if you want to find the right influencer marketing professional for your business. You need to get an influencer who has a broad reach, and you will be sure that a large target audience is accessing the content that the influencer shares.
Remember, the primary role of influencer marketing is to increase the number of people who are following your brand. You cannot achieve this objective unless the influencer has a broad reach.
However, the reach should be relevant to your brand. You need a following that you can convert into leads and sales. For instance, you cannot choose an authority figure who runs an automotive blog to market your cosmetic products. The content will be noise in the ears of his target audience.
Therefore, look for social media influencers who have a command in your industry. It is wise to choose an influencer who has a small but relevant reach than going for one who has a large but irrelevant one.
You should always remember to measure your influencer marketing goals. It will tell you whether your corporation with the influencer is fruitful or not. The reach of the influencer will help you to achieve most of your goals.
4. Frequency:
It is crucial to check at how often the influence updates and shares content. The best influencer will be online posting most of the time if you want to grow your brand. The influencer should spend most of the time sharing relevant posts and commenting on them.
However, quality is more important at this point than quantity. The influencer should pay close attention to quality. It is better to post fewer posts as long as you maintain the desired quality standards. Poor quality will work against your site by increasing the bounce rate.
5. Authenticity:
The best influencer marketing expert should be able to deliver authentic content to the general public. Authentic influencers have a higher impact on their followers, and this can benefit your brand in several ways.
Therefore, choose influencers who have a lot of experience in your industry. It will help you to go through the whole process with no hitches. You don’t want someone who will do more harm than good to your brand.
You need someone that your audience will trust with a lot of ease. You should not struggle when it comes to building trust. Evaluate the level of authenticity of the social influencer before you can trust them with this responsibility. Check through the previous campaigns to see whether the influencer has a proven track record in your industry.
6. Platform:
The internet has so many platforms where you can post the content for your brand. Social media alone has a long list of channels that you can use. One thing I need you to understand is that each platform has its pros and cons.
The influence can boost the awareness of your brand irrespective of the platform that you are using. However, you need to determine the platforms where your target audience spends most of their time. The demographics of your target audience will determine the best platform to use in gaining more visibility online.
The right influencer will pay more attention to the channels that are most relevant to your brand. It is advisable to use multiple channels but does not leave behind the most useful ones. The customer is the king, and you should get to them where they are.
Most people refer to Instagram as a one billion dollar industry because so many influencers are using it to create brand awareness. Facebook trails behind, even though it has the most extensive user base. Therefore, you have to pay close attention to the platform that the influencer will be using to market your products and services.
As a result, having a highly experienced and reputable influencer who is active on Instagram may serve you better than a person who has a large following on Facebook. However, it all depends on the kind of audience that you are targeting.
As stated before, it is good to diversify on the platforms that you are using in influencer marketing. It will increase the possibility of reaching out to a broader audience. For instance, most of the digital marketers are visible on Twitter while cryptocurrency experts are on forums such as bitcointalk.org most of the time.
Some influencers also have personal communities on the Ning platform. It unites them for a single idea and corporate for common goals. These influencers have their social eco-system with members who have signed up on them, top discussions, chats, and activity feed.
7. Brand Lift:
The influencer that you choose has to help you to boost the image of your brand. Influencer marketing concerns with talking to the target audience. Therefore, you need an influencer who will help you to raise the perception and awareness of your brand in the eyes of the target audience.
8. Audience:
Your brand needs an influencer marketing professional who will focus on the achievement of specific objectives and goals. The right influencer will know the most appropriate audience to target when advertising your products or services.
The most important thing is to convert these audiences into active customers. It is meaningless to target people who cannot consume your products or services. Therefore, look at the expertise and experience of the influencer ineffective messaging.
9. Brand Safety:
Companies pay close attention to brand safety than before. With the modern controversies with YouTube ads, companies suffer audience boycott by showing objectionable content and videos that do not resonate well with their audience.
Several companies have been victims of these misfortunes from YouTube. The best influencer will check the content he shares or posts to make sure that it does not run alongside damaging videos or content on platforms like YouTube.
10. Cost:
Get an influencer who will guarantee you high-quality services at the most affordable rates in the market. Even though marketing is an expensive undertaking, you should carry out the campaigns without breaking the bank or blowing up your fortunes. However, don’t compromise on quality while running for cheap services. The guiding principle here is to get value for your money.
Conclusion:
Influencer marketing is a crucial tool for all brands. The right influencer will share high-quality content to the appropriate target audience regularly. The content should be related to the objectives and goals of your business to create brand awareness. The above ten points will help you to get the right influencer marketing strategy for your brand.
If you want to gain traffic from influencer marketing, get in touch to us for the best way forward.
Read Also:
