People no longer believe in sweet commercials and billboards that promise benefits, quality, or fulfillment of all desires. This is why influencer marketing is paramount for companies today, and influencers are becoming “aces” in their sleeves.
Today we will tell you who influencers are, and why they are so important for modern marketing and business in general.
Who is an influencer?
An influencer is a media personality with a powerful opinion in a particular niche. That is the one who, with his posts, publications or stories, influences the audience loyal to him. Influencers are sometimes referred to as opinion leaders because, through authority, they can influence other people’s opinions and create trends.
This is how influencer marketing appeared. By ordering advertising, the company hopes to influence the audience of the influencer in order to sell a product or service.
The main thing to remember is that an influencer is not equal to a celebrity or a blogger. To become an opinion leader, it’s not enough to gain an audience of many thousands on social media. However, as Twenvy shows, it’s beneficial as well. But in short, an influencer is someone who can motivate their audience to take a specific action.
You can also categorize influencers by the type of content they publish. Among them are bloggers, vloggers, streamers, viners, celebrities, reviewers, fictional characters, creators, and YouTube shows hosts.
Why do brands address influencers?
One of the reasons why brands partner with influencers is trust from the audience.
Consumers don’t care who recommends, say, perfume: noname woman or Keira Knightley – the viewers don’t care. For them, this is just another annoying advertisement.
Influencer marketing is more sensitive in this context. And although the main message is the same, the delivery style changes dramatically. There is an offer, but it’s veiled in an absolutely unobtrusive tone so as not to lose followers.
Another reason influencer marketing works better than regular targeting or contextual advertising is the accessibility of bloggers’ lives. Their life is simple, realistic, and accessible, and only slightly brighter than the lives of their followers. It seems that it is only two steps away, and therefore one wants to strive for it. Traditional advertising, on the other hand, reeks of unattainable luxury, which often triggers depression.
Influencer marketing advantages for brands
- Better awareness. It happens that traditional methods of promotion in cases when a company is just entering the market or launching a new product don’t bring the desired result or take a lot of time and money. When there are already established juggernauts on the market, it’s difficult to compete with them. Influencer marketing helps you find the first brand customers or win them back from big players.
- Hitting the very audience. This mostly applies to thematic blogs. Let’s recall beauty bloggers: makeup tutorials made by influencers are viewed only by those who adore beauty routines. And this is your target audience if you deal with cosmetics or beauty care products.
- Nativeness of advertising. With a creative and delicate approach, the influencer’s ad doesn’t sound like “buy me immediately or your life is nothing.” On the contrary, the ads from influencers look like friend’s advice to the followers.
- New audience without vast expenditures. For sure, all influencers have a different wage rate. Someone offers a fixed price for advertising, someone agrees to work for the mutual promotion, someone welcomes the brand’s products or services. Regardless of the context, partnering with influencers is often cheaper than buying regular digital ads.
- Creation of new quality content. Influencers are called that for a reason: they know perfectly what language to speak with their audience to win their favor. In other words, they are already professionals at creating effective content.
- Increased brand confidence. Bloggers gain not only attention but also the trust of the audience. A warm, almost friendly relationship develops between them. This is possible due to the fact that in social media, people get the opportunity to communicate with their idols directly. Due to such a trusting relationship, bloggers are trusted more than a “bought” star. As a rule, this triggers brand or product confidence as well.
Influencer marketing helps any business grow but only if it chooses the “right” blogger. This is why it is crucial to analyze the quality of the content, not the number of followers.
Wrapping up
Influencers are now truly indispensable people for marketing and advertising. They are a prime example of how the hobby can be turned into a successful business.
Obviously, the marketing world, as it was before influencer marketing, is rapidly fading away. Companies are massively abandoning traditional promotion channels in favor of collaborating with influencers. With the right approach and a competent strategy, this type of marketing can solve most PR issues on its own. Don’t miss the opportunity to start collaborating with bloggers now.
