Digital Marketing Influencers
With most of the marketers targeting ads and other pay per click strategies, there are some few wise marketers who are going for another very reliable methods of marketing regarded to as influencer marketing.
To understand the whole concept of influencer marketing, we have to start by defining who has an influence on a business perspective. When it comes to marketing and making products and service recognized in a specific niche, influencers can really help.
What is influencer marketing?
An influencer is someone who is trusted in their specific niche. In China, the term is called key opinion leaders. They usually have the capability to influence potential buyers to take action. In any niche, influencers can either be big and small, based on their followers' size.
Micro influencers are usually bloggers, content creators or vloggers. They are people who have social media following of 5,000 to 100,000. These are the people that are recognized as people who are easy to approach and relatable. They are easy to work with when compared to their macro counterparts. Do not be deceived by their small following as they could have a larger engagement rate and worth more than macro influencers.
If you are basing your content and all the focus on fashion and beauty, then there are several influencers that you can work with. In most of the situations, you have to look for influencers who are specifically very established in a exact niche.
There are several reasons why many startups and established businesses partner and even governments work with influencers. It is also considered as one of the newer marketing strategies. Here are some of the reasons why people are going for this type of marketing.
- Micro influencers have already established themselves in the market. They also have already established trust and relationships with their audience.
- Micro influencers are able to generate engagement with their target audience. According to statistics, 40% of Twitter users have made a purchase as a direct influence of a tweet from an influencer.
- Partnering with micro influencers is cost effective. What this means is that it is a good marketing strategy for startups and small businesses.
- Partnering with influencers is more relevant-it is a good way to get more value for your money.
The other category is the macro influencers. These are big individuals in the industry or companies that have already established themselves in the market. Although partnering with macro-influencers often takes a lot of money and time, it can be beneficial. They have a large following of above 10,000. Previously, it’s only the celebrities that people recognized as macro influencers but today the internet has given us more personalities with the same following.
There are several reasons why you should work with macro influencers too. However, if you are straining financially, you better stick with micro influencers and eventually grow with time. You will have to dig deeper in your pocket but the anatomy of brands when you are selecting the right influencer and the ability to provide all the needed instructions will give marketers more control over all the things.
- The main reason why macro influencers are important is because they have a wide audience range. This translates to more reach.
- It saves time matters instead of needing to select and manage multiple influencers.
- If the risk of fake followers worries you, then you have to work with the macro influencers.
- They also have a higher level of reputation required.
The top disadvantage of working with influencers is the high costs. However, the cost of one content barely depends on the status of the influencer.
Do you really need influencer marketing?
The answer to this question is yes, there are uncountable benefits that you are likely to get from influencer marketing. As we have already mentioned, influencer marketing is the next big deal. Previously, most of the people criticized it thinking that it is another thing that would fade within a very short period of time but nature has shown otherwise.
Are you still wondering why should you try influencer marketing? I now want to give you several reasons to try it.
- All the businesses are now turning to influencer marketing. As a matter of fact, 94% of serious marketers are using micro or macro influencers to market their products and services. The main reason for this is because they want to reach out to a significant number of people in their niche.
- With Influencer marketing, there’s an increase in the trust factor which later impacts directly on conversions.
- For the influence of targeted exposure, partnering with influencers whether micro or macro increases ROI.
- Eventually, partnering with influencers will improve your reputation both online and offline. I bet you already know the influence it would bring for a celebrity to endorse your products.
One thing is sure of is that customers and almost everybody in the market are tired of paid ads and other marketing tactics that are rampant this day. Most of them are now using ads blockers to block all forms of ads they encounter along the way.
Paid ads also have several other disadvantages, there’s evidence that only about 14% of all the website visitors that can remember the last ad they saw. They also don’t remember the product or the service that was being advertised now the message used to promote those products and services. If you take time to think about this, you will eventually realize that there’s need to go for a different marketing strategy.
Who are some of the most influencing influencers on Instagram today?
With all the information above, I bet you want to know who are some of the most influencing characters in different niches. Here is a list of some of them on Instagram.
- Gary Vaynerchuk who is a business guru and the pioneer of e-commerce platforms and YouTube videos
- Tim Ferriss who is an innovative author and a technology expert
Others include Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Neil Patel, Larry Kim, Michael Hyatt, Ann Handley and eventually Ted Rubin among many others. Below are some theories from influencers like Everyone is six Degrees of connections from each other.