(This article is part one of a two-part series on influencer marketing.)
Don’t have the budget or bandwidth to hire a celebrity for a product endorsement? Small businesses with a small marketing budget can still collaborate with popular, influential people to assist with their strategic marketing efforts.
In this article, learn more about influencer marketing and whether or not it’s right for your company.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
According to Hootsuite, influencer marketing is “when a business collaborates with an influential person on social media to promote a product, service or campaign.”
Basically, influencer marketing is the modern way to utilize social media “celebrities” and promote your brand to their niche audience.
These social media people are called “influencers” and they typically have a dedicated and engaged following on a specific social media platform.
Is Influencer Marketing Right for You?
To determine whether influencer marketing is the right choice for your company, you should determine your goals, learn where your audience is, and establish your budget.
Goals
What do you hope to achieve in the next month, six months, or year from an influencer marketing campaign?
Influencer marketing is great for increasing brand awareness and finding loyal customers, especially if you want to do multiple campaigns with the same influencer. That way, the audience will be exposed to your product or service multiple times and will see that the influencer is loyal to your company.
Influencer marketing can also be helpful for increasing followers and engagement on your company’s social media profile, or sending more customers to your website.
Audience
Influencer marketing is typically best for companies with a younger target audience because these are the people who are most active on social media and follow more influencers. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t use influencer marketing if your customer base is older.
Research the demographics of each social media platform before deciding on which to use. Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram are the most popular platforms for influencer marketing, but that doesn’t mean they’re right for your company. Go where your audience is.
In addition, your company should have an account on the social media platform you’re using for influencer marketing. That way, the influencer can tag your account and potential customers can find your company more easily.
If you need help determining where your audience is, check out our blog post on choosing the right social media platform for your business.
Budget
Depending on the person and the size of their platform, influencers can be relatively inexpensive to hire for a campaign. Smaller influencers may accept free products or discounts and not require actual payment. Other influencers (typically ones with a bigger audience) will likely charge a fee to work with them.
Overall, influencer marketing is an effective, low-budget way to advertise your product. If you’ve decided that influencer marketing is right for you, you’ll need to learn how to find the right influencer so you can get the most out of your time and money. Our next blog post will cover what you need to know to find and collaborate with an influencer.
Creative Spot is a full-service marketing and advertising agency in Columbus, Ohio. If you would like to learn more about how we can help your organization with influencer marketing, please contact us.