Influencer marketing is a form of marketing in which a company collaborates or pays an “influencer” to advertise their product. Influencer Marketing is similar to affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is one of the oldest forms of marketing. In affiliate marketing a person or company makes a deal with a company to advertise a product or service. An example for Affiliate Marketing is celebrity endorsements, whenever a celebrity is promoting a product it is from affiliate marketing. The only difference between Affiliate Marketing and Influencer Marketing is that Influencer marketing happens online.
What is an Influencer?
An Influencer is a person with a pre–existent following (usually a social media following) and is a well known person on a certain online platform. The platforms are usually social media platforms since it is easier to create a following on social media. They usually create content about themselves which lets their viewers form a personal connection with them which creates trust with them.
Despite an influencer being a person with a following, not all influencers are the same because of the difference in the size of their following. Those being:
1. Macro Influencers: They are also known as celebrities, they have a following that ranges from lakhs to crores. They have a massive reach and influence but they usually charge a lot of money because of their reach.
2. Normal Influencers: These influencers tend to have a decent sized audience from the thousands to lakhs. They have a decent sized reach and they demand a decent price in order to advertise their products.
3. Micro Influencers: They have a small audience which reaches the thousands at max despite the small following it is usually a devoted audience which trusts the influencer. They demand a small price to promote a product or service.
4. Nano Influencers: They have an even smaller audience which is less than a thousand people and they tend to have an extremely loyal audience and are engaged with the audience. They demand a small price for promotion.
What are the advantages for Influencer Marketing?
1. It passes Ad block: There is an increase in the number of people who use Ad blockers and tend to avoid advertisements and some platforms allow for premium subscriptions which remove ads. In a sponsored message the advertisement will happen inside the post or content so viewers can’t avoid it.
2. One time investment: Influencers usually ask for a one time flat payment unlike affiliate marketing where the affiliate usually demands a commission for every sale of the product. This makes it so that even if it is successful it doesn’t cut into the sales of the product.
3. A new and younger audience is reached: It is usually the younger audiences which follow influencers and it will allow a younger audience to be aware of a company and make the company look trendy as well.
4. Easy to find a target audience: Certain Influencers create a certain kind of content like finance influencers mainly post about finance and their audience will be interested in finance. This makes it easy to find a target audience which makes it easier for a purchase to take place.
5. It creates business relations: If an the sponsored message is successful on a consistent basis a business relationship can be formed with the influencer which benefits both the parties involved.
How to identify fake influencers:
With the popularity of social media there are few people who generate a fake following by paying companies that use bot accounts to increase their followers to make themselves appear to be popular while they are not. Fortunately there are ways to identify a fake influencer.
1. Checking the number of likes and comments: If the number of views are less than 10% of the followers on a post then the influencer should be looked at with caution.
2. The Nature of comments: If the comments on a post are generic and the number of comments are higher than the views or likes then the influencer might be faking their popularity.
3. A sudden rise in followers: A website that shows the statistics in social media platforms is www.socialblade.com. Just type the name of the influencer in the search bar and it will provide you with the data of the influencer from many social media platforms. If there is a sudden rise for no reason then the influencer might be fake. This website also shows the statistics of a creator which will helps in the choosing an influencer.
How to Negotiate with an Influencer?
The best way to make a deal with an influencer is by emailing them and being direct with them, being professional is important and the deal can be worked out from there. Influencer Analytics is a website that showcases how many viewers an influencer has on average and how much they might charge for advertising a company however you need to pay for this service.
Who to Market With?
It is better to make a deal with an influencer that posts on a consistent basis (varies from platform to platform). A general guideline is that if it is video platforms like Youtube a content creator should upload a video once a week or more, for social media sites like Instagram and Facebook an influencer should post once in 2 days or even more. This will make sure that there are consistent viewers.
Conclusion:
Influencer Marketing is an effective form of marketing as the return of investment is high. There are many ways in which both parties can benefit from this advertising and it can lead to more of an advantage to the company rather than the influencer. This is a modern form of marketing which is going to be a constant in the modern age of advertising.
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