Influencer marketing: would it benefit your business?

What is influencer marketing?

HubSpot provides a good definition:

“Influencer marketing employs leading, niche content creators to improve brand awareness, increase traffic, and drive messages to brands’ target audiences. It’s this collaboration between brands and creators that allows businesses to expand their reach across their buyer personas.”

HubSpot

The latest figures suggest around 57.6% of the population uses social media, with that number growing all the time.

Why use influencers?

Using influencers to help PR your business can be a good way of reaching your target market. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the influencer marketing industry is estimated to have been around $13.8 billion in 2021 – despite a global pandemic – seeing businesses adapting their marketing direction to the shift in sales to more online

Demographics matter. Who and where are your audience? Where do they frequent? For an example, The Digital Marketing Institute states that 70% of teenagers trust influencers more than traditional celebrities, so platforms like Instagram and TikTok would be prime channels to utilise with social media influencers. 

If your demographic is older, however, you might need to have a different plan. Statistics show that the Boomer generation (think ages between late 50s to 70s) are more interested in YouTube (so video-based content), Facebook and written long-form content like blogs.

Who can be influencers?

Traditionally, influential people tended to be well-known celebrities and public figures. Nowadays, social media allows just about anyone to influence, depending on the topic and relevance.

TikTok and Instagram in particular, are platforms where unknown people to the majority, wield power with some having a few million followers. Outside of those platforms, however, they may hold no relevance in everyday life – especially within business and organisational needs of influence. And of course, a high following does not equate to good or quality engagement with those followers.

Stephen Waddington talks about the shift of influencer marketing transitioning from high worth ‘well-knowns’ (macro) to more niche and smaller audiences (micro):

“From a PR perspective, Influencer Marketing is the shift in recognising there are new ways to reach your audience or publics. Traditionally that used to be high net worth individuals or journalists and now it can be anyone with their own network or media of their own.”

Stephen Waddington

One good example of an influencer campaign that reached out to women everywhere, because they could identify themselves with the brand, was Dove’s #ShowUs campaign. Dove focused on the everyday woman in their drive, using every shape, size and colour of model to celebrate and champion diversity and inclusion.

The body positivity and strong messaging helped to reshape the message of what real beauty is, along with uniting an ocean of women. Financially, Dove sales turned profits from $2.5m to $4m in the first ten years.

Another example of influencer marketing – but back in the 80s, where TV, movies and pop culture gave boost to brands – was the adoption of Crocodile Dundee, aka Paul Hogan, for a Foster’s campaign, following the movie’s success. Foster’s moved from being an Australian beer to a global sensation, capitalising on the popularity of Hogan’s character and charisma. A big win.

Social proof

At a very basic level, you’re aiming to provide social proof, where people can see that others have experienced your product or service, and by having different types of influence – whether that’s a blog, social media platform or even a well-known public figure – you can help potential customers to see the value in what your organisation is about. 

So how do you go about getting in with this influencing lark? 

Research, research, research. 

Start with knowing your target audience. Who are they? Where do they hang out? What do they like? What are their habits? Defining and refining your consumer persona is key to understanding your customers and what drives them. Demographics are also important – research your social media analytics and refine further. The more information you can garner, the better.

You’ll also need to identify your goals through influencer marketing. What do you want to achieve and why? The clearer you can get with your why will help you identify the who influencer to look for. 

Finally, when researching and deciding upon the right kind of influencers, choose wisely. As well as having the power to raise your profile and propel a brand forwards, influencers also have the ability to damage a brand (intentionally or not) and bring the wrong kind of attention your way.

Inspired?

Want to find out more about influencer marketing and whether it’s a good fit for your business? Give us a call! We can help you with working out what, who and how of influencer marketing, from the drawing board to inception and management.

Contact Michael Gregory on 0845 625 0820 or drop us a message via this contact form here.