Whenever you see a popular social media personality promoting a specific product or brand, that’s known as influencer marketing. As of mid 2020, the Pepsi instagram account has 1.6 million followers.

Sure, that’s a lot of people, but Pepsi is a huge company that needs to reach many more consumers. They may turn to someone like Cameron Dallas who has 21.5 Million followers and pay him to either subtly or obviously promote the Pepsi brand to his massive following.

This is a simplified and very large-scale example of influencer marketing. Everyone reading this is going to have a brand or company that is smaller than Pepsi, and you may not need to reach a broad audience of 21.5 Million people from all over the country.

Many companies have found success over the last few years by working with smaller influencers for local campaigns and for very specific, niche products and services. But is it possible to enjoy this same success for your brand, product, or service?

The top 3% of the most popular social media influencers generate an impact that is felt by 90% of all social media users.

Everyone Can Benefit From Influencer Marketing Done Right

If you have got a product, brand, service, company, website, blog, online store — ANYTHING to promote — then you absolutely can benefit from influencer marketing if it’s done the right way.

Benefits Of Influencer Marketing:

• Brand Awareness – Not all potential customers are ready to buy something. But exposing them to your brand early on can help seal the deal later on down the line.
• Immediate Engagement – Some of the followers may be in ‘buy mode’ and you will likely get some immediate results, depending on the influencer’s following.
• Improved SEO – When Google is deciding how to rank your site, off-page factors come into play. Google can essentially “see” that your website and brand are now abuzz on social media and may possibly adjust your rankings accordingly.
• Influencers Build Trust – Many influencers are seen as authority figures in their respective niches or industries. Having these authority figures talk personally about your brand will help build trust with their followers AKA your new potential customers.

82% Of Consumers That Follow Social Media Influencers Are Likely To Make A Purchase Based On What These Influencers Recommend

Developing An Approach To Influencer Marketing

Effective influencer marketing takes more than just reaching out to a popular social media icon and paying them to post about your products or services. The answers to the questions below will determine which approach your brand should take:

Does your product or service have mass appeal? Do you have something that the general public can use, like some new headphones or a wireless charging product? Or is your product much more specialized? Like a beginner’s guide to beekeeping with materials to set up your first hive. Without mass appeal you will need to seek out very industry-specific, niche influencers.

How do you want to handle engagement? Sometimes sending someone directly to a product checkout page isn’t a good option. Are you looking to get a bigger following on your brand’s social media account? Garnet more opt-in email signups? Create local or industry-wide brand awareness?

Do you have a social media presence? Some of the most effective influencer marketing campaigns are built by brands that already have at least a little bit of a social media following with some very engaging content. Having an influencer send their followers to your brand on social media can create a much more long-term engagement over time. Are you looking for long-term engagement or simply looking for short-term sales?

Influencer Marketing: Is it better than traditional ads?

Influencer marketing is an amazing tool that can bring about wonderful results. Just like paid search advertising, it can take a little bit of trial and error lest you just end up throwing money away. However, influencer marketing can be much more effective than paid advertising for many niche markets.

Social media followers oftentimes become blind to traditional advertisements. Meanwhile, social media influencers are seen as both authority figures and celebrities. Whenever you mix these two factors together you get a nice marketing solution that many brands can absolutely benefit from.