How to use influencer marketing to reach a wider audience?

When initiating marketing campaigns for a brand, it is important to design multichannel strategies, i.e., to be shown in different media and with different content. Among these, referral marketing is very popular.

In this type of advertising, "word of mouth" is used but applied with a well-known figure, who has a certain authority or respect from the public, so that when this person uses the brand, his followers will take it into account.

What is an influencer?

This term was coined with the rise in popularity of certain content creators on social networks, who were not celebrities, but common people, who specialized in uploading some type of content; cooking recipes, tutorials of all kinds, travel guides, amateur culinary reviews and others, were the popular topics with which they began to amass followers.

This made them notorious in certain circles, and their opinions gained more value, thus influencing others to buy or not to buy a product or service, making them "influencers".

Collab, sponsored and other terms: what are they?

Inevitably, the term influencer is linked to other terms such as collab or collaboration. This is one of the bases of marketing with these people, since it consists of a brand or service offering a joint activity.

In some cases, companies send their product for free and ask these creators for an opinion on their social networks so that their followers know about it, in other cases, they take advantage of bad experiences with other brands to send them offers of theirs and thus achieve this exchange.

In other words, in exchange for visibility in their networks, the brand covers the costs for them to try and use the services.

Another method that has increased in popularity is the "sponsored" content, this is a content for which the influencer receives an economic payment for making ads or advertising a brand. Unlike collaboration, they are usually obliged to give a positive view of the product, under brand guidelines and it must be indicated through the tools on the platforms that this publication was paid by a company. This type of advertisement is the one most used by celebrities.

Are all accounts with many followers influencers?

A common problem is that many brands and people confuse that any account with many followers can be an influencer, which often mixes up celebrities.

Although the latter enjoy great exposure and popularity, they are no different from old traditional media campaigns where artists or presenters were hired to be the image of a brand.

In these cases, what is taken advantage of is the exposure, but not the recommendation, why, it is simple: all consumers know that they are being paid to speak positively, and therefore it is just another advertisement and they will not value it.

Another mistake is that there are accounts that inflate their followers, but do not have an active follower base, this may be because of the type of content or because they have bought likes to inflate their numbers.

Does influencer marketing work?

There are many conflicting positions on this issue, but the simple answer is yes, as long as you have clear objectives and know how to implement them correctly.

For example, it is essential to be able to identify which influencers are ideal for the brand, this must be analyzed taking into account the market niche in which they are found, interactions, online reputation and past collaborations.

If for example we have a company that sells toys for pets, we should not look for a video game or cooking influencer, we will look for someone who has pets and presents his life with them. We should analyze if in their regular videos people ask for product recommendations, if they have done collaborations with other brands before, and their results.

Once it is determined that this person is suitable, this person should be contacted and a negotiation should be carried out, and it should be clearly established what the company will give and what it expects in return. If both parties agree, they should have a small contract that binds both parties to comply with the agreement, and proceed with the collaboration.

Usually, the most common objective is to reach new audiences, so this type of marketing is ideal for product or business launches, as it encourages more people to give it a try. It can also be used when other advertising media seem to have already exhausted the niche and you want to discover another one.

All of this may seem a bit complicated, especially if you don't have experience managing online campaigns, knowledge of digital metrics and collaborations with content creators, but that's what Click Digital Marketing can help you generate campaigns, identify the best influencers for your goals and walk you through the process of executing them. Contact us today!