Influencer marketing refers to the collaboration of a brand with an online influencer for the purpose of marketing one of its products or services. Improvement of the recognition of the brand is what influencer marketing aims at. In simple terms, influencer marketing takes place when an influencer is hired for the purpose of promotion of different products as well as services.
The Impact of Influencers
Influencers can be almost anywhere, much unlike the celebrities. Influencers could be anybody. The reason as to why they are influential is due to the fact that they usually have a big group of followers on the web as well as over the social media platforms. The influential people are present in every industry and it is only about finding them. There may be influencers who have a large number of followers while there may be some influencers who might seem to be ordinary people. However the ordinary influencers will have their reputation developed as experts in their respective fields. They are the people who provide answers to several queries of people. They are the ones who make posts that turn out to be the most engaging, share pictures that happen to be the best given their field of specialisation, make videos that are the most entertaining ones, and also run discussions online that are the most informative ones.
What Influencer Marketing Involves
Influencer marketing does not just involve finding out some influential people with a good number of followers and offering them money as well as exposure so that they can engage in the promotional activities of the products or services. Instead they are the people who have spent enough time in developing the brands of their own and followers. Since they spent their time and energy in building their brands and base of followers, it is quite obvious that they will be protective about it.
The Process
Influencer marketing is not about getting quick and drastic results. Instead it is a slow and steady process that demonstrates the leadership skills and also the authority as well as credibility within the specified industry. The traditional social media marketing involves setting up the identity of the brand where the base of the followers grow with time and after a certain period, the people who promote the brand can be identified.
The Period of Pandemic
The pandemic has led to a steep rise in the growth graph of influencer marketing. Firms are planning to invest and take influencer marketing a step ahead in the journey of marketing. Most marketers are firm believers of the fact that influencer marketing plays an active role to bring in more profits for businesses.
The Pros and the Cons
Like any other marketing practice, influencer marketing too has some pros as well as some cons. The business can reach out to a relevant audience. Trust and credibility are created by influencers. More people can be reached than it would have been possible in the absence of the influencer. The entire process is comparatively cheaper. However looking at the other side of the coin, it can be seen that getting hold of the correct influencer for the business can be a difficult process. In case of wrong selection of influencers, it might prove harmful, as the inappropriate influencer might have damaging effects over the brand and business outcomes.
The Types of Influencers
Today influencer marketing can be seen almost everywhere while scrolling the social media sites. Influencers are everywhere with their display of clothes, snacks and lots more. There are several types of influencers. Micro-influencers are those who have a group of followers that range between thousands and tens of thousands of followers. The micro-influencers create content that has relevance and connect with their audience by means of various platforms of social media, forums and websites and also through different written publications like blogs. The engagement rate is high due to the size of the group of followers and the type of content created by them. The bonding is strong in case of micro-influencers and due to the small size of the group, the influencers can communicate with the people who regularly follow them through their channel. A celebrity influencer is one who has a large group of followers and the range normally lies in the millions. They are recognized widely. They therefore hold the potential to influence the target audience greatly. A blog influencer is one who writes and has thousands or even millions of subscribers as well as readers. Social media influencers have well-recognition on the various platforms of social media like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook and the number of followers ranges from thousands to millions. The social media influencers share content about a wide range of topics like travel, fashion, food, health, art and so on.
