We’ve all seen them – the photogenic people on Instagram and other social media sites who regularly post photos of themselves posing with, in, on, or near a product. They’re known as “influencers”, and they’re paid by companies to promote their products and services to their large audiences.
Some influencers became famous elsewhere first, such as through movies, television, music, or sport. However, some have built their social media following entirely from scratch.
The biggest influencers are those that have gained their fame away from social media. In December 2020, the most-followed Instagram accounts (apart from @instagram) were owned by Ariana Grande, Cristiano Ronaldo, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Kylie Jenner, with each of them having more than 200 million people subscribing to their updates. Among the posts about their personal lives, most of these celebrities also promote their own businesses and those of sponsors, charging hundreds of thousands of dollars (or even more) a time.
This type of marketing become much more popular as more people try to find work as influencers and business owners seek to harness social media to promote their products.
If you’re one of these business owners, here’s how you can use influencer marketing.
Define Your Objectives
As with all marketing activities, it’s important to define your audience and set objectives for what you want to achieve from the campaign before you approach any influencers. This could be to grow your own social media profile, generate sales, or get customers to request a free sample or coupon code.
It doesn’t necessarily matter what your objectives are, provided they align with the overall objectives of your business. But without them, you won’t be able to measure whether the campaign was successful.
Find the Right Influencer
If you’re promoting a video game that’s been made for males aged between 18 and 30, you won’t gain much traction with an influencer who has a following of middle-aged women.
The simplest way to find the right influencer is to just search social media yourself, using hashtags to help you hone in on the right people. Another option is to look at the influencers your competitors are using and find ones similar to them. Tools like Famebit can also help you connect with the right people.
Rather than going for an expensive mass-market influencer with millions of followers, a “micro-influencer” with a smaller but niche audience may be more appropriate. This may also be a cheaper option if you’re on a budget as an influencer with 10,000 followers will charge 100 times less than one with one million.
For example, Kylie Jenner’s most recent posts have been promoting her own cosmetic products, something that many of her 212 million followers are likely to be interested in. However, Logitech’s G line of computer gaming peripherals aren’t going to sell anywhere near as well if she were to post about them.
Consider Signing Brand Ambassadors
If you want to go further using social media influencers, signing well-known people as brand ambassadors could be a good option. Brand ambassadors will do more than just publish social media posts with your product; they’ll actively promote your brand, be involved in your marketing activities, and represent you on a day-to-day basis.
In India, Neymar Jr is one of the most recognised football players, despite being from Brazil and playing in Europe. On Instagram alone, he has amassed a following of more than 142 million people, all looking to learn more about his life and catch a behind the scenes glimpse of his football career. Neymar occasionally uses this social media presence to promote his business interest. However, this is usually tied to his work as a brand ambassador.
In 2021, Neymar became brand ambassador for PokerStars India. As part of this, he’s featured prominently on the company’s website and will likely appear in other marketing material in the future.
Neymar is a great fit for the company as he encapsulates the PokerStars brand, showing Indians that many of his skills as a successful football player can be applied to poker. That makes him a great ambassador for both the company and the sport as a whole.
Typically, a brand ambassador is going to be someone you build a long-term relationship with. A single post isn’t going to work, as you need the person to become associated with your company.
Measure and Review Performance
Once you’ve found your influencer, negotiated the campaign, and it’s gone live, you need to review its performance. You should do this against your original criteria, which will tell you if you’ve been successful in your efforts.
If you didn’t see the result you expected or were hoping for, it can still be a valuable experience as you can learn lessons that you can then apply to your next influencer campaigns.
