Influencer marketing is a way to reach the targeted audience directly, where you only need to find the right influencer based on your niche, audience, and budget. It is all about collaborating with individuals and leveraging their status to benefit the profile and standing of your company. It may or may not be a paid venture. 

You must wonder how it’s different from digital marketing and why it’s on the rise.

Under Digital marketing, you have to focus on various factors like SEO, Social Media, Content marketing, Email marketing, PPC, and Ads. However, in influencer marketing, the content has been created by them; you just need to find the right one.

• Think of digital marketing as building your trust. You implement various strategies to attract your target audience and build trust over time.
• Think of influencer marketing as borrowing trust. You leverage an influencer’s established credibility to promote your brand on their page.

Have you ever wondered about how content creators started influencing us?

Even before social media, celebrities and public figures were used in endorsements. Think back then about movie stars promoting beverages or athletes endorsing athletic wear. When you follow a celebrity, it’s his clothes, his haircut, his shoes, his accessories, the car they travel in, or the bike they ride. This all influences your own choice and makes you buy them without letting you realize that it’s all happening under their influence and not because you wanted or needed it.

In the early stages, the rise of platforms like Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), and Instagram (2010) provided a gainful ground for influencers to emerge.

Then have you ever thought about how this could help your business while focusing on another aspect of social media?

Nowadays, hundreds of millions of people use social media every day. People trust the individuals they follow, so it might be a good idea for businesses to reach out to those on social media who have a lot of followers and high engagement rates. They directly impact the customer’s mindset and increase brand awareness among their audience.

Around 2016, influencer marketing gained significant attention. Brands began partnering with social media personalities who had built dedicated followings to promote products and services. Also from 2016 till now growth has been seen in influencing marketing is interesting to know this drastic growth.

Several factors influence the traffic and impact an influencer can bring to your website; this makes it difficult to predict an exact number.

The influencer marketing industry has been on a steady upward trend. According to a report by the State of Influencer Marketing 2023: Benchmark Report, the market size reached a whopping $21.1 billion in 2023. This represents a 29% increase from the previous year ($16.4 billion).

These numbers are enough to raise the question in every business owner and social media marketer’s mind, why are you not using this self-served platform to grow? 

Start now because it’s never too late; nowadays, connecting with influencers is quite simpler than before. 

Influencer Factors:

• Follower Count & Engagement Rate: As a brand you have to focus on influencers with loyal audiences who actively interact with their content (likes, comments, shares). and weekly new followers continue to be added. Influencers can easily grow their followers but a high engagement rate is more crucial.
• Niche & Audience Alignment: The influencer’s niche should closely align with your target audience and brand’s niche. A beauty influencer promoting tech products likely won’t drive significant traffic.
• Content Quality & Creativity: High-quality, engaging content that resonates with the audience is key. Showcasing your product or service effectively using unique and creative content can have a significant impact.

These factors matter when you know what you want to achieve. Increase brand awareness, drive sales, generate leads, improve brand sentiment, etc.? While influencer selection and designing campaign strategy.

How to Find an Influencer 🔎

You can leverage the power of influencer marketing tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social, which can help you discover influencers by scanning conversations related to your brand across various channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and more. You can add a set of influencers to a stream and track what they share as well as the audience they engage with. 

These tools will also help you keep tabs on scheduled and published posts while monitoring how your team performs once you get started with influencer marketing.

Visible Growth:

• Shopify Agency: Influencer Marketing Statistics: Key Insights and Trends Revealed – This source claims influencer marketing spending has seen a 40% increase from businesses in 2023.

A report by EY and Collective Artists Networks, titled “The State of Influencer Marketing in India” (April 2024), highlights the continued rise of influencer marketing in India. Here are some key takeaways:

1. Strategy: 75% of brands are expected to consider influencer marketing as part of their marketing strategy in 2024.
2. Investment: 56% of brands already invest more than 2% of their marketing budget on influencer marketing.
3. Increment: 70% of brands plan to keep their influencer marketing budget the same or increase it by 2.

Factors to consider:

• Relevance: Finding the Perfect Match

In influencer marketing, it’s all about finding the perfect match, or, you could say, a partner you can rely on. The key is to find someone who aligns with your brand and your audience. Make sure your message has an impact and is not just gossip. Imagine a food brand partnering with an influencer who promotes gaming. Sounds unrelatable, right? Identifying someone who deals with similar products or services as yours.

• Reach: Casting Wisely

To measure if the influencer holds a genuine audience, massive followers are not the only factor to consider while finalizing. Reach is about identifying people who can get your message in front of the right audience. Factors that need to be considered are their engagement rate, increase in followers, and the platforms they use to determine their potential reach within your targeted audience.

• Resonance: Gaining Trust and Connection

It’s about gaining trust and connection between your brand and the influencer’s audience. Resonance goes far beyond reaching people, it’s about leaving a memorable impact that leads directly to their minds. Look for influencers who genuinely believe in your product or service and can create content that feels original and trustworthy. When their audience connects with the message, they’re more likely to consider your brand.

• Budget: Amount to Spend

Creating a budget is the first step once you’ve decided how you’re going to influence payments. Be mindful of summarizing the influencer program during its planning, implementation, and monitoring phases. It is common for influencers to undertake multiple tasks and create their content rather than focusing on just one.

Conclusion:

While digital marketing plays a crucial role in growing your online presence, influencer marketing is like an add-on to grow your brand and increase reach through paid marketing. It depends on what your business requires more either Digital marketing or Influencer marketing. It’s up to you how you can utilize both methods at the same time and leverage every possible benefit.