Over the last few years, several new and innovative ways have come up for promoting and advertising brands. Businesses have become more creative with the use of digital technology, particularly social media. Along with the rise of these new channels, influencer marketing has also found its way into the fold as one of the most effective ways to promote brands to younger generations. If you’re looking for a new and innovative way to expand your brand’s reach and to increase your credibility, then focusing on influencer marketing would be a good investment.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is a quickly growing type of online marketing. It is a mixture of old and new strategies that revolutionize the once celebrity-preferred advertising industry. Instead, brands are now collaborating with what we call influencers who may not be celebrities but are popular and widely followed online. These influencers create specific content that resonate with their followers and viewers, making influencer marketing a content-driven marketing strategy.
However, much like any strategy, influencer marketing requires expertise and deep knowledge of the market for success. While there are a lot of elements you have to take into consideration, here are some of the things you need to know on how to advertise with influencers.
Influencer Marketing Tips
Know your brand and industry
Before anything else, the point thing to consider is your brand and its industry. Ask yourself: is influencer marketing going to work in my industry? There are certain areas where influencer marketing has become huge. Some of these are brands in the fashion and beauty industry, for instance. Food and beverage, technology, health and wellness, and travel are just a few others that have found success in influencer marketing.
Look for the right influencers
The key to influencer marketing is working with the ones that fit your brand. It needs to be a fitting match, for both of you. Any influencer you choose becomes an extension and representation of your brand, and this is also often the hardest part to pull off in influencer marketing. As such, it is important that the influencer mirrors your brand’s qualities, vibe, and values, among others. Further, it is important to make sure that whoever you choose as your influencer must have followers who are the same as your target market. Some of the important things to look for influencers are the number of their followers, the type of followers that they have, and whether they align with your brand.
Allow your influencers to be creatively free
The power of influencer marketing lies in content. People follow and watch influencers because they resonate well via the content that they come out with. Since influencer marketing is more of a collaboration, one key way on how to advertise with influencers is to give them creative freedom and a role in what content is to be created and how it’s to be put together. Remember, you are trying to get their followers to use your brand, and it is the influencers who know what their followers like and react to. What you have to do, however, is to make sure that the content stays within your brand’s image, because you don’t want to alienate your existing customers, and they may not be connected with your chosen influencer.
Track your data
As with any marketing strategy, data is very important. Because of the complexity in how people respond and react, you can be sure you won’t have a perfect influencer marketing strategy on your first try. What you need to do is practice proper data gathering and review the results of your campaign. You should continually adjust your strategy, your content, and maybe even the influences your work with, all depending on the data available.
Because of the ongoing shift to digital technology, the ways that a brand reaches a customer has already largely changed. From celebrities of the past to the new influencers of today, a brand needs to adapt or risk being left behind. If you need help venturing into influencer marketing, you need a partner who knows the ins and outs of the digital marketing arena. At Advanced Digital Media Services, we have some of the most talented and skilled social media and SEO marketers to help you. Take the first step to starting your influencer marketing campaign by filling out the form below!
