Why You Should Be Using Influencers To Promote Your Business

Digital marketing techniques are constantly changing to evolve with the changes in technology and audience behaviours, and as marketers or business owners, it’s important to change with them. The rise of digital influencers is fast becoming the go-to way for businesses to target their audiences, but why and how does it work?

What Exactly Is Influencer Marketing?

Digital influencers are essentially celebrities of the social media world; their social accounts are full of perfected, staged photos, blog entries and brand endorsements. They are adored personalities with a huge following of people who live vicariously through them. Their lives are often displayed as ‘picture-perfect’ and they inspire others by their luxurious lifestyle and honest opinions.

Why Does It Work?

Influencer marketing is becoming an essential part of brand awareness. It works well for a variety of reasons.

– The Right Influencer For The Right Audience

The more research you put into finding the right influencer for your brand, the bigger the reach. The right influencer allows you to directly target your perfect audience, engage with them and reach more people than ever before.

– Customers Value Their Opinion

Influencers work hard to build their following and earn their trust. This means that when they endorse your brand or business, their followers trust you too. To build that trust on your own would take a lot of work and dedication that a lot of businesses don’t have time for. It’s a full-time job.

– More Shareable Content

The reason why influencers are so popular is because their social feeds are full of carefully planned-out content. They follow a set theme and create organic content that brings in more engagements and brand awareness. As new features are added to social platforms, like Instagram’s shoppable tags, there are more ways to increase conversions and your ROI.

– Improves Your SEO

It’s fairly simple. The more people talking about your brand, the better. It will improve your SEO and therefore bump your reach even further. Sometimes, it also takes one influencer to get the ball rolling and have others wanting to work with you!

How Does It Work?

Whether you hire an external creative agency to do your marketing, or if you have someone on-site, you need them to dedicate some time to researching and contacting the relevant influencers for your brand. It’s important to remember that every influencer works differently, and you will more than likely have to take the lead from them – after all, this is what they specialise in! You will agree on the terms of the arrangement, the content to be included and the fee. You will need to put together a contract so that both parties are covered. Sometimes you will be in direct contact with the influencer, but sometimes it will be their agent/representative. The main thing to keep in mind is to be professional and open-minded in order to maintain a good relationship. Don’t expect too much or too little.

It’s also important to keep in mind the ASA’s rules and regulations when working with influencers. Although the guidelines are still a little unclear, as the brand involved, it is your responsibility to comply. When you as a brand have control over the content being put out by the influencer (e.g. a paid-for promotion rather than the influencer’s own opinion on a product/service) then it becomes an ad and therefore must be declared as such, so as not to mislead the influencer’s audience.

If you would like more guidance on digital marketing, working with influencers, social media or more, get in touch with us now!