Influencer Marketing - The new Age Marketing Strategy

The digital sphere in marketing has a lot of scopes to offer and influencer marketing just happens to be one of the most important ones. Influencer marketing now is a mainstream form of online marketing. Influencer marketing is a mix of both old and new marketing tools. Influencer marketing is a way for brands to promote their products through endorsements or recommendations from influencers and content creators.

Influencer marketing, many times works to raise awareness regarding the brand but it definitely does not stop at that, it can also convert the leads into plenty of sales. The options open to influencers now are much more than what existed. There are innumerable social media platforms to choose from and different types of content that they could work on and produce. In influencer marketing, the collaboration is between the influencers and brands.to understand influencer marketing in more depth, we need to know and understand exactly who is an influencer?

An influencer is someone who has a distinct niche and engages with it, actively. It is someone who has the power to affect the purchasing decision of others because of their knowledge, experience and relationship with their audience. There might be different motives behind the collaboration for example some brands might join hands with an online influencer just to increase the awareness of the brand while some other companies might want to collaborate to increase sales.

These influencers have established a reputation for themselves and are considered to be having an expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. Anyone with knowledge and interest in any particular niche can become an influencer irrespective of the popularity of the person.

Ways to Measure Influencer Marketing

Different measurements cater to different goals. While some areas of measurement will be suitable for some influencer marketing campaigns they might not be suitable for others. Some of the most common areas of measurement include:

1. Impressions

2. Audience reach

3. Engagements;comment,like,share

4. High-quality content

5. Conversions in the form of:

• Growth in the followers
• Brand mentioning
• Signups to newsletters/subscriptions
• Increased sales

Reasons why influencer marketing is growing and will continue to grow

• As social media platforms continue to grow, opportunities in this area also grow. While some people might take on this opportunity to build their audience growth, others simply share about their lives and strike a deal with the company they love. 

• Influencer marketing is now becoming standardised. There are agencies now that represent these influencers and agencies designed to help the brands find the best influencer suited to their strategy. There is a growth in influencer marketing as it keeps on expanding and exploring.

• There are different ways of sharing content. While blog posts remain one of the favourite mediums of many for sharing their content and promoting and talking about their favourite product, the popularity of various social media sites like Instagram video is perhaps one of the most popular kinds of content for influencers to make. Facebook live, IGTV, YouTube, and Instagram have proved to show the power of video creation.

• People now want to see reality instead of seeing posts that are over-edited. When people see these influencers making mistakes and having a bad day, it shows transparency and hence builds the confidence of people in the influencers.

Use of influencer marketing in e-commerce stores

Influencer marketing is a two-way process. While the individuals get paid for their efforts, the brands through these influencers promote their products. Big brands can work with celebrities to promote their products but the new entrepreneurs who are still growing their platforms are using and exploring influencer marketing.

• E-commerce stores need influencers to promote their online store and that's exactly what they do. When influencers are talking about or promoting a particular brand's product it is easy for them to provide a link for the same. They can directly add a link to that e-commerce page which means that the potential customers won't get lost in the middle.

• A testimonial can be put by the influencers on the website as it will increase the credibility of the brand and the store. It will also make the customers more confident in the product when they see these testimonials by their favourite influencers.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing can be very well said to be one of the most important aspects of marketing and it is here to stay.  Influencers can help in the growth of a brand in terms of sales, promotion etc. it is going to grow more in the upcoming years so it goes without saying that if you are yet to include influencer marketing as your strategy, now would be a great time!

Written by-Aayushi Kumari Singh