Social influencer marketing – a growing digital marketing trend.
In marketing there’s probably nothing more powerful than word-of-mouth. It’s a known fact that word-of-mouth has a significant influence on the purchasing decisions of consumers. Customers, or rather potential customers, are always far more likely to respond to recommendations from someone they know and trust than to stock standard advertising.
Today, however, in our new world of online marketplaces and digital relationships, word-of-mouth has taken on a whole new force for good (or bad…), extending far wider than the traditional circles of colleagues, neighbors, friends and family and reaching out over ever expanding digital realms through the power of social influencer marketing.
What is a social influencer?
An influencer is a person who has an influence over others – and a social influencer is someone who uses social media channels to influence others.
We’re probably all familiar with the concept of ‘celebrity endorsements’ – well, that’s one of the most common original forms of influencer marketing. However, in our digital age of online relationships, even everyday people have the potential to become social media ‘celebrities’, especially those who have large groups of highly engaged followers.
Including social influencers in digital marketing strategies.
Social influencer marketing is simply the practice of using influential people on social media networks to help a brand build relationships with new and different audiences. It’s a way to reach different audiences via the social influencer’s own social networks or connect with very specific niche audiences connected to the social influencer – audiences that ordinarily may not be accessible to that brand.
However, these aren’t the only reasons digital marketers are looking to use social influencers. Social media is all about building relationships – and the key to any good relationship is authenticity, which is a very important factor for any business trying to build its brand on social media. It’s also the reason why social marketers are increasingly looking to recruit trusted online personas to help get their brand’s messages to consumers.
How to incorporate social influencer marketing in your digital marketing strategy
It’s best to think of social influencer marketing as merely yet another arrow in your marketing quiver. Any campaign in which you use a social influencer should still align with your overall digital and brand strategy, and complement the other marketing tactics you’re using.
In most cases, the reason you’re using a social influencer is simply as a means to extend the reach of your brand messaging. It’s a way to piggyback on someone else’s social media follower base to reach a wider, yet-untapped audience in a way that wouldn’t be possible via your own social media accounts. For example, you could be trying to target a specific consumer segment, like Millennials in Auckland looking to buy their first home.
However, as we’ve already said, success in social media marketing is all about being authentic, and a key requirement for true influence is trust. In other words, your audience must trust and respect the opinion of any social influencer with whom you partner. So, if you’re trying to break into a specific consumer segment, such as Auckland Millennials who are trying to buy their first home, then you’re going to have to partner with a social influencer with whom Millennials in Auckland already have a trusting rapport.
How to find the right social influencer for your brand
Of course, including a social influencer as a tactic in your social media marketing strategy is more than simply selecting a well-known individual to interact with your brand in some way on social media. If your social influencer does not have a strong, loyal following on the social network where your target audience is found, then what’s the point of using them?
When choosing an influencer, in addition to finding the right fit for your niche market, you also need to find someone who’s producing content with a similar look and feel to your own. You’ll also want their tone to be appropriate for the way you want to present your brand to potential customers.
Focus on the three Rs of influence
While it’s obviously important to ensure your influencer is a good match for your brand, it’s also important to know who their audience is, how large it is and its level of engagement. So, before you reach out to a potential social influencer, consider the three Rs of influence, namely relevance, reach and resonance, as follows:
- Relevance: Ask yourself, is the social influencer sharing content and building a following that is relevant to my business and in a market segment that I want to target?
- Reach: Ask yourself, would the number of people I might be able to reach via the influencer’s fan base bring value to my business – value that I couldn’t achieve on my own?
- Resonance: Ask yourself, is the possible engagement that the influencer can create with the relevant audience valuable and relevant to my brand?
If you’d like to know more about social influencer marketing and how to find and use a social influencer to help build your brand’s online presence, then talk to the team at Auckland digital marketing agency Net Branding. Our Auckland based team understands business and how best to align modern technology and the latest trends in social media to support real business growth.
