Among the strategies most used by companies to attract customers, increase sales and increase brand awareness is l’influencer marketingwhich involves collaboration with more or less well-known personalities who, through social media or their activities, have managed to build communities that support and listen to them.
It is an activity that we hear a lot about, but that few people know about the actual implications, advantages and disadvantages, its planning and the most relevant elements. This is not just a passing fad, but has long since become an essential method to advertise goods, services and initiatives onlineas it offers a great return on investment for most who choose to go this route.
Starting an influencer marketing business can therefore lead to so many positive feedback and the achievement of objectives that arises, but if the fundamental aspects and pitfalls are not known, there is a risk of facing a serious loss of resourceswhether in terms of time, money or causing great damage to the brand.
Let’s find out everything you need to know about influencer marketingwho the influencers are and how to choose the ones to involve, how to plan an activity, the types of content to offer to the public, the platforms to use and the challenges to face.
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0. What is influencer marketing, what advantages and disadvantages
Influencer marketing is a digital marketing strategy based on collaboration between brands and influencers with the aim of achieving specific marketing objectives. It is based on the correct identification of users and people who can convey messages and promote the company’s goods and services through the use of social media.
The brand can rely on one or more influencers, based on its needs and the budget available. The ideal influencer to collaborate with is the one who has influence on the company’s target audience: those who listen to him, i.e. followers, they trust what he says, they tend to imitate or reproduce his behavior and accept his suggestions.
Influencers are, therefore, capable of influence the purchasing habits of your community and this makes them particularly interesting for organizations and companies. The influencer collaborates with the brand in exchange for financial compensation, which must be established from the beginning, or for the provision of free benefits and products.
Through influencer marketing, companies are able to reach a potentially interested audience, whose interests, characteristics and tastes they know
I advantages deriving from an influencer activity marketing they can be different. Thanks to collaboration with influencers, it is possible to reach niches and audiences with which it is difficult to communicate and who could potentially be interested in the type of service or product offered.
If you collaborate with influencers who have a large number of followers, the messages transmitted turn out to be of wide scopefor they will reach andvery large audience.
The communication of influencers is capable, in many cases, of overcome the barrier of skepticism that web users have developed towards advertisements. This happens thanks to the relationship that is established between influencers and community, based on trust and esteem, and thanks to the configuration of the message, which does not appear as a simple advert, but as actual content.
The trust that the user feels towards the influencer and the latter’s credibility are also transferred to the product/service and the brand. This is conducive the increase in sales, interactions, reputation and awareness of the brand.
The costs of an influencer marketing activity can vary based on the planned activities and the influencers involved, but if you opt for micro-influencers or nano-influencers the necessary budget could be lower and within the reach of the smallest realities.
Although clearly inferior to the advantages, there is no shortage of disadvantages and risks in influencer marketing activities. Identifying the right influencer to involve in your strategy can be very difficult. The number of followers and likes cannot be the only factor to consider, but it is necessary evaluate the individual’s ability to create contentthe values it transmits (which must be similar to those of the company) e the characteristics of its community.
Relying on influencers who transmit messages that are far from corporate values or who transmit questionable messages through behaviour, content and words could have serious repercussions on the reputation of the brand.
To avoid the risk of damaging your reputation, it is important to collaborate with influencers who transmit messages consistent with the brand’s values
You might encounter some difficulty measuring resultsfor this reason it is good to pay attention to their analysis and establish SMART objectives: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and based on a pre-established time.
Influencer marketing is not to be confused with l’affiliate marketing. In the first case, an individual who has influence in a community is involved and the latter is paid for the creation of content on specific platforms, regardless of the results obtained. In affiliate marketing, the affiliate receives a reward for each sale completed.
It is not to be confused with the content marketing, which consists in the creation of content, potentially interesting for the public, by the company with the aim of encouraging the reader to carry out a specific action. In influencer marketing, the influencer or influencers involved create the content and distribute it.
For further information:
- What it is and what is meant by digital marketing
- Affiliate Marketing, what it is and how it works
- The types of Content Marketing
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1. Influencers, who they are and how to identify them
Influencers are all those who have a reputation, more or less great, which has been achieved thanks to their activity on the web or through their work. It can, therefore, be a question of creators, singers, actors, movie stars and famous people in general or of expert figures of particular topics or sectors.
Being an influencer is a real job. The earnings come from product sponsorships and, consequently, from collaborations with companies, from participation in events and initiatives and from any donations received from followers on the platforms on which they operate (such as TikTok).
To achieve success as an influencer you need dedicate time to this activity and to your followersbuild a relationship of trust and esteem with them, interact with web users, create valuable content and demonstrate one’s knowledge and skills regarding the topics and themes covered.
On the web they can find expert influencers in various sectors: food, technology, beauty, fashion, lifestyle, physical activity, travel and much more.
There are various types of influencerswhich are mainly distinguished based on the number of followers you have. Another element that influences and that companies take into consideration when selecting the influencer to involve in the influencer marketing activity is engagement fails. This is the interaction rate, resulting from the relationship between the number of followers and the reactions elicited through the contents.
Influencers have followers, the number of which can be more or less large, and the power to influence their community
The more likes, likes, shares and comments you get, the more this rate grows, offering a positive indication on influencer ability to arouse public interest.
The first type of influencer is that of nano-influencer, with a number of followers ranging between one thousand (or even less) and 5 thousand. Generally, these are people with a high degree of specialization, which deal with specific topics and which manage to generate many interactions between their followers. This happens because they are perceived as very genuine by their community, which is always involved and active.
I micro influencer they have a number of followers that varies between 5 thousand and 20 thousand followers. Again, they mainly deal with niche topics and have a high engagement rate. They are considered reliable by their followers, ready to follow their purchasing and behavioral advice.
They present themselves as normal users and are able to arouse the trust of those who follow them. Exactly this high degree of trustoften makes them preferable to other influencers who have a larger number of followers.
I mid-influencer they have between 20 thousand and 100 thousand followers. They occupy an intermediate level and are almost always experts on the topics covered. They are often involved by companies of different sizes for influencer marketing activities.
Anyone who has between 100 thousand and 1 million followers can be considered a macro-influencer. They are quite well-known people on social networks, who frequently collaborate with brands to sponsor their products.
Finally, there they are i mega-influencer, those who have more than one million followers and who collaborate mainly with large companies. Many celebrities are part of this group.
Another distinction between influencers can be made based on the contents or platforms used. There are, for example, i bloggers, podcasters, youtubers and tiktokers.
When choosing the influencer or influencers to collaborate with, several factors must be taken into account. First, it is essential that the character selected and involved is aligned with the brand values. Another influential element is the budget at your disposal: micro influencers are cheaper than other categories and are ideal for small businesses.
It must be evaluated the audience you want to reach and the typical one of the influencer under analysis. Also important is the rate of…
