The marketing with influencers is no longer something only big brands do. Not at all. It has been democratized, driven by the unstoppable expansion of the niche of influencers who in Spain and the rest of the world keep growing and growing. And with them, digital advertising and the way users (especially young people and adults under 45) interact with it and internalize it have changed radically.
And this has happened because, when properly analyzed and executed, a strategy and campaign with influencers is proving much more effective than conventional advertising campaigns. Of course, depending on the client's industry and business vertical, SEM and PPC campaigns as we know them also deliver a positive ROI and notable profitability, but the proliferation of new influencers profiles with significant, active communities is changing the rules of the advertising game between brands and their audiences.
Let's dig a little deeper into the phenomenon of marketing with influencers 🙂.
What we mean by marketing with influencers
It is a commercial and advertising strategy that links a brand with a relevant figure on social platforms, who acts as an ambassador for the brand's products and services. In this way, the influence this profile has over its large community of followers benefits the brand in terms of image and sales.
At least, that is always the main goal of any strategy of marketing with influencers.
We say social media because that is where the concept of the influential person has become popular worldwide, and because most of us have at least one active profile on social platforms. But marketing with influencers, despite using social environments as a platform for action and for amplifying its messages, is not based on them. Its true raison d'être lies in the profiles of those we call influencers, who may be so for several reasons or circumstances:
- Expert profile: A person with authority thanks to a successful track record in their particular niche.
- Famous profile: Someone popular and well known in the offline world for their profession/activity.
- Celebrity profile: A person popular on social media, online, who may or may not be a specialist in the industry niche of the client who contacts them.
Influencer marketing as a strategy
How do you generate engagement with your social media audience? How do I grow the community with users who are truly my business's target 🤔? How do I generate leads/sales with corporate social media? These are just some of the questions that 99% of companies with a presence on social platforms constantly ask themselves.
Everyone knows how difficult it has become to grow organically on social media. And mind you, we say grow, not sell, which you can imagine is even harder. In most professional niches, advertising seems to be the shortest and safest path to getting a real return from communication and marketing in digital social media environments.
But likewise, social ads campaigns are not a simple equation that every professional knows how to set up, monitor and interpret 😅. They also depend on the timing and the industry, so they by no means always generate profits.
The dilemma around social media marketing has therefore become enormously complicated in recent years. That is why the emergence of the phenomenon of influencers, has revolutionized the landscape.
Now, brands and industries mostly seem to be shifting their strategies toward investing resources in people with real influence in their niches, rather than investing them in producing the highest-quality content possible day to day.
Both should go hand in hand, but since financial return is what prevails, marketing with influencers is today the most requested and profitable action for businesses and organizations.
But is it really effective? Clients still have many doubts about the authenticity of the huge communities around influencers, as well as other doubts about the suitability of their profiles or of the users who make up their social circles.
Key Points
- Prior study of the profiles of influencers y right choice of the person with whom to establish the business relationship. It is key to analyze their activity:
- Topics of their content
- Format of their content
- Style (form and substance) of how they convey their messages (careful use of language)
- Affinity of their content with the brand
- Affinity with the brand's values
- Quality of their content
- Audience interaction with the content they create
- Strategies in the medium to long term. Collaborating with an influencer will never be effective if it is limited to a one-off action without recurrence.
- Importance of storytelling. Following on from the previous point, forging a reciprocal collaboration between the reference profile and the brand will rely on crafting a narrative for the message(s) that is coherent, credible, adds value and manages to convince the social audience it targets.
Final choice of the influencer profile to work with
Following on from the aspects we just mentioned in the “key points” section, a strategy of marketing with influencers has, in the choice of the profile to work with, its real point of no return. If we get it wrong because we didn't do proper prior analysis, the set goals won't be achieved and the investment won't deliver the expected return.
More essential considerations to keep in mind when making this decision:
- Lean towards an influencer expert, rather than a famous one or a celebrity. If what we want is to bring real value to our audience, choosing an influencer specialized in our industry will reinforce our message and our branding.
- Analyze their follower growth over the last year (it should be upward, without sharp spikes or drops).
- Engagement with their audience: daily, natural and positive.
Likewise, avoid profiles with trends such as the following:
- Profiles with sharp drops and rises in their follower communities (their content is inconsistent in quality, or they even use unethical follower-acquisition practices).
- Controversial posts: The content an influencer profile publishes defines it to a large extent. You should look for popularity and admiration, not controversy or confrontation.
- Negative comments: If the tone and regard we see in the comments on their posts are negative, collaborating with such profiles is not recommended.
- Low engagement: A profile with little audience activity is of no use in a strategy of marketing with influencers.
Benefits of campaigns with influencers
Throughout the article we have already broken down most of the benefits that a marketing strategy with influencers can bring to a comprehensive communication strategy, branding and reach. But since we love lists 😛, let's go through them:
- Boost the brand's image and reputation by associating it with a profile influencer that is respected and admired
- Grow your audience and community
- Reach a like-minded target audience that was previously out of reach
- Increase lead generation, sales and, consequently, revenue
- Create more engaging content for the audience
- Open up to other, untapped geographic markets
- Exponentially increase web traffic (SEO (https://webbing.online/servicios-mkt-digital/seo/madrid/ )
Of course, these are benefits that can arise as a result of a well-implemented marketing strategy with influencers… but that is not always the case. Or at least not to the extent brands would always expect after the investment made.
That is why analytics in every digital marketing action is essential to get an accurate picture of a strategy's success. You need to define the measurement time window between the execution of the actions with the influencer (remember that there should be several over time to be truly effective) and a realistic forecast of goal achievement.
Conclusions
It comes as no surprise to us that marketing with influencers is booming the way it is. And we understand the reasons why it is gaining ground on other, more conventional forms of advertising and digital exposure.
That said, very specific parameters must be met to move forward with a strategy which, as you have already learned, should not be limited to a one-off, sporadic action. Besides the obvious weight that the strategy's success places on the choice of the influencer, the content, formats, messages, publishing calendar, topics, staging, etc. must be chosen and planned with equal importance within the overall strategy. Otherwise, there is less chance of success.
In Webbing Online we know what we're talking about 😉. We help many companies with their social media management and their advertising strategies with influencers nationwide.
With two master's degrees in Online Marketing, Digital Strategy, and Graphic Design, I am now a specialist in content marketing, always focused on SEO and digital strategy. And I love it. We're going to achieve great things together in the future. In fact, we're already doing so.