Influencer Marketing: Is it a Boon Or Bane?

Influencer marketing is a rather new concept, but it’s already grown to be an integral part of advertising and marketing campaigns. It has the power to save businesses money on ads and boost brand awareness, but at what cost? This article will look into the two sides – the benefits and drawbacks – of influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is a new marketing technique that has given small businesses the opportunity to compete with bigger companies.

A recent study suggests that 72% of millennials trust an influencer more than the brand itself. Brands are thus shifting their focus to influencers for endorsements. Social media personalities, celebrities, and top athletes are all lapped up by brands to endorse products on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Influencer marketing is considered one of the most effective tools for marketing.

It is true that influencer marketing gives brands the opportunity to reach out to the desired audience directly, but it comes at a price. The average cost of an endorsement on Instagram is $8,000 per post. Thus brands end up spending huge amounts of money on promoting their products through influencers often blindly depending upon them to do the magic.

1. The benefits of influencer marketing

• Saves money: Usually, ads and promotions are paid for in the hope of gaining more customers. However, with influencer marketing, a business will not have to pay for this advertisement. Instead, they get influencers to promote their product/service for free.
• Branding: Influencers are trusted by their own followers. Their posts are seen as an honest opinion, showing the product/service in a favorable light. Therefore, when their followers see these posts about the product/services that they’re promoting, they’re more likely to be influenced into buying them.
• Reaching a new audience: One of the main drawbacks to using influencer marketing is that many businesses are not able to reach their target audiences. Because influencers have their own following, they’re able to attract the attention of people who would’ve possibly never known about your product/service.

2. The drawbacks of influencer marketing

• Brand trust: Many followers trust influencer posts about products/services because it’s seen as an honest opinion. Because of this, these followers are more likely to buy the product/service being advertised. Influencers can be unreliable and do not always have a good idea of what they’re promoting. Therefore, businesses should consider whether the influencer is actually right for their brand before working with them. In terms of measuring success, influencer marketing cannot be measured in the same way as other forms of advertising because it’s hard to tell whether an influencer posted has actually affected the number of sales or not.
• “Asking” for reviews: Asking influencers to review a product/service is a good way of measuring success because it allows businesses to see whether followers like the product/service or not.
• Asking influencers for their honest opinion: This is similar to asking for reviews, but instead, it’s more general. Influencers are asked for their opinions without being given any specifics or information on what they should say. This will allow businesses to see whether followers trust influencer posts about products/services or not.
• Increase in traffic: seeing a significant increase in the number of visitors from social media to your online shop or website implies that you have successfully reached your target audience and can be seen as a good way of measuring success. Tips for working with influencers: -Give them a good deal: make sure that influencers feel that they’re being compensated fairly for the number of followers/admiration.
• Be clear about what you expect from them: Make it clear to influencers how much work is involved and what exactly is expected of them. Influencers are more likely to promote your product/service if you give them something in return. 
• Give influencers links: When asking for a post, give influencers a link that they can use directly in their post instead of just a simple “here’s our website”. Collaborating with influencers on a post is a good way of reaching a different audience because it gives the influencer’s existing followers more incentive to follow you and vice versa. Not sure whether influencer marketing is right for your business? Influencer marketing has proven to be an effective way of advertising products and services. There are many different types that can help your brand grow, but it’s important you find the right one for yourself since not all influencers pose drawbacks as well – Confluencr will make sure we get into touch with those who align perfectly!

3. Influencers have a variety of audiences

Some influencers have huge followings across all social media platforms while some others have an audience across one or two particular platforms. Brands looking to reach out to a universal audience must choose influencers with huge follower groups across all platforms so that the message can be conveyed to as many people as possible.

On the other hand, if a brand wants to target a specific niche audience then it should look for influencers having smaller followings but whose followers are engaged enough to be potential customers of their products. Be careful about authenticity.

To create a successful campaign with influencers, brands must ensure that they hire the right kind of influencers. The majority of brands tend to work with social media personalities whose followers are either fake or inactive. Brands must thus understand that not all influencers have a positive impact on their business goals and it becomes very important to research before hiring influencers to ensure that they don’t end up wasting their money and time.

Influencer marketing is a boon for brands looking to make a mark in the market by reaching out to people directly, but it is also true that brands must stay cautious during the entire process of creating and executing an influencer campaign, or else it can choose influencers who can be beneficial for their products.

4. Understanding the brand values

When brands employ influencers, they should understand that not all social media personalities are suitable for their brand and its values. Influencers often have a strong personality and they may or may not match with the core value of that brand. Brands must thus conduct enough research on the influencers to make sure that the values of their brand and those of the influencer do not clash with each other. Brands must choose a social media personality who is a perfect fit for both of them as well as their products. 

Understanding one’s own product and the audience plays an important role in any campaign, be it digital or offline. This is true for influencer marketing as well where brands must first understand their target audience thoroughly before hiring the right kind of influencers to fulfill that need. A brand should hire an influencer whose follower group matches with its target consumer group and then look into the profile of that particular social media personality by analyzing his/her posts and the comments to understand the interests of their followers.

It is thus very important that before brands hire influencers they must look into the following factors:

1. Influencers’ engagement with audiences on different platforms
2. The content being shared by influencers
3. Influencer’s influence on a brand’s target consumer group
4. Once brands find the right influencer for their products, they need to execute a campaign that is not only creative but also engages with their audiences.
5. Every influencer marketing campaign should be creative enough to excite audiences. Brands need to make sure that they are not only working with influencers who are capable of creating unique content but also understand their target group’s interests and preferences.

Choosing social media personalities who created exciting content in the past is thus very important as they can come up with more creative and engaging content for the brands. Moreover, brands must also be very clear about their objectives and goals before starting a campaign as it will help them choose influencers who can meet those requirements. Once all of these factors are kept in mind by brands, then only they can execute an influencer marketing campaign successfully. Creating a content calendar is thus very important which can be used to monitor the influencer’s progress and performance in the market.

In order to make sure that influencers are performing as per their expectations, brands must carry out timely reports from them and check what type of content they have been creating recently. This will help brands to understand if their influencers are working as per their requirements and deliver results as expected. Influencer marketing is a tough process and it needs to be handled carefully by brands so that they can create effective campaigns with the help of social media personalities who actually matter in this industry.

The power of influencer marketing is harnessed when it aligns with the right audiences. Here are five tips for successful collaboration

• Find a variety in your network and make sure they’re relevant to both parties, such as those who enjoy testing new beauty products or fashion designers looking at expanding their reach through social media coverage;
• Networking can be a lot of fun, but it’s important to find the right people. Be sure you’re both interested in what they have going on and share some common interests too!
• Understand what makes each individual person tick by researching his/her interests online before hiring him-or her! This will help you understand how he might be able to write content tailored just right away without having any awkward pauses where one party has no idea. 

Conclusion

In today’s digital marketing landscape, it is difficult to ignore the power of influencer marketing. Influencers have a variety of audiences and can offer different benefits for brands while also posing some drawbacks. The best way to approach this strategy is by understanding your brand values so you know which type of influencer will help your company reach its goals in the most effective manner possible. You may want to consider investing in our automated labeling process that helps marketers identify their target audience with greater accuracy than ever before!

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