When you think of an influencer marketer, many will mention celebrities such as Kylie Jenner. But did you know you can leverage influencer marketing locally in your organization to increase awareness and delight your audience and community? Below are some tips and facts about influencer marketing that will inspire you to get involved in your community and grow your business.
What Exactly is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing employs niche content creators to improve brand loyalty, increase traffic and drive your brand’s core message to your target audience. In other words, organizations will pick out champions of their products and promote their offers and services on social media. How do you approach getting influencer marketers?
One technique is by hosting Yelp Elite Events. These special gatherings are invite-only and provide an environment where Yelp Elite Squad members, or their guests, can better connect with their local organizations.
Want to learn more tips? Be sure to watch the August 2019 Webolutions webinar replay, Maximizing Your Website’s Local Search Presence, to learn more about connecting with your local influencers.
Another way organizations are using influencer marketing is called affiliate marketing. This is similar to influencer marketing (though most would put it in a category of its own) but serves as performance-based vs. product-based in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
Here are a few statistics on the benefits of influencer marketing according to HubSpot and Business2Community:
- 71% of marketers say the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing is better than other sources.
- 49% of consumers today depend on influencer recommendations for their purchase decisions. 60% say they’ve been influenced by a recommendation when shopping in-store.
- 82% of consumers are highly likely to follow the recommendation of a micro-influencer.
- 45% of organizations are planning or have adopted influencer marketing.
Crafting Your Strategy
Similar to other business transactions in your marketing strategies, a good influencer marketing strategy will include contracts, scoping, budget and more. Be as specific as possible when crafting a strategy. This way your influencer marketers will know exactly what to promote and how you would like to see it promoted. Here are a few key rules for your influencer marketing strategy:
- Know Your Message: Are you looking to promote a specific product, or offering? Before your influencer posts content on social media, be sure to outline the benefits your audience will receive. Webolutions has outlined some great steps on creating content that speaks to your local audience.
- Track the Metrics:Perhaps your message is resonating on Facebook, but lagging on Twitter, or vice versa. It’s wise to check the social media metrics every week and measure how well your programs performed. Perhaps you need adjust the timing of your posts, or perhaps you decide to devote your influencer marketing content strategy and budget to two social media channels vs. four. The more fine-tuned and specific your message is on a specific social media channel or channels, the better it will reach and delight your audience.
- Stay Current With Your Social Media Tools: Who knows what new social media platform or tool will appear (TikTok, anyone?) Be sure to also leverage the latest social media enhancements, such as live broadcasting and paid social media stories, to effectively reach your audience.
Looking to get started or fine-tune your influencer marketing strategy? Webolutions can help! Consult with a social media expert today or give us a call at 303-300-2640.