Social media influencers are people who have large social media presence and audience of followers on their social media accounts. With this presence and following, they have the leverage to influence or persuade people into an ideology/motivate them or encourage them to use a certain product or service. Usually, the ideology or the products they endorse are paid campaigns for some brand, however, with a significant amount of online credibility in their field or industry, their followers often feel their endorsements are particularly authentic and trustworthy.
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on using key leaders to drive a brand’s message to the larger market. Rather than marketing to a large group of customers, you instead approach the influencers to get out the word for you. At a fundamental level, influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from social media influencers. Why should one choose this marketing is simply because this type of marketing works because of the high amount of trust that social influencers have built up with their following, and recommendations from them serve as a form of social proof to your brand’s potential customers.
Now that we know what is influencer marketing, let us understand why influencers are considered as cost-effective PR for a brand than mainstream brand endorsements these days:
Influencers are more popular than mainstream celebrities
Influencers are the new celebrities! With social media opening new doors for content creation and consumption, publicity and stardom for young people has also increased. In fact, social media influencers are more popular than mainstream celebrities and TV stars among millennials these days. According to a recent survey, 30 percent of consumers are more likely to purchase a product endorsed by a non-celebrity blogger (social media influencer) than a celebrity. Nearly 70% of the millennials surveyed favoured non-celebrity endorsements, particularly from influencers they considered peers.
Consumers are wary of paid advertisements
Whether it is traditional media or digital media, people will always look at paid advertisements with skepticism. The truth is that they don’t want advertisements, they want conversations. This is where influencer marketing comes in. Unlike paid advertising, influencer marketing can connect with the consumer base, earning credibility and trust. As they have a reputation to maintain, most of the social influencers promote only the product they have tested and are satisfied by its performance. In this way, the audience knows that someone is already using the product and giving an information based on his/her experience.
Cost-effective marketing tool
For most PR pros, keeping their marketing budget out of proportion is a battle of wits. Fortunately, influencer marketing offers a cost-effective way to connect with the target audience. According to a recent study, 22 percent of the surveyed marketers said that influencer marketing is the most cost-effective PR tool. One of the biggest advantages of influencer marketing is its ability to correctly measure the performance of your campaign.
Conclusion
Social media influencers are quickly becoming a part of one of the most important online marketing channels. Budgets are growing fast, and marketers are seeing strong returns. The vast majority of marketers are generating real revenue from influencer marketing and with returns like this, budgets will keep increasing for the foreseeable future.
Currently, social media influencers provide such cost-effective PR that marketers can make mistakes, learn, and refine their process. They can try different influencers, gather analytics and become more sophisticated buyers. At the same time, influencers are becoming savvier and figuring out the best way to engage with their audience. There has never been a better time to get started.
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
A strategic communication entrepreneur professional having close to a decade of experience in the marketing communication & the PR business, Neha brings along a specialisation in creating & building the brand across the domain. Her foundation lies in learning & distributing the learning among the peer group.
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