7 Ways Influencers Can Help your Brand

By now, the influencer advertising game is worth billions of dollars, with no end to growth in sight. So the question becomes not if you should be investing in it, but the reasons exactly whyyou should seriously consider it for your own brand. Let’s go over seven reasons why influencer advertising may just be the missing piece to your digital media strategy.

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While there are influencers raking in millions of dollars in a day’s work, this is not the case for everyone in the industry. In fact, compared to traditional advertising such as television spots and newspaper spreads, hiring an influencer can save you a lot of money while still delivering big results.

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Speaking of results, putting your advertising budget into some well-researched influencer strategies has been proven to pay off. In fact, for every dollar spent on influencer marketing, the earned media value has increased to $5.78, with some retailers reporting returns as high as $18.00.

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For most start-ups, the big question becomes: how do I increase my brand awareness? You want your name to be associated with your brand or service, and you want it to happen quickly.

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Having your company associated with the perfect influencer will do just that. Whatever the platform of your chosen individual or team, about 82%of consumers were reported to have made a purchase because of a recommendation from an influencer through a social media platform.

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This gets to the heart of the issue - the idea of a target audience. Because just how precisely you can make that target is up to you, and your research. What makes influencers special is that they have dedicated themselves to a particular interest or style.They have succeeded in reaching people who find their content entertaining or useful enough to consume it everyday.

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With the way social media is designed now, with the practice of following and receiving hand selected feeds, the influencers have become woven into the fabric of these consumers’ lives. This is because their material really resonates with their base. It could be that they are into high fashion vegan goods with a focus on kindness to animals, or engine swaps with special interest in a particular city, whatever it is, these creators have built themselves a niche.

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Your job is to find out which one of those niches your ideal buyer would fall into, and start to build those channels into your digital strategy. Using a tool like vlingwill help you dive deeper into the analytics and demographics of the potential influencers that you will work with. Vling provides you with a platform that assists with audience analysis data. Data that you would not be able to get elsewhere. 

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One of the main reasons to work with an influencer is because they already have an audience. They have used time, energy and imagination creating the aesthetic, content and following of their channels, sites, etc. And the impact on consumer habits is obvious.

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For example, 70% of teens, an important demographic in terms of their trendsetting ways and disposable income, say they trust social media more than traditional celebrities.

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This can be a really important way to distinguish yourself from competitors, especially if you are running a start-up, or one that is all but unknown with a certain age group.

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As we have discussed, the reason you are working with a certain influencer is because of the quality of their content and their relation to your product or service. And having your name associated with genuinely interesting and unique clips, podcasts, tutorials or more is what this is all about.

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It’s hard to come up with interesting ideas on a regular basis for your own special media account. Hiring someone is a luxury of more well-established brands, but as a start-up or company that is struggling, that may not be an option.

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This is why booking some ad spots or mentions with content creators and influencers is a valuable plan. You can capitalize on the body of their work, their video collection, etc and it lends weight and a feeling of quality to your own presence online.

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Lastly, it is good to join forces with influencers at every level of the game, and to nurture those relationships. This is why it is so important to monitor the traction you are gaining from any influencer you have hired. Check out the engagement, ROI and more as time goes by, and be on the lookout for making more plans with influencers that are worth it.

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There’s no mystery about the efficacy of influencer marketing, it is just a question of doing the research and having the knowledge of how to choose the right influencer and create a plan with them to help both of you reach your goals.

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