How a Full-Service Influencer Solution Can Help You Build Your Brand
In recent years, influencer marketing has become a hot topic, and for good reason. If you’re looking to build your brand and spread its name far and wide, a full-service influencer solution is an excellent avenue to achieve this! But what exactly is influencer marketing, and how does it work?
Influencer marketing leverages the power of influencers. By partnering with influencers as part of your marketing strategy, you’re tapping into their audience, harnessing their reach, and utilizing their reputation to your advantage. Influencer marketing is an influential tool in your digital marketing toolbox.
What Makes an Influencer?
If you’re anything like a lot of people, you likely have a friend that considers themselves an “influencer” or at the very least aspires to be one. But is your friend really an influencer if they don’t have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter? The fact is, the size of an individual’s following is becoming increasingly less important, and the level of engagement they have with their followers is paramount.
Followers: Quantity or Quality?
A large number of followers doesn’t always translate into a large reach. If you’ve ever had a social media account, you’ve probably received one of those spam messages advertising ten thousand followers in exchange for a low fee or even “follows for follows.” Social media is becoming saturated with bots and fake accounts. So, even if at first glance an account has lots of followers, many of those accounts may not be run by real people, meaning their posts aren’t being seen by as many people as it may seem.
To combat the ever-increasing presence of fake accounts and bots, most social media platforms have altered their algorithms that determine how many people will see any given post. Instead of giving the spotlight to posts from accounts with the most followers, these often-complex algorithms will prioritize posts that have high levels of engagement. Every time someone likes, comments on, or shares a post, its visibility gradually increases.
Influencers: The Masters of Engagement
Influencers will have lots of engagement on their posts because they have captive and loyal audiences. Their audience looks to them because they have a reputation, usually within a particular industry or niche, that sets them apart as an authority that people can trust. So, whenever an influencer posts or shares content, it makes its rounds, becoming highly visible due to a high degree of engagement! When companies hire influencers to create content that promotes their brand, whether it be demos, stories or positive mentions, the return on investment can be far reaching and lucrative.
Influencers are an Asset
In short, influencer marketing is the promotion of your brand, product, or service, by partnering with an influencer. Influencers are incredible assets when it comes to marketing, and forming a relationship with an influencer can have huge positive returns when it comes to getting recognition for your brand.
Influencers are deeply attuned to their audience, often sharing the same interests and values as their followers, intuitively knowing what content they’re looking for. Influencer marketing is simply making use of this valuable connection influencers have with their audience. The beauty of influencer marketing is that it enables you to call on the wealth of organic engagement an influencer in your industry or niche may have.
How Influencer Marketing Can Help Your Brand
As we’ve established, influencers wield a tremendous amount of influence over their audiences, and influencer marketing puts this influence to good use. Influencer marketing is stands out in a number of ways that can yield huge returns on your initial investment in an influencer marketing strategy. But what exactly gives influencer marketing a leg up over other traditional advertising approaches?
The Power of Word-of-Mouth
Traditional advertising is just that: old-fashioned. It’s boring, out-of-date, and not very engaging. You represent a modern brand and modern brands require modern solutions! According to Inc, 96% of us just don’t trust ads. It may come as no surprise that ads are generally viewed as untrustworthy, but few people realize just how deep this lack of trust really goes!
Word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful ways you can promote your brand. If someone is asking for product recommendations, they’re likely going to turn to their friends or some sort of authority figure. The beauty of influencers is that not only are they viewed as authority figures, but their followers have a level of familiarity with them that position influencers one degree closer to that “friend” circle for many of their followers. Influencers are trusted, and if they rep your brand, their followers are bound to pay attention.
Even if you’re engaged in those tried-and-true staple ad campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, and across the Google display network, the branded content an influencer creates for your company can be repurposed for use by those campaigns as well. Think of including influencer content that promotes your brand as a sort of high-profile testimonial. While display advertising certainly doesn’t qualify as word-of-mouth on its own, this sort of integration can give your campaigns a beneficial dose of credibility.
A Boost in Brand Credibility
The level of trust that influencers have with their followers is invaluable. Influencers are seen as bastions of credibility, therefore any recommendation they make is going to carry that same level of credibility by association. An influencer’s followers will think, “Wow, this has got to be a good brand for this person I follow to recommend!” This is another way that influencer marketing can be a huge asset to your business.
Anyone can advertise anywhere if they have the resources, but influencers generally have a reputation of only giving the time of day to brands they see as worthy. Their followers have likely seen lots of recommendations coming from their favorite influencer, and that influencer has yet to disappoint, otherwise they wouldn’t be following them anymore!
Expanded Brand Awareness
If an influencer has a large audience, partnering with them is a straightforward way to put your brand in the mouths and minds of more people, point blank. Brand awareness is huge, and even if someone has only heard about your brand in passing, it can affect how they interact with your brand in the future. If they run across your brand again, brand recognition will play a part in how they move forward! At the end of the day, influencer marketing expands awareness of your brand, which is a net positive for your growing business.
That being said, even if you partner with a micro- or even a nano-influencer who doesn’t have a lot of followers, if they’re positioned correctly in your industry or niche, they’ll reach all the right people where it counts. If you have a very niche brand, reaching many people who probably don’t have the slightest interest in it likely won’t be beneficial. Targeted influencer marketing within your particular industry also yields solid gains for your niche brand’s awareness and recognition.
Improves SEO
Search engines take a lot of different factors into account when determining your website’s search engine ranking. Not only should you have incoming links from other websites, but other big websites linking back to your website can drastically improve your search engine rankings. Guess who can help increase your chances of landing inbound links from a high-authority website? Influencers.
When an influencer shares content that links to your brand’s website, their followers are left to engage with it. What’s one of the biggest defining characteristics of influencers’ followers? That’s right, they have a high level of engagement. This means the content containing your link will be commented on, liked, and more importantly: shared. The more your website’s link is shared, the more likely it is to be noticed by other high-profile accounts and shared by them. This network of sharing can result in huge gains on your SEO rankings!
What is “Full Service” When it Comes to Influencer Marketing?
So now you’re ready to put influencer marketing to work for your brand. If you’re ready to delve into this exciting and rewarding form of marketing, it may seem a bit intimidating to reach out to someone with as much sway as an influencer. After all, they may not even give you the time of day if you’re looking to partner with them, right? How do you convince them to give your brand a chance if they likely already have many other potential advertisers barking up their tree?
This is where a full-service influencer marketing agency comes in to save you the headache of having to maneuver partnering with an influencer. Instead of just connecting you with influencers, taking their slice of the pie, and throwing up their hands, a full-service influencer marketing solution is your one-stop shop for every step of the influencer marketing process. A true full-service influencer marketing agency:
- Has relationships with influencers
A marketing agency that offers a full-service influencer marketing solution already has connections with influencers, and actively builds relationships with others. For certain specialized niches, it may be necessary for an influencer marketing agency to forge new connections with influencers, but most of the time they’ll already have someone for many different industries. - Is able to find you the perfect influencer for your niche or industry
What good is partnering with a prominent MUA (makeup artist) influencer if your brand produces sporting equipment? Sure, a great marketer could find a way to make it work, but the return on investment would be quite low. A full-service influencer marketing agency will find you the perfect influencer who will help you reach your ideal target audience, supercharging your ROI! - Facilitates communication with influencers
If you’re planning on engaging in an influencer marketing campaign, communicating with influencers can be one of the most challenging parts. Influencers likely have many other potential advertisers vying for the opportunity to work with them, so communication is key. Fortunately, a full-service influencer marketing agency will not only take care of this for you, but they’re experts in effectively managing lines of communication with influencers. - Is able to give you detailed analytics on your influencer campaign
You want to know the resources you put towards any marketing campaign go to good use and give you a solid ROI, so why is an influencer marketing campaign any different? A full-service influencer marketing package will show you the numbers, giving you verifiable proof that your venture of partnering with an influencer was the success you were aiming for.
Not only does a marketing agency that offers full-service influencer marketing solutions take the mystery out of a relatively new form of marketing that may seem intimidating, but it has a hand in every step of the process. If even a single step of your campaign is tasked to a different marketing agency, design team, or individual in-house staff member, your campaign can become disjointed. By using a single solution for every step of the process, you’re ensuring your influencer marketing campaign is cohesive, and therefore, effective.
Take Advantage of a Full-Service Influencer Marketing Solution
Look no further than Experience Advertising for your influencer marketing needs! With over 13 years of experience in digital marketing, Experience Advertising boasts an impressive influencer database that not only includes social media influencers, but also web-based influencers, such as bloggers and journalists, for the perfect marketing solution for your industry or niche. Let us put our years of networking with contacts in a variety of industries to work for you!
As a digital marketing agency that specializes in full-service influencer marketing solutions, we are able to craft a custom-tailored solution from start to finish that takes the guesswork and uncertainty out of working with potentially high-profile influencers. We take charge of influencer outreach and relations so you don’t have to, and create high-quality, strategic, and targeted content that is sure to appeal to your influencer’s audience, maximizing engagement and inbound linking. Because we are in charge of every step of your marketing campaign, we can create cohesive, on-brand messaging, solidifying your brand’s image in the public eye.
Are you ready to supercharge your brand’s marketing campaign by delving into influencer marketing? Contact us today to get started with your custom, comprehensive influencer marketing campaign!
