Influencer Marketing Strategies for Brands

Posted by Alfred Jarikre

April 27, 2019Branding, Social media 0

In a time when the internet and social media is so distracted by memes, comedy skits and “gist” how do you meet your target audience or consumers/customers through Digital marketing? How do you identify and meet your target market through digital marketing? How do you push your brand to people and expect the demand for your goods or services? Do you do paid ads on Instagram and Facebook and you figure no one is reaching out still? If you have always had these questions on your mind then this is for you! This blog post would discuss influencer marketing and identify three major strategies in influencer marketing that could work for your brand.

Influencing marketing (also called influence marketing or social media influencer) is a form of marketing in which focus is placed on influential people rather than the target audience as a whole on social media, by orienting market activities through these people who have influence over potential customers.

The idea behind influencer marketing is to leverage such influence to promote your brand’s products and services online.

The role of an influencer marketer cannot be overemphasized. Big brands are taking advantage of this strong marketing channel. In fact, global brands like Adidas, Nike and Colgate-Palmolive have been working with influencers for many of their marketing strategies.

For one of the influencer marketing campaigns executed by Colgate-Palmolive, they worked with Jenn Im at the Clothesencounters YouTube channel, which has over 1.9 million subscribers. The video Jenn created has been viewed more than 500,000 times.

At this point, you should have a paper/jotter and a pen to take notes or rather your highlight and save to bookmark should be on now. Sit back and enjoy.

THREE INFLUENCER MARKETING STRATEGIES

1. Know your Influencer Marketing Goals:

Before finding an influencer it is important to identify your brand goals and objectives because this would help in choosing the kind of influencer that would specifically reach and bridge through your market audience, this is also important to incorporate influencers that are concise and straight to the point. Questions to answer when identifying these goals include ;

What do you expect to get from the campaign?
What aspects of your performance do you want to improve?
Is it engaging, awareness creating and captivating?

2. Find the Right Influencers:

After identifying your goals the next step is to find the right influencers. They are numerous types of social influencers depending on the size (micro influencers, celebrity), the type (blogger, public relation company or journalist). When choosing an influencer marketer the following things must be put into consideration.

What topics they cover; this is very key in selecting an influencer, what do they usually talk about on their digital channel, is it relevant to your brand in any way? If the answer to the latter question is in the affirmative then you are definitely on the right track.

For example, you should know that in searching for top influencers to promote your male fashion brand in Africa Ebuka Obi Uchendu can become your influencer because he strikes a figure in the fashion industry for men. People like James Charles, Jeffree Star, Kylie Jenner are influencers in the makeup line. Thus it is important to choose an influencer in your brand line.

Who forms their audience; since you would be using them you want to be able to reach your own audience by asking who follows them?
How engaging is their (influencer) audience; the major question to ask here is what is the relationship between influencer and followers? An influencer that has a very engaged audience (That shares their content and have followers leave comments under it) is a good influencer.

3. Have them Create Unique Influencer Marketing Contents:

One major mistake a lot of influencers make is trying to copy content or being robotic or conventional about meeting target audience, I mean! There is a reason why they are called influencers. They are influencers because they own a voice louder than a normal individual’s voice in the society and thus it is important that an influencer uses his own unique voice, style and creative innovation to meeting target audience.

In conclusion, now you understand how to develop strategies for influencer marketing that can grow your brand. You know that it is important to first set goals and choosing the right influencer is as important as having them create unique and original content.