Important Information About Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing can be best described as a collaboration that involves a brand working with an online influencer to promote the businesses services or products.
Some influencer marketing collaborations are less tangible than that as some brands simply work with influencers to improve brand recognition.
An early example of influencer marketing involved YouTube celebrity PewDiePie who collaborated with the makers of a horror film set in the French catacombs under Paris. Together they created a series of videos where PewDiePie underwent challenges in the catacombs. It was pitch-perfect content for PewDiePie's 27 million subscribers and received nearly double the views as the movie's trailer. The success of this collaboration emphasises the fact that if influencer marketing is to be successful it must result in a win-win situation for both the brand and the influencer.
Influencers, unlike celebrities, can be found everywhere and they can be anyone. What makes them influential is their large followings on the web and social media. An influencer can be a popular fashion photographer on Instagram, or a well-read cybersecurity blogger who tweets, or a respected marketing executive on LinkedIn.
There are influential people within every industry as a brand you just have to put in the effort to find them and contact them. Some will have hundreds of thousands and sometimes up to millions of followers, despite this they often come across as just being ordinary people.
Some influencers might only have 10,000 followers, less in some cases. Yet, they will have developed a reputation for being the experts in their field. They are the go-to people who provide the answers to people's questions. Depending on their sphere of expertise, they are the people who make the most engaging social posts on their specialist topics. They share the best pictures, make the most entertaining videos, and run the most informative online discussions.
Tips For Approaching an Influencer to Pitch a Collaboration
• Be organized, put together a strategy, plan, and budget, spend time on research
• Decide on your approach to finding influencers – find them organically, subscribe to a platform, or work through an agency
• Be patient and be human – people talking to people, not companies talking to companies
It is also important to develop a highly organised schedule to fit in with the other commitments that the influencer already has
• Does the influencer prefer monthly/quarterly/biannual calls or newsletters?
• Integrate with your PR schedule, product release schedule, etc.
• Send emails on behalf of key executives. Plan travel schedules for executives and arrange face-to-face meetings.
What Isn’t Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing isn't just about finding a person who has a large audience and offering them money or exposure so they can say good things about you. Influencers are people who've spent time building their own brand and cultivating their audience; they will be naturally protective of their reputation and the people who trust them.
As a result of this influencers are people who have the patience and aspire to succeed in social media, one organic follower at a time people like this aren't interested in doing influencer marketing solely for the money.
Furthermore, Influencer Marketing isn’t about quick results. It's the same kind of slow-and-steady approach as social media and content marketing, where your campaign isn't about directly selling your wares.
Influencer Marketing is more so about demonstrating your authority, credibility, and thought leadership within your industry. Influencer Marketing is about becoming synonymous with whatever it is that you offer.
Influencer Marketing is a slow game of acquiring the kind of followers who are going to be loyal and engaged. Although it might seem tempting to assume that joining forces with an influencer is going to be an easy way into the hearts and minds of his or her followers this is definitely not case and it is not as easy as you may assume. In order to obtain success via Influencer Marketing you must obtain the trust and respect of the influencer if they are willing to promote your products or services and you must prove that you can offer them a win-win working relationship that is mutually beneficial.
