Why Influencer Marketing Is A Tangible Driver Of Brand Performance?

Influencer marketing has taken the world by storm. It isn’t difficult to see why. Unless it’s not your style, chances are good that you have at least one social media account. Do you know that an average social media user spends around 2 hours, 25 minutes per day on social media? One can only imagine these numbers increasing with our growing love for social media. Speaking from a marketing perspective, this shows that we’re definitely under “influence”, and opportunities to promote business or products are limitless.

This is where influencers come in – and they are literally everywhere! An influencer in this context is a person who wields their power over their target audience using their online platforms. However, influencers are not just marketing tools. They are valuable partners who come equipped with the perfect marketing mix – persuasion as well as storytelling – to work on a strategy which best suits your business, for optimised results. With concrete evidence of their effect on public opinion, it’s very easy to see why influencer marketing is red-hot and in demand, now, more than ever.

Brands Remain Looking For New Ways To Stand Out

In the busy space of social media, brands are also looking and engage with their target audience in a far more meaningful way. Enter influencer partnerships, which is a tactic that fills this need through connecting brands directly to their customers as well as wrapping traditional messaging in an authentic package.

What is the most common use case for influencer campaigns? These are efforts that are centred on driving awareness or audience engagement. Done properly, influencer campaigns can make lasting impacts on consumer behaviour. This is particularly true on platforms with high influencer visibility such as Instagram, where 87% of users report that influencers have encouraged them to make a purchase.

If you make the decision that influencer marketing is the correct fit for your brand, you need to first determine which action items will guide you on the road to success. A number of different social networks offer a number of tools which will help you along the way, however extra preparation can assist you get the most out of this mutually beneficial relationship.

Common Mistakes Brands Make With Influencer Marketing

Some common mistakes which brands make while doing influencer marketing are not looking at influencer analytics – as well as data – while selecting the influencer for a specific campaign. It is important that you understand data points – such as demographic bifurcation, engagement rate, activities done in the past with other brands – has the influencer worked with any other competitors brands or not.

Of the time when brands go for influencer marketing campaigns, they believe in approaching only one social media platform at a time is the best strategy to go for. Nevertheless, a cross-channel campaign or promotion is always likely to yield better far results. This also remains true with regard to the persona as well as ethos of a brand, as it’s not necessarily true that the best influencers specialising in a given segment will be available on one desired platform. Thus, if brands go for an influencer campaign on social media, they should also launch the same on other digital routes such as short video apps for better results as well as a wider outreach.

In addition, while choosing influencers, brands rush and select the incorrect people who either have fewer followers or do not match up with the purpose – as well as the vision – of the brand.

Another very common mistake brands commit is not assuming a multi-lingual approach. A considerable chunk of their target consumers could be consuming content in a vernacular language as opposed to English or Hindi, and if they don’t reach out to them, the campaign does not really fulfil its objective.

In addition, influencer engagement spikes the traffic immediately. However, once the engagement is done, the investment is lost and then becomes irrevocable. Consider it as a spike in impressions (frequently uncategorised and repeated) in order to increase brand awareness instantly however not for an ROI in most cases. A lot of brands need to look into the count of the fans as opposed to looking into the quality of the engagement. Brands tend not to remember to measure an influencer’s influence on both tangible and intangible components.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Influencer marketing is a big part of digital marketing. So, if you are keen to learn more about digital marketing then you need to do our Digital Marketing Course. Follow this link to find out more.