Social Media Influencers is a relatively new “job”, really only rising in popularity within the past 10 year, especially with the creation of mainstream social sharing platforms like YouTube. Social media Influencers could have anywhere from between 1000 to millions of views, followers, subscribers, etc. These Social Media Influencers become role models to the people who follow them, especially to their more younger audience (if they have any).
Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from influencers–individuals who have a dedicated social following and are viewed as experts within their niche. Influencer marketing works because of the high amount of trust that social influencers have built up with their following, and recommendations from them serve as a form of social proof to your brand’s potential customers.
In the words of marketing guru Seth Godin,
“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.”
If you’re looking for an ironclad way to seize the attention of your ideal audience, you should look no further than someone who already has their ear, aka. An Influencer. Influencer marketing is such a popular tactic to drive sales: Many people, especially the younger generation, would trust an influencer over an ad. If they see their favourite Influencer using Urban decay products for her morning routine, then most likely they too will want to use Urban Decay products too. To them it’s an honest and authentic review. Influencing is about connecting, and that’s what marketing revolves around today – making us feel connected with the product and people who use/promote that product.
Once businesses realised just how influential these social media influencers were, they began to reach out to “partner” themselves with these individuals. However businesses can’t just partner with any influencer. There is no point for Urban decay to partner with an Influencer who creates fitness blogs and videos. They must share a similar target audience. It would be much more beneficial to them to reach out and attempt to partner with a Beauty Influencer, like James Charles, who currently has a massive influence in the sphere of beauty and fashion. Urban Decay however, would be competing against other makeup and beauty brands for James Charles’ attention. They would have to make him an enticing offer in order for him to partner with their brand over the others.
Businesses also have to look at different Influencers on different platforms. An example is the contact store Uniqso, who has reached out to creators on TikTok to showcase their products. They reached out to TikTok creators who dress up as characters to make short videos. They can be minor influences such as “OlmpiaCosplay” who have nearly 4000 followers on TikTok, to a larger influencer in the same field like “Radicalslinky” who currently has 291.1K followers on the same platform. Both these creators overlap in the content they create, and have amassed a following who enjoy their videos. Therefore, when Uniqso, who specialize in coloured contacts reached out to them and offered them some free contacts and a discount code for them and their followers to use, they accepted and videos were made explaining where they get their coloured contacts for their videos. The reason why Uniqso also contacted the influencer with the smaller following to also promote their goods, was because she had very good engagements with her followers. Businesses have to research the different Influencers; which platforms are they most popular on? Which Country engages with them the most? Which demographic does this influencer attract? All these must be considered when a business decides to partner with another influencer.
Working with the right influencer to work with your brand is vital. Businesses must make sure that they communicate their brand’s message in the way they want them to. There are many instances of Public Relations disasters where an influencer makes a post with the guidance of a brand, but it comes out completely wrong and does not portray the message that the brand wanted to spread. An example of this would be Kendall Jenner and the Pepsi advert. While the message they were trying to convey was “Pepsi brings people together” the way in which the advertisement was done made it look like Kendall Jenner diffused a Black Lives Matter protest by giving a policeman a can of Pepsi, which is completely tone deaf in light of the BLM protests happening in the US. It was an oversight on Pepsi and on Kendall who should have known better.
In conclusion, influencers are a powerful tool that businesses can utilise to promote and campaign their goods/business. However, there are a lot of measures to be considered, such as the influencers reach, target demographic, the reputation etc. Influencers have the ability to reach very specific audiences. Instead of businesses relying on thousands of followers, influencers will help them ensure a very targeted audience who is likely to be interested in their product reads and engages with their content.