How to grow your brand with influencer marketing in 2020

In order to build your business you need to have proper marketing. No matter how good your business is, you won’t really be able to get any results if your marketing efforts are subpar. And this doesn’t just mean one aspect – you can’t just rely on your website, or on physical ads, the radio, or even TV (If you can afford it). Covering every aspect means getting in line with the times understanding what is popular today, what gives you the best results and options. One of these important aspects is influencer marketing.

Namely, influencer marketing is vital nowadays. Social media is now an everyday part of life, not just something “those young people” did. No, it’s much more ever-present, and ubiquitous. What you want to see, what you want to accomplish, is getting a right influencer on board and having him or her promote your business.

What is an influencer marketing?

Now, the term influencer has been thrown around a lot nowadays. However, it has in one form or another existed for decades, if not more. Only today has it been tied directly to social media, has it received the name it has.

To put it simply, an influencer is a person who has influence in your field. This definition can be expanded a bit more, in the sense that this person has, specifically, influencer over a wide consumer audience. These people have broken through in their field, or something relating to your field, and made a name for themselves. Perhaps they have done so through raw knowledge and success, or perhaps they simply have a great deal of charisma (but still better than average knowledge of the relevant area). Fitness experts and gurus promoting your health drink, gearheads saying how good your tools are, fashionistas wearing your new line of streetwear…

Now, this is how it all looks like. Les say you have an influencer who has proven himself as very knowledge and successful in the coffee machine industry. We know, a very niche subject, but the primary point here is focusing on niche subjects – better to have 1000 dedicated followers online than 10000 people who will just hike up your bounce rates.

Now, back to the coffee machines. You yourself are creating coffee products – perhaps growing and importing beans, or maybe selling some espresso makers. You come in contact with this person, they like your products, and then they promote it on their social media. Boom, you just got his or her entire audience looking at your website, your goods. You essentially opened yourself up to a huge audience with one simple gesture. Any good marketing strategy and budget needs to have some room for influencer marketing.

Now, putting all this into practice, getting the best for your brand thorough influencer marketing, can all be found below.

Instagram is still vital

When people think of influencers, they think of Instagram. Now, they have good reason to do so – this platform does serve as a home for many influencers out there. We need to point out, though you are probably aware of this fact, that many people call themselves influencers, while just feeding their narcissism on this platform, all the while not contributing to anything, not even knowing anything about their chosen field. These are not the influencers we are talking about.

Now, as always, social media is king when it comes to online marketing. For example, in 2017 there have been around 1.5 million influencer related posts on Instagram. Instagram related, in that they promoted a product, a service, or a company. This is an amazing and intense source of advertising, a platform you should not miss out on.

In fact, Instagram is so strong that it reached one billion active users on a monthly level in 2018. These numbers are astonishing, they represents a global market that never existed before. And this is all with good reason. It’s simple, it’s direct, and it gives you clear visual content. And of course, it has the insane popularity that we mentioned above.

These reasons make it amazing for growth, as well as making it very useful, and sought after, platform for influencers and marketers – it’s what makes it a magnet for influencers, both relevant and not.

Stick to your field, strike a deal

Growing your brand through influencer marketing means sticking to your field, and getting a good deal. It means you need to get the right influencer with you. We consider this as relevant both in terms of exposure, and in terms of gaining actual success with their audience.

Namely, the entire goal of influencer marketing is you gaining some traction and influencer with their audience. You want to get some of their people to also be interested in you. And you can’t just accomplish this by having this person say “this is a trusted brand, I like them”. The audience of this influencer might hang on every word he or she says when it comes to their field of expertise, but there is no reason they would listen to what they have to say when it comes to something entirely unrelated.

So, you need to stick to an influencer that know what he or she is talking about. Of course, this also means that your product or services need to be up to par. You can always sweeten the deal, offer some free merch, or get them on your marketing team. But at the end of the day, they need to honestly believe that what you offer is good.

Broader promotion

Your marketing efforts with influencers don’t just have to centre on the influencers themselves. Rather, you can have them spearhead a larger, broader marketing strategy that include multiple things. Set up a marketing campaign that lasts for several months. It can include everything from a slew of online ads that make up a story, to guerrilla street marketing where you offer free goods, custom t-shirt printing, scavenger hunts…

Furthermore, promote your work through various mediums and contents. When you build said content regularly and continually, you can expect greater reach. Now, to come back to video – video is far reaching content that has something rather special – authenticity. Simply put, people believe that video content is more authentic, that it gives a different, more real and specific view of your company and of the influencers. Indeed, it’s much harder to mess with and to modify video when compared to other forms.

Now of course video is nothing new for influencers – just look at the success Instagram has with videos. But harnessing it properly, not just going in blindly, is what you want to focus on. Have your influencer tell several stories, put them on your website, let people see and hear this person say what her or she thinks, don’t just leave it at writing.

Broader content

In line with the previous point, you want varied content. Video is of course great, but you can also get great results with gifs or webms. Short bouts of content, a burst of information provided by an influencer can serve as a nice boost to your sales and your efforts.

Of course, images themselves also matter. Content wise, you should experiment with infographics. Memes are tricky territory – if done right (look at the success of Wendy’s twitter account) you can get amazing results. However, if done poorly (which happens 99.9% of the time), you will throw off a great deal of your younger audience and, simply put, embarrass yourself.

Spread out to other platforms

Instagram is the kind of this type of content, you can’t really do much about that. However, that doesn’t mean that you should just stick to this platform, and be done with it. Spread out your marketing budget, don’t just invest all your money and time into one field. Rather, try out other platforms. Facebook is a must, as is twitter. See if your influencer can promote you here.

Next, Tik Tok is here to stay, and tapping into this market will give you access to a much younger, fresher audience.  You might find influencers here as well.

Then there is YouTube. While this platform has gone through some trouble in the last couple of years due to monetization issues, it’s still a valuable platform. Often you can find influencers and YouTube personalities reviews certain products and services, giving genuine assessments and valuations of what certain brands have to offer. Unlike Instagram, where the videos don’t last that long, YouTube offers the opportunity to place much longer formats, and much more detailed troves of info.

Conclusion

A good influencer can help your brand gain a much broader audience, help you get found out by people who never knew you existed. People with the right amount of clout, individuals who can promote your work quickly and easily, influencers are a godsend for any company, young and old. However, do think about the type of influencer you should get.

Stick to someone relevant in your field. Also, Instagram is king, but don’t just stick to this platform – branch out, both in terms of content and platforms. Video, audio, infographics, Tik Tok, twitter, Facebook – all mediums and platforms that allow you to reach success and conversions with an influencer by your side.

The post How to Grow Your Brand With Influencer Marketing in 2020 appeared first on Lorenzo Gutierrez.

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