INFLUENCER MARKETING

 

What is influencer marketing?

At a fundamental level, 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.

Social influence

Most discussions of social influence focus on social persuasion and compliance.^[4] In the context of influencer marketing, influence is less about arguing for a point of view or product than about loose interactions between parties in a community (often with the aim of encouraging purchasing or behavior). Although influence is often equated with advocacy, it may also be negative.^[5] The two-step flow of communication model was introduced in The People's Choice (Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet's 1940 study of voters' decision-making processes), and developed in Personal Influence (Lazarsfeld, Elihu Katz 1955)^[6] and The Effects of Mass Communication (Joseph Klapper, 1960).^[7]

Influencer marketing is also important through social comparison theory. As psychologist Chae reports, influencers serve as a comparison tool. Consumers may compare influencer lifestyles with their imperfections. Meanwhile, followers may view influencers as people with perfect lifestyles, interests, and dressing style.^[8] As such, the promoted products may serve as a shortcut towards a complete lifestyle. Chae's study finds women with low self-esteem compare themselves to the influencers. As such, they elevate the status of influencers above themselves. When using an influencer, a brand may use consumer insecurities to its benefits. For this reason, influencer marketing may lead to faulty advertising

B2B influencers

For most business-to-consumer (B2C) campaigns, influencers may include everyday consumers who have influence over their audience. In high-value business-to-business (B2B) transactions, influencers may be diverse and might include consultants, government-backed regulators, financiers, and user communities.

Forrester Research analyst Michael Speyer notes that for small and medium-sized businesses, "IT sales are influenced by several parties, including peers, consultants, bloggers, and technology resellers."^[25] According to Speyer, "Vendors need to identify and characterize influencers inside their market. This requires a comprehensive influencer identification program and the establishment of criteria for ranking influencer impact on the decision process."^{[This quote needs a citation]} Influencers can play a variety of roles at different times in a decision-making process, an idea developed by Brown and Hayes

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5 Steps: How to Develop an Influencer Marketing Plan

Building a high-quality influencer marketing program is no mean feat. I’ve broken the process down into five straightforward steps so you can use some or all of them as you build your company’s template depending on where your marketing objectives, priorities and resources lie:

• Remember to first define your online audience: Influencer marketing begins with identifying your target customer and understanding who impacts how they’re discovering, evaluating and deciding to buy merchandise. 
• Find the right influencers: Influence is subjective, so you’ll need to search for people who produce and share content that impacts your business or your customer’s decision-making. 
• Monitor influencers for opportunities: Listen to your specific influencers and track their content. Ask the questions—what topics do they write about, what are they sharing, what questions are their audience members asking?
• Take action and engage: Start building relationships through simple actions like following and sharing their links, get to know them, build trust, then plan actions that will enable you to work together.
• Measure your outcomes: Keep track of the relationships you’re building and how they’re converting into concrete events like visits, introductions, mentions and eventually leads.

In the last few years, increasing numbers of brands and agencies have brought their influencer marketing in-house, including Nokia, Jaguar and Abertis Infrastructure.

There are benefits—building an internal team to run your influencer campaign means an increased number of influencer relationships, transparent pricing and a company structure that yields better content and returns. But running campaigns in-house can be hard.

A report by eMarketer says 75 percent of influencer marketers struggle to find the right influencer, and another 25 percent have a hard time automating their campaign management. While this is true to an extent, the benefits outweigh the risks. By building their own expertise and relationships today, these buyers will ultimately earn the greatest ROI.

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