Introduction

Influencer marketing is no longer something you can ignore or play trial and error with. It is a mainstream branch of digital marketing and is no longer optional, no matter the brand.

The word influencer has been around for a few years now, but many marketers and their brands are unclear on how to tap into this market to reach demographics that are still out of sight for them. Well, there is a first time for everything, but that doesn’t mean you go into it blind.

As the word suggests, an influencer is a person who can persuade their followers to change their behavior, which gives them a certain amount of control over the purchasing power of their audience on any given social media platform. There are three types of influencers on the internet today and it depends on the size of their followers.

• Micro influencers have less than 10,000 followers and can help reach a specific niche audience. This might be a small club but the audience loyalty is strong.

• Power middle influencers have less than 250,000 but more than 10,000 followers. They are not as big as international celebrities but have a considerable amount of influence over their followers. These influencers also have partnered with brands in the past and have some of that commercial experience.

• Macro influencers are the third kind and have more than 250,000 followers. Typically, they are YouTube or Instagram celebrities and have a huge following. But it is possible that they don’t have the same level of credibility as powerful middle influencers, which means their impact in terms of changing buyer behavior won’t necessarily be directly proportional to the size of their following.

To begin with, influencers came into existence because it is an incredibly difficult task for brands to get and hold the attention of users on social media. As Aaron Sorkin puts it, this “theater of short attention span” is a hard one to capture.

It is also because there are a number of brands with an online presence and the competition is quite fierce. With everyone bombarding customers with their products and services, it has become hard for users to make a decision. And the amount of self promotion brands do, hasn’t helped their case much either because this has only made the customers skeptical.

So, there came a need for an innovative marketing strategy that did not include them talking about themselves. In short, they needed someone that customers would trust to give them a thumbs up. While celebrity endorsements have been around for that same reason, some influencers are more authentic with their followers for the sake of their own credibility. This has led to brands and influencers joining hands to make the best of the situation.

But every marketing strategy needs a plan and as popular or effective as an influencer might be, they are not the exception to this rule. Influencer marketing can achieve some very specific goals that are beneficial to both parties.