What is Influencer Marketing?

By Manav Jain

Marketing trends over the past few years have changed tremendously. Traditional marketing ie., print media advertising has evolved to online advertising better known as digital marketing.

Digital marketing is a field where change is the only constant, it is an ocean where every day there is something to explore. It can be safely said that the future of marketing is digital marketing and the future of digital marketing is influencer marketing.

What is Influencer marketing?

It is the buzzword of 2020-2021. Let’s take a case where a person wants to buy a smartphone, whom she will reach out to? Most probably to his geeky friend for the suggestion which model is doing the best in the market who always stays up to date with the new technologies. To whom he will reach out if he wants to get some protein powder recommendations? Undoubtedly to that one gym freak friend who is always hitting up at the gym. These are influencers, someone who affects one’s decision to purchase is called an influencer.

Who actually are influencers? & why do people trust Influencers?

Influencers are those people who have the ability to affect the buying habit of a good number of people through their content or actions. Influencers can be actors, sportspersons, YouTubers, Instagrammers, Tik-tokers, etc.,

Now there are two reasons for people to trust them, firstly, they can connect with them by seeing them repeatedly on the internet and another reason is their expertise in a particular domain. For example, A tech-YouTuber like Technical Guruji will not be able to influence people to buy grooming products. Similarly, a sportsperson like Neeraj Chopra can not persuade people to purchase a smartwatch.

Thus, companies do very thorough research about the specialization of an influencer And take the best influencers of its niche on board across various social media platforms to reach out to its target group. Only a few brands are aware of the power of digital influencers. They are hard-pressed to comprehend the value of their brand on social media platforms.

Why do brands love Influencer marketing?

It is because an influencer does the job of 4 agencies combined thus reducing the spendings of a company.
An influencer himself is responsible for coming up with creative content for the brand brief, acting, production, and media reach, suspending the need for work of a creative agency, talent managers, production house, and a media buying agency at the same time respectively.
Influencer marketing is basically used in B2B companies for turning leads into customers.
The activity of getting influencers is also known as Influencer discovery.
Social media influencers are mostly chosen according to their social media audience size, which varies from 10K to hundreds of thousands.

An Influencer is someone who has got an immense following on different social media platforms that can deliver you quality sales leads. The role of an influencer is slightly different from an ad model or brand ambassador, but at the same time, it performs all the tasks mentioned above. In this era, an influencer holds a crucial role in establishing a brand, he or she becomes the face of your brand for the public.

Now that you are aware of the power of Influencer marketing, you may already have made up your mind to get your brand as an influencer!