Author: Nikolina Sakač
Date of Publication: 24/02/2023
Due to the increase in the use of social media, influencer marketing has become one of the most popular forms of online marketing. In fact, nowadays, many brands promote their products through social media with the help of influencers. In particular, influencers are people who share their personal experiences with people who follow them on social media and thus can influence their opinion and decisions. So, this form of promotion takes place through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and other social media and is called influencer marketing.
Influencers vs Influencer Marketing
Influencers have transformed the way customers and brands use social media. Actually, an influencer is any person who has an influence on the behaviour of another person. Their goal is to cooperate with brands to promote products or services to their audience. Thus, influencers are people who attract the trust of others and have an influence on their community. In the past, there were famous people, but today there are people we can identify with and who may live in our city or even in our neighbourhood. As a result, brands easily reach out to them and collaborate with them to achieve their marketing goals.
Depending on their area of expertise, they make the most engaging social media posts, they share the best photos, and create the most entertaining videos. Also, they have informative online discussions.Some will have hundreds of thousands of followers and more. But many will look like ordinary people, just like you. They may only have 10,000 followers, and in some cases less. However, they carry the reputation of experts in their field.
Yet it is important that online contributors (influencers) are truly influential. They must influence the type of people the company wants to reach. This is because brands work with influencers to improve brand recognition. So, In today’s digital world, social content creators with niche audiences can often offer more value to brands. Smaller accounts often have more active followers. Shortly, a social media influencer is someone who wields their influence through social media. While, on the other hand. influencer marketing means hiring an influencer to promote your products or services.
Advantages of influencer marketing
There are many advantages of influencer marketing such as:
increased engagement with potential customers,
the ability to reach new audiences and
getting high-quality content that you can repurpose in other marketing channels.
However, there is a big difference between ads that pop up from internet browsers and a person who presents a product or service in an original and authentic way. Influencers approach potential customers in a friendly way that makes them different from aggressive advertising campaigns. So, with their activities on social media, influencers encourage and accelerate the building of the brand's image and its recognition.
How to choose the correct influencer
The audience they target
The main goal is to reach potential consumers, and this is achieved by choosing influencers whose audience corresponds to the brand they promote. For example, to do so, you can use audience demographic features found on influencer marketing platforms. This way, it's possible to find influencers whose audience matches your target location, age, or gender. It is also important to find an influencer that fully fits the brand. For example, a promotion for a construction company would look out of place on a fashion influencer's Instagram.
Influencers’ engagement rates
Moreover, engagement rates can be used to see how audiences are responding to influencers' content. To calculate the engagement rate of a post, it is necessary to add the total number of likes and comments that influencers receive on the post.Afterwards, the total number is divided with the influencers’ number of followers and then this result is multiplied by 100. Therefore, the average engagement rate must be for at least 10 posts in order to get the average engagement rate of an Instagram profile.
Influencers’ authenticity
Influencers who are authentic will have more loyal followers. By sharing personal stories and advice, such influencers reach their audience and in this way gain their trust. So, authenticity can be recognized by scrolling through Instagram titles of influencers and by searching for well-designed titles that convey a story.
Attitude and values
Content and posts
It’s important to check whether the content of the influencer corresponds to the image of the brand being promoted. Therefore, the content of the influencers you want to work with should be clear, well-composed, creative, consistent, and optimised for Instagram. If the influencer's content suits you, it is necessary to give them creative freedom in order to create the best and most creative content for the brand.
Influencers’ reliability
Apart from that, to help communication flow as well as possible, it is important that the influencer you work with is reliable. A reliable influencer means being fast and professional. If the influencer takes a long time to respond to your message, it could be a sign that they will be slow to respond to messages if you decide to cooperate.
Sponsored vs Normal content
So, a good influencer must be up-to-date in their posts and communicate with their audience on a daily basis. Also, before cooperating with an influencer, it is necessary to check how often they publish sponsored content. In addition, you should mind whether sponsored and normal contents are equally distributed. If the influencer publishes mostly sponsored content, it means that their credibility may be at risk.
Cost of influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is increasing every year. In 2016, the value of influencer marketing was 1.7 billion dollars. It has grown over the years and its estimated market size in 2022 was $16.4 billion. Based on this, in 2023, influencer marketing is expected to grow by 29% to an estimated $21.1 billion.
In fact, many factors affect the cost of influencer marketing, depending on the influencer's level of fame, niche, audience demographics, engagement rates, and campaign scope. For example, influencers who have a larger number of followers and higher engagement rates will definitely charge more for services.
How much do influencers charge on average?
Research conducted by the Influencer Marketing Hub reports that the average price for a sponsored post on Instagram in 2021 was $300-$1,000 per post for micro-influencers, $1,000-$5,000 for medium influencers, and $5,000 and above for macro-influencers. Costs are also affected by the type of content that is created, it can be a video, post or story.
However, these costs can only be considered as guidelines. The actual costs of influencer marketing depend a lot on the circumstances of the campaign, so they can be higher or lower accordingly. It is also important to negotiate fees with influencers, considering the scope of work required and the specificity of the results.
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