Influencer Marketing 101
Influencer marketing is a relatively new marketing phenomenon brought about by the social media revolution. It can be extremely powerful if you strategically target niche influencers who seem to share the same interests and values as yourself and are not a direct competitor. If you are not already using Influencer marketing, here’s some help in getting you started.
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing (IM) can be defined as word-of-mouth marketing (WOM) on a large scale. IM is carried out via social media, where people post all different kinds of content, and in particular, often spread the word about great products and services they have tried.
With social media WOM, the goal is to try to ‘go viral’, that is, have your content spread widely and rapidly, to the point where it becomes a trend that a lot of people find out about. Going viral can mean more brand recognition and a great deal of traffic, too.
Influencer marketing has the potential to take your social media WOM and viral marketing even further because you are targeting your marketing efforts at what can be termed ‘online celebrities’ in your niche or industry. They will already have a large and loyal following, which means that any like, comment or share you make, for example, will be highly visible both to the influence and to the others who follow them.
Top influencer tactics
1-Start with Facebook
With more than 2 billion users per month, spend time mastering this network and you should be able to grow your followers and go viral. Target 1 or 2 top people related to your niche, and just watch them. Don’t feel the mad urge to post. If you do post, be sure it is useful and error free.
2-Position yourself as a future influencer
While you are watching, beef up your own account profile as much as possible. Even if you are new to online marketing, create the impression that you are in the know about your niche with the contents you post. Facebook is really interested in memes and videos these days. They are highly shareable and can be very entertaining.
All content will need an image. Make sure it is high-quality and represents your brand and business well. When posting written content, be sure to use keywords, which will make your content more discoverable.
Remember, once you start to post, people can click on your name to go over to your account. Create a ‘sticky’ post at your account to tell them who you are, what to expect, and suggest they follow you for more niche-related content.
3-YouTube
YouTube is booming, and there are now YouTube influencers in every niche. Like, comment and even embed the content in your own blog/website if you think it is really high quality and the person is not in direct competition with you.
4-Master Twitter
Twitter is another relatively easy social media site to master and has a large number of influencers in all niches. Like, re-tweet and reply as needed. Be sure your profile is impressive when people click through to find out more about you. Use # (the hashtag) to join in popular conversations. Use the @ symbol to call attention to your content so your targeted influencer sees it. Make every one of your 140 characters count as you post content in the hope of a re-tweet.
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