Influencer marketing is a concept of hiring a social celebrity or individuals with a wider fan following to promote products and services which helps in winning consumer trust, especially when compared with traditional online ads. Influencer marketing is defined as the process of building relationships with individuals who have influence over a target audience of buyers. Influencer marketing is less intrusive and more flexible than traditional online ads, it can be small and quiet, big and booming or somewhere in between as the strategy to focus on the segment of customers. As per a survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers in 2017, it was found that three quarters of US advertisers employ influencer marketing, with the discipline expected to grow further in 2018. The growth of the disciple is attributed to social media use and a progressive propaganda to uproot ad blocking, be authentic, drive engagement and reach segments of audiences. The major brands investing in influencer marketing use paid media to amplify influencer campaigns. As brands invest more in influencer marketing, close attention should be paid to influencer compensation and disclosure of relationships to ensure value and consumer trust. Influencer marketing should be a service of marketing teams working externally with the right influencers in the right context and internally with customer-facing teams, to integrate the customer journey across every touchpoint.
Influencer marketing works on the different principle to attract and share information amongst the target audience. Word of mouth is one such tool which is used by the marketers to spread information within the niche community they target. The power of influencers in creating advertisement by word of mouth is greater than other sources, as it generates vines which is essential for brands to be known. Word of mouth marketing is a tactic used to generate natural discussions and recommendations for a product or company. Essentially, getting people to talk about your brand, product, or business is the goal of this type of marketing. This tact proves to be an important link in the flow of information as the effectiveness of conversations and the flow of information creates a better impact in the customer perception, this further articulates the customer behavior while the decision-making takes place during a purchase. The responses may not be in similarity to the target to achieve higher sales target immediately, however, it will create brand awareness and relationship which will turn will help in making potential customers to target. The objectives when defined accurately with excellent content will start Word of Mouth vines, spreading the content and developing awareness across customer groups.
Sony mobile communications, a multinational telecommunications brand with presence in over 20 countries, has a flagship mobile phone Sony Xperia series. This series has been in the market for more than five years and has grown to meet the expectation of customers in all variations and features requirement. The Xperia series climbed great heights with comparison to Samsung phones, a direct competition. However, in recent times, the company rendered slow growth and obeisance in markets of growth and developed countries. The marketers and sales team reverse engineered to discover the cause of the effect from market prospective. The reasons were obvious yet unresponsive, the marketing team was not rendering enough focus on digital marketing with evolution and pace of the market and the content was obsolete which the new generation, the mobile buying aging between 18 to 25 was responding. The company came with researched and learned the new market tactics and launched the next version of Xperia series phone with influencers and fresh content to suit the market ideology and target the correct audience with the right content at the right time. The marketers focus on the camera of the Xperia Z5 phone, which is capable of five times the zoom. They showcased the capability of the phone to capture a detailed photograph and filter it into smaller parts for shots. After this, they created over 100 Instagram accounts, which were all linked together by hash tags. People can use these tags to zoom into certain parts of the original photo in order to find 50+ hidden surprises. They hired over 30 influencers, who helped to spread and educate the target audience of the features. The influencers ranged from social mobile critics to influencers who talk about phones to their target audience and explain what to buy. This strategy generated over 17 million potential contacts and raised the platform for Sony better reach the customers with their quality of product and functional aspects.
The Evolution of Influencers and Micro-Celebrity Culture
The culture of micro-celebrity started to flourish in early 2010, at this moment the social media platforms had gained popularity among the young generation and people were well conversant with the use of smartphones and the internet. The world population has a majority constituent of youths who spend most of their time online. Instagram had special attraction features that promoted the users to engage in creating the platform they wanted. The influencer industry rose and young people started engaging in the business. For the young people to gain popularity among peers and other social media users they had to portray a life of success. Prior to the rise of social media influencers, the influencers in the industry were football players and other sportspersons. This set the bar high for a person to be an influencer thus making most people start creating portfolios that portrayed them as popular and successful.
The mass media platform had already established influencers who enjoyed the publicity of media. The social media influencers looked for ways to differentiate their work from that of the media personalities. The influencers started to create false hope for the audience and engaging in acts that make people happy. The influencers started to create an illusion of accessibility because they are always online to answer any questions asked by the audience. They used the criteria of telling people what they want to hear but not what helps them to grow and better their lives.
The practice of online influencing is on a rapid rise. The influencers can do anything to ensure that their followers enjoy the online space. The influencers have become micro-celebrities with the ability to convince people. The influencers take part in offering tricks to live, and personal lifestyles that contribute to a happy life. The mainstream media personalities work hard to ensure they reach their goals but online influencers have an enjoyable job because they choose the things to engage in, such as beauty, charms. Since the influencers have people’s trust, it is easy for them to endorse products to the audience.
Stages of Influencer Marketing
A proper planned strategy plays an important role in segmenting the target audience, developing the content and selecting the correct influencer to employ for spreading the message through the different channels for better reach, as the proper process for customer attainment is essential for brand image. It is necessary to learn the perceptions, tastes and preference of the targeted audience for creating suitable content before employing an influencer. The strategy implementation for implicating influencer marketing is off the virtue as the target audience perceive the messages and the actions of the influencers as trends to follow and act upon the stimulus. The organisation needs to assess the influencer reach and portfolio of content managed, before aligning the brand. A differentiate individual could trigger the customer into non-evaluation of the product or building perceptions, through an indirect message or misleading content, which would direct them towards an abbreviation causing the brand image to be lowered.
1. Defining the Target Audience
The identification of the target audience needs to be aligned while designing the business plan, the audience need to be segmented as per relevance for selecting the best influencer which could be selected to deliver the required message for brand. The targeted audience should be represented with a persona defining their likes, dislikes and nature, this will help the marketers to adapt and strategize accordingly. By understanding the persona, products and services can be tailored for creating a maximum impact in terms of utility and acceptance. The personalization of adverts and the content makes a better impact. The addressing of all the markets with a singular strategy could prove to be an issue, as the plausible deniability can be present in the customer mindset as the different sets might not accept the content, which is acceptable by the other.
2. Set Objectives
The marketers need to understand the market and the specific requirements, the customers and the growth prospective of their products in the particular market. A set of objective needs to be defined to gain clarity on the target, the target needs to achievable, well thought off and should be within the confinements of regulations. The objectives should define the flow of the implementation and the stage wise aim to gain the share targeted, the aim could be to increase the number of visitors on the website, get the visitors to sign up for a newsletter or just introduce them to the difference in ideology presented by the brand.
The measurement of Return on Investment (ROI), a calculation to gauge the returns on the money spent by the brand towards a advertising or hiring a influence to promote, can be calculated if the objectives are defined in accordance with the achievable forecast and defined aim. If the influencer reaches out to the maximum number of audiences, the calculation should be inline with the resonance of visitors to the website or purchase of the product. An unplanned or unachievable aim would decline the returns getting the results lower than expectations. Further the return on investments should be in accordance to the marketing campaign and the impact it focuses on delivering.
3. Identifying the Influencer
The right influencer is essential for brand advocating and brand building. Selecting an influencer should be inline to the brand personality and the individual personality should be relatable for the customers to understand the brand and message. Brands often hire influencers over social channels with a defined fan following, an important consideration aspect which allows brands to take cognizance of the impact and the reach to the customers, the larger the fan following the larger is the potential customer base created by the brand.
In the year 2014, Volkswagen group was accused and found guilty of using “defeat device” to manipulate the emission readings of their cars with diesel engines. The United States Government along with European countries had sued the manufacturer for illegal practices. The company’s vehicles lost the legendary status of being a “people’s car” and lost brand image in the market. The customer behavior changed towards the brand, as the cars were not environment friendly and the provided false readings. The brand faced tremendous anger and recoil from both the governments from around the world and the customers. The company came up with a strategy to turn around the image of the brand with the customers and the country governments, they identified the channel to reach out to the majority of the customers which were Twitter and Facebook. They acknowledged the fact and answered customer queries to start trust development and bring in a sense of support for the customers, the brand then identified Leonard DiCaprio, an influencer with an excellent track record in environmental project and wildlife preserving. The brand asked convinced the celebrity on the betterment of technology and asked him to recommend the customers. This created an upliftment in the brand image and the turn around in the customer perception. Hence, an influencer of a degree with a base record can help that brand succeed.
4. Identification of Opportunities and Quality using Influencers
The customer market changes with variable aspects effecting the functionality and perception. The influencer is an individual which develops an image in the digital space using the content, connecting with the specific audience in a way which is most acceptable to them. The marketers can work closely with the influencer and develop the content to be focused and spread amongst the customers, at time the contents which the marketer feels in presumably fit for the audience might not be at actual terms and the influencer can direct the content in the right path.
The influencer can help the brands learn about the conversations that people are engaged, the flow of information amongst the groups and the reaction of the target to different stimulus. There advise can also help identify gaps wherein the brand can position the quality content for the audience to respond, the content which is in relevance to the preceptory growth and the negated content which should not be used, as they understand the audience concerns and positivity.
5. Measure the Results of Influencer Campaigns
The influencer campaigns work on the principle of communicating the brand to a set of segmented groups for attracting the audience and converting them to potential customers and closing sales. Hence, the measure of the influencer campaign can be mapped by calculating the achievement of target, from number of website visits to the quantifiable sales that occurred in a stipulated time window. In order to achieve the desired results, it is essential to set achievable targets and set a measure scale to calculate the traffic.
Benefits of Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is very effective and has demonstrated to be very beneficial for brands as well as marketers. There are a few reasons as to why a brand would benefit from influencer marketing. Firstly, consumers are most likely confide in influencers over a brand and the paid adverts that they are carrying out. This is because they consider influencer’s source of information to be genuine and trustworthy. The need for more authentic content has made influencer an important member in influencing a consumers’ buying decision. This is because they consider influencer’s source of information to be genuine and trustworthy. Recently, influencer marketing has become popular in the online marketing field and a majority of consumers rely on influencer’s reviews and suggestions to help make decisions when buying. It has been stated that in the US, for example, consumers have stated they only trust 22% of brands. Clearly, we can tell that most of the consumers do not believe what a brand says about themselves and what they are selling. Studies show now more than ever, consumers want to consume content that is authentic and more realistic. In 2019, a survey was conducted by Stackla that shows that 90% of consumers want authentic content from their brands. However, there is a gap between consumers and marketers. 92% of marketers believe that their brand creates authentic content; whereas 51% of consumers believe that less than half of the brands are authentic. Second is driving traffic to the brand. This could be the point at which an influencer links a brand website or web store, which effectively expands traffic. The posts that contained the website link for the brand is shared across social media. Also, as an ever-increasing number of people look at the post, they will click on the link and then is redirected to the brand’s website.
Finally, influencer marketing can considerably grow brands reach and positioning in the online market. Social users will begin to know more about a brand, the background in the creation of a brand, who the people are, and the solutions that the brand offers. The offerings that influencers can make as far as brand awareness are some of the most dominant benefits of social media marketing. The key factor in maximizing influencer strategy is making sure you provide valuable content that adds to the influencers social media presence as well, ensuring there is value in the partnership for both parties. Influencers are generally the driving force behind new trends and developments. They commonly introduce audiences to new brands, products, ideas, etc. So appearing as a hot new concept is one of the numerous benefits of influencer marketing. Adjusting your brand with an influencer who moves the needle in the trends department shows individuals that your company is an innovative leader in the industry.
Influencer marketing has always proven to beneficial as it gives the customers an opportunity to learn from the people that they trust. The era of traditional marketing with billboards and one-way communication is on a downfall as customers want to their voices to be heard and follow a trend setter or a figure of reach. Influencer marketing has an incredible growth prospective in the developing countries as the social media exposure is on a rise and brands want to connect with customers with the correct content to influence their perspective and build a brand reputation, in last five years the content over social media has increased with length to suit the developing country citizens. Brands need to consider the fact of change and connect with more influencers to serve customers from different segments and gain insights to devise new strategies to serve them.