by By: Jennifer Kim, @je_nniferkim
Although both drive action and raise awareness for a brand, there are many differences between social media influencers and brand advocates. Influencers are defined by the size of their audience while brand advocates are already customers and likely to recommend the brand. While there are companies such as NGP Integrated Marketing Communications who can manage the marketing side of a business such as brand awareness and engagement, influencers are significant in driving conversations, improving search engine rankings, and building trust between a brand and its public. Social media influencers will do a lot to show their brand to the world, this can be in many forms, but one that is very well-known is creating ‘merch’. This can be clothing for companies like https://imprint.com/shop/custom-apparel/t-shirts, phone cases, bags, etc. the possibilities in this field are endless.
Partnering with social media influencers will drive conversations and generate more engagement for a brand. Social media influencers often have large numbers of followers and through shoutouts, reviews, and features from these influencers, brands may boost their visibility and even engage new target audiences. One way to engage customers is to offer discount codes for influencers to promote on their own social media channels. Promoting discounts through influencers gives people a reason to buy products or use services, which increases conversation on the brand.
Now that Google favors high-quality links, outranking competitors have become a lot more difficult. Keyword searches alone won’t have a significant impact on a brand’s rankings. Influencers that promote a brand on their social media platforms will help build high-quality links to that brand’s website and drive site traffic as well as improve the brand’s search engine ranking.
In Wednesday’s lecture, Kelli talked about the connection that followers have with their influencers. People want to have something in common with their influencers; they develop a real relationship with these influential bloggers. Once an influencer promotes a brand, followers will trust their opinion and proceed to try out the product or service. Working with influencers will dramatically improve a brand’s ability to win over customers by building trust and credibility.
These are only three benefits, out of many, from partnering with influencers to optimize social media marketing, yet these three are the most popular reasons brands reach out to influential bloggers. Incorporating influencers into social media marketing is cost efficient, quick, and an effective way to raise brand awareness, improve search engine rankings, and build trust and credibility for a brand, especially for small businessess. Brands looking to improve their search engine rankings in China may want to take on board the expert advice for optimizing their presence on the baidu search engine when users search for keywords pertaining to their area of business.
Glossier, a small beauty brand that started in 2014, demonstrates a great way of using influencers to promote their brand. Glossier reached out to social media influencers with a large number of followers, such as Aisha Hatter. Aisha was given a free product to review and feature on her social media channels. Aisha was also given a unique discount code for her followers to use when they purchase Glossier products. The more her discount code is used, the more money she will have in her Glossier account for her to purchase the products that worked for her, she was also given a glossier rep code which gave her unique discounts for being a representative of Glossier products. This is a great way to reward influencers because not only does this method also encourages them to be a returning customer. Along with influential bloggers, Glossier also uses celebrities like Chrissy Teigen and Rashida Jones to promote their latest products at the Oscars. Click here to view photos of celebrities wearing Glossier’s newest product.
I find that most social media influencers have varying levels of credibility. For instance, a beauty blogger with an established following is more authentic and trustworthy on brand recommendations or product reviews and as they have worked to develop a trustworthy reputation and dedicated following in their field. However, a celebrity or public figure who’s claim to fame does not directly correlate to the product they are endorsing is not always as successful as it is more apparent their relationship with the brand is likely to be sponsored or paid content.
Hi Jennifer, this was a good read. Social media influencers is a very relevant area of focus, as I see this on my social media platforms daily. It is fascinating how efficient social media influencers can urge followers to buy products and test out brands. I have a friend who is a HUGE fan of the show “The Bachelor” and religiously follows one of the shows popular couples on all social media platforms. This couple promotes a variety of brands and products weekly, and it takes one Instagram post from them to convince my friend to look up the promoted brand and/or buy one of their products. I completely agree on the value of social media influencers for a brand or organization.
Great post! I really enjoyed this lecture and I felt that it pulled back the curtain on the practice of using influencers to promote a client. In my opinion, the best use of an influencer is when the consumer is not immediately aware that they are being targeted. Authenticity is paramount in this sort of endeavor, and I feel that influencers like the Kardashian/Jenners have less impact on me because I am acutely aware that they have been paid to promote this or that. Seemingly organic promotions are much more likely to garner my attention, which after all, is the whole point.
I love to study how influencers make money and use social media, so I really enjoyed this post. I think the more social media grows the more regulations there will be, but it is fascinating to see how each influencer uses their platform. I personally respond to more of an authentic approach.
Loved the read, especially the end about the relationship between celebrities and Glossier!
I am a big proponent of incorporating influencers in any plan. I believe they do have a massive impact on the success of a brand or product and your blog shows us that. I personally am someone who is very much influenced by influencers. I watch a lot of YouTube’s beauty bloggers and whenever they do a haul or a P.O. box video I always take note of the products they recommend. However, someone mentioned in another comment but I am more likely to listen to a blogger whom has a more established following, but most importantly for me is that I see them use the products. There has to be something genuine about the partnership, which I think, is an issue companies and influencers run into. It’s sometimes hard to immediately trust that they are not doing it for the money, which I talked about in my blog post as well!
Influencers fascinate me. The fact that some unknown and obscure person living halfway round the world can now capture an audience of millions from one tweet or one picture is unreal. Looking at job postings last week I came across one for a mobile company. They were hiring a Talent Acquisition Manager to solely go out and sign influencers for the brand. I’d love to see what eventually happens to these influencers, the market is just becoming so saturated and there seems to be so many social accounts simply adding and removing followers to increase their own number of followers (assuming they’re trying to capitalize with monetary motives). I think the big industry that will profit will be movies and television, as we’ll see more actors/actresses that were once unknown social media users become the next big thing we see on our TVs.