10 powerful influencer marketing strategy in 2021
One of the most effective ways to increase your reach is influencer marketing. It authenticates your brand story and helps you reach out to new and potential consumers. You can position yourself and your brand as a thought leader within the industry. As influencers validate your brand you gain credibility. These are some of the reasons any digital marketing service provider will cite if you ask them why influencer marketing has become so all important in social media marketing.
In case you are wondering, influencer marketing is social media marketing that is endorsed by individuals with a high fan following. Such individuals are perceived as leaders and experts in the field they operate in. These individuals serve to validate your products and thus increase your brand’s following. With that said, here are a few ways you can develop your influencer marketing strategy.
FIND INFLUENCERS
That’s an obvious first step – find influencers who can endorse, validate, and promote your brand and products. And it’s the simplest one too. Go to any social media website and search by topic or keywords. You’ll find a number of conversations which you can browse through to determine whose voice is the loudest and whose advice is being heeded. Follow these people for a while to discover what they are doing, who their followers are, and whom they follow. That’s the long route. Another way is to sign up with the likes of BuzzSumo to discover influencers and trending topics all at one go. Once you have gathered the data you can dig through it to find what you need. For instance, you might sort the data by the number of followers, shares, reshares, Participating in live sessions and webinars will also show you who the influencers are. Find out who is speaking at these events. Check out the audience and look for repeat attendees at diverse events. These are the people you are looking for.
Finding influencers is a simple but time consuming process so if you are in a hurry you can hire a digital influencer marketing agency to help you.
DRIVE CONVERSATION
You’ve identified the influencers and they can definitely help. But the ultimate goal is to become a thought leader – an influencer – yourself. So it’s not enough to follow or encourage the influencers to talk about your product or service. It is also important for you – your brand – to take the initiative and drive the conversation. That way not only can you channel the conversation in the direction you want but you’ll be perceived as a leader and influencer. For instance, you might ask questions that nobody has asked before or take a bold stand on a trending issue. You might challenge existing trends and drive new ones or challenge the existing system.
If you want your brand to be perceived as an influencer and thought leader within your field or industry, it is not enough to nod at other’s opinions. You should form your own and influence others to agree.
BUILD COMMUNITIES NOT FOLLOWERS
You might have noticed that the people who follow you on social media do not necessarily comment on your blogs and posts. They will however comment on anything they find interesting and on posts that invite them to share their thoughts. This means that your audience is looking not just for a leader but someone with whom they can have a conversation. So you should target your influencing efforts accordingly.
Sure that single guy from Delhi may not have a great fan following but if he is ready to comment on your posts and drive conversation, he is an important part of your influencer marketing strategy. Every positive word about your brand or product is worth sharing. Of course, as we already said don’t nod at anything and everything your audience says but you should also not contradict everything they say.
As a thought leader or influencer, you should avoid being overly controversial if only because negative news spreads faster than positive content.
BE GENUINE AND TRANSPARENT
Misguided or not, people who follow leaders develop a sense of connectivity and expect easy access and quick responses. While posting your own content is important, it is also important to be responsive. This does not necessarily mean that you respond to every post or comment but yes, you should respond to a few carefully selected posts on a regular basis. This adds to your ethos and humanizes your brand. It makes you approachable and encourages people to interact with you. It adds to your credibility and widens your network.
An occasional – unconnected to your niche – but human tweet or post can go a long way in popularizing your brand.
ENCOURAGE CREATIVITY
The main reason why influencer marketing is so successful is because the influencers – for the most part – genuinely like and endorse your product, service, or brand. On the other hand, as more and more brands use influencers, it can be challenging to stay differentiated yet genuine. According to one digital influencer marketing agency when partnering with influencers you should give them as much creative liberty as possible. That way you won’t make it obvious that they are promoting the content on behalf of the brand.
Even when you do give them liberty you should still check to see if your brand is being correctly positioned and the right message is going out to the audience.
MONITOR
Being human and genuine is all important but let that not distract you from your ultimate goal – to drive leads and conversions. Remember that you will be investing some capital, time, and effort in influencer marketing – even if it is much lower than other channels. Indeed investment in influencer marketing is more in terms of time and effort than capital. Still, it is important to measure its ROI just like you would for any other channel. So monitor your progress. Some of the metrics you can and should monitor are engagement, reach, followership, and clicks.
Information such as which posts – or types of posts – perform better than others and which influencers are the most effective – not necessarily in terms of followership can help you leverage your influencer marketing better.
Influencer marketing is the latest trend and following best practices in this area can help your brand grow. You too can leverage this strategy by setting clear goals and monitoring progress with the help of your digital marketing company in India.
Call or write to Litmus Branding a branding agency in Ahmedabad which also provides digital marketing service.
