October 9, 2023
Articles – Digital strategy
Written By Alfonso Manzo
INFLUENCER MARKETING:
A NEW STRATEGY
Social networks are increasingly entering our society, not just on a personal level but also for companies, gurus, brands, etc. Social media are becoming a serious matter at the professional level. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram are now used daily to speak directly to consumers or potential ones.
From these channels, a specific figure has emerged: the Influencer.
Looking for a job as an influencer? Look here
But what is an Influencer? It’s a person with a wide following of followers on social media, a more or less authoritative voice in a particular field, or simply a person loved by the public.
Brands entrust Influencers with the task of conveying their messages to the crowd of followers as these figures help increase Brand Recognition, boosting sales in a short time. This happens because the public, identifying with the influencer, feels the desire to emulate the character they love.
Influencers have the ability to turn people into customers.
This type of communication strategy leads to positive results such as Brand Awareness (the public’s consideration of the brand in question), Business Leads (the increase in all those contacts that can turn into customers), Sales (the actual sale of a product or service).
The field of Influencer Marketing is certainly destined to expand.
Table of Contents
- Introduction to ChatGPT and Its Role in SEO
- Unlocking SEO Potential with GPT-4 and ChatGPT Plugins
- Revolutionizing Keyword Research with Noteable
- Enhancing Webpage Optimization with Bramework
- Streamlining Content Strategy: The Power of Bramework in Content Brief Creation
- Building Effective Guest Post Strategies with WebPilot
- Step-by-Step Guide to Implementing ChatGPT Plugins in Your SEO Strategy
- Conclusion: Transforming SEO with AI-Powered Tools
What is Influencer Marketing, and who are the Influencers?
What is Influencer Marketing, and who are the Influencers? Influencers convey and amplify brand messages to their target audience. They are not chosen based on how famous they are (although this is certainly an important factor for certain strategic choices), but mainly for the type of reputation they enjoy, based on how much trust their followers have in them and therefore how much – precisely – they influence the actions of those people who follow them.
Influencers convey messages, generating conversations, word of mouth, relationships, and this leads to giving visibility to the brand by transferring their reputation onto it.
Influencer marketing can therefore prove to be a winning and effective strategy, but for this to happen, certain key elements must be present:
The reputation of the chosen Influencer must be consistent with the values that the brand conveys. The authority of the Influencer should not be underestimated; in fact, it is preferable to choose someone recognized as capable and reliable in their field and the brand’s field. The Influencer must have certain skills and abilities in their field. The Community is also important, which is the network of followers that the Influencer has created around themselves, but not only that, the relationships that they have with their community also count. Word of mouth is definitely important in Influencer Marketing, as through this tool a network is created, through trust, respect, and affection, the message can become viral. The ability of Influencers is to influence opinions and decisions, thus stimulating precise actions such as the purchase of a product or service.
There are three important points on which to base the use of an Influencer Marketing strategy: the frequency of exposure (the more we interact and follow a character, the more easily we will be influenced by it); proximity to the public (the more the Influencer presents himself as human and therefore close to his audience, the more he becomes “imitable”); similarity with those who follow him, a quality capable of creating a sense of belonging to a community with common interests.
Therefore, the choice of the Influencer must be based on his authenticity and his closeness to the public and the values that the brand pursues.
Is Influencer Marketing Really Necessary?
The Influencer is a hybrid between a testimonial and a consumer; in fact, their content is not advertisements (even if the final purpose may be the same), but welcome advice.
Authenticity, storytelling, and normality are the key words that are the basis of a successful Influencer Marketing campaign.
For the choice of the right Influencer, it is essential that the person selected shares socio-demographic characteristics similar to the brand’s target; moreover, the Influencer must be perceived as a normal person, close to the public, his storytelling must be intimate and personal.
There is no obvious and safe answer for all situations, but it is certainly a strategic tool that, if well exploited, can bring value to the brand.
By exploiting the virality of its messages and word of mouth, it can increase the knowledge of the company with which it has contacts.
Building one’s reputation is certainly a complex operation, which is why the words of Influencers assume all that value, their followers will trust their words, and their opinions will convince users-consumers still in doubt. Influencer Marketing is a valuable ally as far as Lead Generation strategy is concerned, i.e., the conquest of new contacts to then turn them into customers.
Furthermore, they help in the process of stimulating sales because the opinion and advice of the Influencer are perceived as disinterested and honest by their community.
Influencer Marketing and Trust
The Influencer’s audience thinks they can trust him or her when it comes to purchasing a product or service. For this reason, the Federal Trade Commission, in the United States, has established a new law for the protection and defense of consumers.
Therefore, Influencers now have the obligation to mark paid content that is published on their personal profile. They are now required to use hashtags like #sponsored or #adv. This ensures greater transparency and allows tracking the sharing of this type of content, which is becoming increasingly important in influencer marketing strategies. In fact, we are talking about approximately over 200,000 posts of this type per month, a number that is only related to Instagram.
Influencer Marketing can therefore help the brand become a reliable reference point in the sector to which it belongs, as thanks to the Influencer who conveys it, the brand is recognized as competent, expert, and credible.
Having therefore decidedly positive effects on the reputation and consequently on sales. Influencer Marketing is therefore a decidedly powerful means and is advisable to pursue, but only if the right Influencers are chosen, those who enjoy an excellent reputation and with an image consistent with that of the brand being represented.
A User Experience conveyed by Influencers involves memorable emotions, effective and at the same time creative and memorable storytelling: in essence, the focal point is to excite. Instagram stories are one of the preferred and most traveled modes by Influencers, eye contact, more participation, and more naturalness.
Why Influencer Marketing Works
The influencer is a person like us who tells a story or shares his daily life on Social Networks. Nothing more. So why does it work?
The reason is simple, the audience is more attracted to someone who tells unfiltered what they did during the day, from morning to night, every single movement. Someone similar to him but from whom he can still learn something.
It’s a kind of fiction, a TV series where there are no superheroes as protagonists but people like us. It’s like a virtual but at the same time real friend we aspire to or who seems really very similar to who we are or who we want to become.
And this is certainly the great strength of this tool, the fact that these people, so-called influencers, are easily reachable and live our same daily life (or almost), not like the great heroes of cartoons, it’s impossible to go to bed today and wake up Batman tomorrow.
The influencer, in addition to showing us his days and his life, slowly enters our day without taking up too much time, the platform used is indeed the one we usually open every day: Facebook and Instagram.
Going to take a look at what our most esteemed influencer has written or said is as easy and quick as drinking a coffee. Marketing has seen well and it has been immediately understood that this could be an excellent way to sponsor any type of product.
The context is indeed genuine, the influencers, in Italian “people of influence”, have created a network of users around them who trust and as the term says are totally influenced by their figure and their way of acting.
Leveraging Emotions: A New Way of Doing Marketing
The influencer is based on strong engagement, and this term refers to the emotional involvement that is established between himself and his followers. Clearly it is created through a storytelling that must leverage feelings and emotions.
The user normally returns to the same Social Network pages because he recognizes in the person he “follows”, the values that are dear to him, even though he has never met an influencer in person, he feels connected to him through the sharing of the same passions.
The real victory of a marketing campaign in this area is the transformation of an occasional customer or a generic user into a regular and totally loyal customer.
Collaborative posts: a new frontier for influencer marketing Starting from the end of 2021, Instagram introduced a new function of great interest in the context of influencer marketing strategies, both for Brands and for Influencers themselves. We are talking about “Collab”, a new Instagram feature that allows you to create posts and Reels in collaboration between two users.
In practice, every time a user publishes a post or a Reel on Instagram, when tagging, he can choose the “collaboration” option and invite another user to become a co-author of that content. If the invited user accepts the collaboration, the shared content will appear on both profiles and will therefore be visible to a larger number of users.
The “Collab” function is available for all types of Instagram profiles and undoubtedly presents enormous potential for Brands that collaborate or wish to collaborate with influencers. In fact, the posts and Reels created for the promotion of a product or service will appear both on the Brand’s profile and on the influencer’s profile, and their usernames will both appear as co-authors of the content.
Instagram’s shared posts therefore allow avoiding the creation of duplicate content for the promotion of the Brand. Before the introduction of this function, when the same content was to be published on the Brand’s profile and on the Influencer’s, it was necessary to create two different posts that competed with each other as they were directed to the same audience.
Advantages of shared posts for Influencer marketing
On Instagram, shared content has greater visibility than normal posts or Reels, as they automatically appear on two different profiles. This allows the Brand to show its products directly to the followers of the influencer’s profile, thus reaching a wider new audience where future customers may be found.
The “Collab” function also allows for shared engagement between the Brand’s Community and the influencer’s. This translates into an exponential increase in interaction with the content, as the number of “likes”, comments, and views recorded by the two profiles will be calculated in a single overall engagement rate.
The greater visibility and greater engagement generated by shared content have the advantage of increasing the chances of selling through influencer marketing. In fact, thanks to the “Collab” function, the products sponsored in collaboration between Brand and Influencer can reach a considerably larger number of potential customers.
Shared posts therefore allow making the synergy between the three fundamental elements that are the basis of all influencer marketing strategies even more effective: Brand Value, the Influencer, and the Followers.
The Three Protagonists: Brand Value, Influencer, and Followers Brand Value is the value of one’s brand. This, through the strategy of influencer marketing, automatically grows and gradually improves. Through Social Network platforms, it is quite simple and quick to create a name and an identity: to become popular.
The spread of knowledge of the company and the products it sells is effective in this area. Since it is based mainly on trust, it is much more durable and effective compared to a simple online advertisement.
The reason why it tends to remain more imprinted is that it is created by a strong Community that through stories or simple viral word of mouth spreads the Brand more and more.
The second protagonist is clearly the influencer. A figure not necessarily famous but who reflects the right ideals of a large number of people who decide to follow their life and daily routine. He must clearly be a credible and genuine person.
The followers. These are those who give success to influencers, after all, they are the ones who have the decision-making power to give or not popularity to a specific person. They are the users who can, however, be transformed into potential customers if the marketing campaign that is implemented will be successful. These users are the ones who generate profit.
Leveraging Emotions: A New Way of Doing Marketing
The influencer is based on strong engagement, and this term refers to the emotional involvement that is established between himself and his followers. Clearly it is created through a storytelling that must leverage feelings and emotions.
The user normally returns to the same Social Network pages because he recognizes in the person he “follows”, the values that are dear to him, even though he has never met an influencer in person, he feels connected to him through the sharing of the same passions.
The real victory of a marketing campaign in this area is the transformation of an occasional customer or a generic user into a regular and totally loyal customer.
Collaborative posts: a new frontier for influencer marketing
Collaborative posts: a new frontier for influencer marketing
Starting from the end of 2021, Instagram introduced a new function of great interest in the context of influencer marketing strategies, both for Brands and for Influencers themselves. We are talking about “Collab”, a new Instagram feature that allows you to create posts and Reels in collaboration between two users.
In practice, every time a user publishes a post or a Reel on Instagram, when tagging, he can choose the “collaboration” option and invite another user to become a co-author of that content. If the invited user accepts the collaboration, the shared content will appear on both profiles and will therefore be visible to a larger number of users.
The “Collab” function is available for all types of Instagram profiles and undoubtedly presents enormous potential for Brands that collaborate or wish to collaborate with influencers. In fact, the posts and Reels created for the promotion of a product or service will appear both on the Brand’s profile and on the influencer’s profile, and their usernames will both appear as co-authors of the content.
Instagram’s shared posts therefore allow avoiding the creation of duplicate content for the promotion of the Brand. Before the introduction of this function, when the same content was to be published on the Brand’s profile and on the Influencer’s, it was necessary to create two different posts that competed with each other as they were directed to the same audience.
The advantages of shared posts for Influencer marketing
On Instagram, shared content has greater visibility compared to normal posts or Reels, as it automatically appears on two different profiles. This allows the Brand to show its products directly to the followers of the influencer’s profile, thus reaching a wider new audience where future customers may be found.
Moreover, the “Collab” feature allows for shared engagement between the Brand’s and the influencer’s Community. This translates into an exponential increase in interaction with the content, as the number of ‘likes’, comments, and views recorded by the two profiles will be calculated into a single overall engagement rate.
The increased visibility and engagement generated by shared content have the advantage of increasing the chances of sales through influencer marketing. Indeed, thanks to the “Collab” feature, products sponsored in collaboration between Brand and Influencer can reach a significantly larger number of potential customers.
Shared posts therefore make the synergy between the three fundamental elements at the base of all influencer marketing strategies even more effective: Brand Value, the Influencer, and the Followers.
The Three Protagonists: Brand Value, Influencer, and Followers
Brand Value is the value of your own brand. This, through the strategy of influencer marketing, automatically grows and gradually improves. Through Social Network platforms, it is quite simple and quick to create a name and identity: to become popular.
The dissemination of knowledge about the company and the products it sells is effective in this area. Since it is based mainly on trust, it is much more lasting and effective than a simple online advertisement.
The reason why it tends to remain more impressed is that it is created by a strong Community that spreads the Brand more and more through stories or simple viral word of mouth.
The second protagonist is clearly the influencer. A figure not necessarily famous but who reflects the right ideals of a large number of people who decide to follow their life and daily routine. It must clearly be a credible and genuine person.
The followers. These are the ones who give success to the influencers, after all, they are the ones who have the decision-making power to give or not give popularity to a specific person. They are the users who can, however, transform into potential customers if the marketing campaign is successful.
Building Effective Guest Post Strategies with WebPilot
Brand Value is the value of your own brand. This, through the strategy of influencer marketing, automatically grows and gradually improves. Through Social Network platforms, it is quite simple and quick to create a name and identity: to become popular.
The dissemination of knowledge about the company and the products it sells is effective in this area. Since it is based mainly on trust, it is much more lasting and effective than a simple online advertisement.
The reason why it tends to remain more impressed is that it is created by a strong Community that spreads the Brand more and more through stories or simple viral word of mouth.
The second protagonist is clearly the influencer. A figure not necessarily famous but who reflects the right ideals of a large number of people who decide to follow their life and daily routine. It must clearly be a credible and genuine person.
The followers. These are the ones who give success to the influencers, after all, they are the ones who have the decision-making power to give or not give popularity to a specific person. They are the users who can, however, transform into potential customers if the marketing campaign is successful. These users are the ones who generate profit.”
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