Social media has become a platform where criticisms and word of mouth recommendations spread like wild fire. The term ‘influencers’ is being used almost everywhere but there is still some confusion with regards to what it actually means. Industry experts believe that influencers are those people who are constantly active on multiple social media sites and blogs. You could call them niche promoters and brand advocates.
Here’s something that we need to know about “true” influencers: they drive action, not only awareness,
It is true that somebody with several thousand social media followers could definitely promote your brand effectively. However, if they aren’t people who fit into your industry, their tweet or post would have absolutely no power over your target audience.
Why you need influencers on Instagram
There are millions of consumers making online purchases today. For this, they do detailed research on brands and products almost every second. Despite being active online shoppers, these people are constantly blocking traditional digital ads. This has been a huge disadvantage to nearly all brands that invest significant amount money in posting these online ads.
Digital marketing experts suggest that the solution for all brands lies in collaborating with influencers or groups of influencers. If you wish to be heard and seen amidst the clutter of online ads, you need to embrace influencer marketing.
Instagram is a rapidly growing social media channel with millions of followers and a strong community of influencers. But the question is this: how do you find the right influencers for your product/brand on Instagram? The truth is that though it might not be too difficult to identify influencers, it may take a while to network, follow up and engage with them. You need to build long-term relationships with these people over a period of time in order to get the maximum benefits out of influencer generated content, especially on Instagram.
Tips to Choose the ideal Instagram Influencer Campaign
There are basically 3 things that can be promoted effectively via Instagram. These are
1. A brand
2. A product or service
3. An event
You need to adopt a unique approach for promoting each of these things on Instagram. This means selecting the right influencer campaign which can do justice to the marketing of the brand, product or event.
- If you’re looking to promote an event via Instagram, there are two ways in which you can use influencers. You could send them an invite for your event as this will give you good media coverage with influencers reporting live from your event. In addition to this, you could also allow influencers to create a buzz about your event before it actually takes place. This will help attract new followers as well!
- The ‘hashtag’ influencer campaign could be a great way to promote events as well as build brand awareness. You can get all your targeted influencers to focus on one central theme, such as an event, by creating a hashtag for it. This will help in building cohesion on multiple social media platforms.
- In order to boost brand awareness you could undertake an influencer promotion campaign, wherein get influencers to share your brand-generated content with followers. Promotion campaigns also work well to monitor the flow of traffic since it is possible to the posted ‘unique tracking links’.
- In the product placement campaign, you can incorporate the company’s logo, product or service and build trust among customers. This campaign becomes even more effective if you get influencers to include your products into their own content and in a way that is authentic, creative, flattering and engaging!