Week 11: Marketing with Twitter, LinkedIn, Social Influencers

Social influencers can be extremely beneficial to businesses. Influencers are another form of advertisement. Social influencers have large followings and are paid to promote your product on social media. An influencer marketing online is a form of a friend recommending a product to another friend. Their followers trust and value their opinion. It is the virtual version of mouth-to-mouth advertising.

There is a lot to consider when searching for an influencer to work with. It is important to find the correct match when looking for an influencer. It is helpful to take into account some questions: will there be a contract?, what are the influencers rates?, what is your budget?, will the campaign look natural? and will this influencer be able to accomplish your goals? Take into account if this is this someone who's audience is also your target audience or possibly someone who's values align with yours or that of your business. Another important factor to consider is metrics. What are their clicks, likes, shares, reactions, comments, brand mentions, impressions, and purchases? This is a way to measure how successful an influencers campaigns are. 

There are also different types of influencers; brand advocates, micro-influencers, and macro-influencers (The Power of Utilizing Social Influencers for Your Brand). Brand advocates do not have a contract but will post information to their followers. These types of influencers are likely to consider trade rather than a paycheck. Typically you send them some of your product for free and in return they post information about your product to their followers. Micro-influencers don't have a large of a following. Typically they're following ranges between 100-5,000. Despite their small following micro-influencers have approximately 8% engagement per post. Macro-influencers have an extremely large following that ranges from 100,000 to 1 million. They have a larger reach and impression; however, do not have as high of an engagement rate as the micro-influencer (The Power of Utilizing Social Influencers for Your Brand).

Once you've chosen an influencer to work with, it is time to work on the content. The content is just as, if not more important than choosing an influencer. This is what will work to gain new customers. A likely and most followed method is to give the influencer creative freedom. Put in place any necessary guidelines, such as no foul language, and then let the influencer be creative. Your team can review and give final approval before it is posted. The influencer knows their audience and what they like to hear and see, they will have a better understanding of what to post to get them to be interested in the product.

In terms of the post itself, there are fun creative ways to engage followers. There is the option of a simple post providing information and the influencers opinion/recommendation. Then there are posts that include contests or giveaways. Overall, there is a lot to take into account; however, partnering with a social influencer is a great and effective marketing tool for all businesses.

Works Cited

Barker, Shane. “4 Ways Influencers Can Build Brand Awareness - And Why They Work.” Social Media Today, 27 Nov. 2019, www.socialmediatoday.com/news/4-ways-influencers-can-build-brand-awareness-and-why-they-work/567963/.

“The Power of Utilizing Social Influencers for Your Brand.” Search Influence, 18 Mar. 2020, www.searchinfluence.com/blog/the-power-of-utilizing-social-influencers-for-your-brand/.

I commented on Clare Dovenbarger and Sydney Gardner's blogs.