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Despite PPC and SEO maintaining their positions atop the digital marketing food chain, brands are looking at other brands, and people are looking at other people in order to facilitate their advertising and marketing goals. This is where Influencer Marketing is becoming a more prominent advertising tool, but just what is it, and how effective can it be?
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer Marketing is mainly implemented via the means of social media, whereby a target market will be ‘influenced’ towards a certain brand or product by someone that they deem trustworthy on the matter. The influencer in question could be a thought leader in the field, a celebrity, brand, or someone generally with a popular or at least trusted reputation who can have an impact on an individual’s consumer behavior. The reach of said influencers message is being extended all the time, as the popularity of social media increases. Influencer Marketing has been used across Facebook and Twitter, however; Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and blogging are all effective means of putting their recommendation and endorsement across.
Who Uses It?
| Brand | Influencers | Campaign |
| Dr. Pepper | Liane V, Hannah Stocking, Julia Price, Don Benjamin, Louis Giordano, QPark, Lycia Faith, Jessi Smiles | Utilising the success of hit TV show “Lip Sync Battle”, various social media stars were hired to engage in the contest across Vine, Periscope, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat under the Dr. Pepper brand |
| Capital One | Kimberly Genevieve, Paul Octavious, Zachary Rose | Capital One gave three popular Instagram users complete control of their account to give users a glimpse of what was in their wallets, derived from the company’s “What’s in your wallet” slogan. |
| Paramount Pictures/Terminator Genisys | Lilly Singh, Toby Turner | Paramount got Arnold Shwarzenegger to film at a YouTube dedicated production studio for content creators, where they allowed top YouTube stars to get involved and create promotional content for the film and release on YouTube as “Terminator Genisys: The YouTube Chronicles” |
Is It Here To Stay?
Forms of paid advertising across AdWords, Twitter, Facebook, and various other sources seem to be the go-to default option for many businesses looking into paid advertising. However Influencer Marketing seems to be getting more and more popular every year (see below).[/vc_column_text][mk_image src=”https://vvsey3r5o954da0k02p9zymu-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Influence-marketing-google-trends.jpg” crop=”false”][vc_column_text]The biggest challenge is finding the right influencer for your business, ensuring they appeal and relate to your market and target audience. It’s important to establish what your audience are following, across YouTube, blogs, and social media. In particular, the topics your audience are following will be the key to finding an influencer who they will engage with.
To find out more, please contact one of the team at Digital Clarity today.
Nick Blane
