Gone are the days when only celebrities used to be the face of brands. Now, the virtual world is ruled by bloggers and influencers.
With so much going on in the digital world, now so many influencers, bloggers are also promoting the brands. Do you wanna know how?
In this blog post, we are going to understand the relationship between bloggers and brands. By the end, you will get to know how this all works.
First things first, let’s understand what influencer marketing is.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
In simple words, marketing of the brands that is done by the influencers on social media platforms is known as Influencer Marketing.
In other words, when a brand collaborates with a digital influencer/blogger to promote its products and services. That is known as Influencer Marketing.
So many popular brands such as Zara, Nike, Fastrack, Adidas, Boat, Pepsi, Daniel Wellington, Allen Solly, and many more are making use of influencer marketing to promote their businesses.
But will it all be possible without an influencer? No, so now let’s understand who an influencer is!
Who Is An Influencer?
Influencers are everywhere and they can be anyone. An influencer is someone who influences people and leaves an impact on people. The reason they are influential is their large social media following.
The influencers can be from different fields. Some are famous photographers, dancers, and painters on Instagram, some are financial experts, and cybersecurity bloggers who tweet on Twitter, and some are reputed entrepreneurs who guide people on LinkedIn.
They design content on several platforms, such as:
- YouTube
- Blogs
- Pinterest and so on
One of the brands in the above list has recently changed its name to X. You can read about the reason behind the brand X.
Many influencers are working in the same industry, all you need to do is, find them according to your specifications. Some of them might have millions of followers, whereas some might not have that many followers but they are influential because of their work.Â
Moreover, an influencer is someone who knows social media. He/she knows how to post, when to post, how to make the social media post engaging, and so on. They make the best videos, share the best knowledge, and impact people the right way.
Things That A Brand Considers Before Collaborating With Bloggers/Influencers
When a brand collaborates with bloggers/influencers, it considers a lot of things. From the theme of the account to followers, it considers everything.
Let’s understand them in detail.
1. Influencer’s Account Theme
The first thing that a brand considers when collaborating with bloggers is the theme of the Influencer’s account. Does the theme match our brand? Will it look good with our brand? Is the blogger/Influencer related to our brand? Do they have an audience that is associated with our brand? These questions are considered by the brands at first.
For instance, if a clothing brand wants to promote its products using influencer marketing. Then, it will choose a blogger/influencer that is related to fashion. If a brand wants to promote its application related to finance, then it will choose a brand that creates content related to finance.
If you are in the finance industry and looking to promote your business, one effective strategy is to reach out to finance guest posting websites that focus on finance topics.
All in all, it all depends on the kind of audience a brand wishes to reach. It is very important to choose an influencer/blogger that is somehow related to the brand to gain maximum advantage.
2. Frequency Of Publishing Content
The other thing that matters is the frequency of posts. The brand considers how frequently the influencers post content on their account.
Because posting high-quality content regularly is of utmost importance when it comes to building a loyal audience. Posting regularly doesn’t mean posting daily. But, an ideal creator must post at least in 1-3 days.
In addition to this, the brand also checks if the influencers post sponsored content and how often? To conclude, brands look for an ideal mix of normal and sponsored content. In case any influencer/blogger posts more sponsored and less general content, then brands don’t consider that blogger/influencer credible.
3. Engagement Rate
Another significant factor that a brand considers before collaborating with an influencer is the “Engagement Rate.”
It is the rate that indicates how well the audience responds and resonates with the content of the influencer. If the engagement of an influencer is good, that means the audience cares about what is published.
Other than checking the engagement rate, the brands also consider other factors. They check if the respective influencer is responding to their followers or not. The influencers who stay in touch with followers are considered better than others.
4. Relevance
The next factor is Relevance. It means how well the post of an influencer matches the targeted keywords of a particular brand.
Not only the brand but both of them should be relevant to each other. Influencer marketing works best when there is a good relationship between bloggers and brands.
Most importantly, both parties must be able to gain value from what they offer to each other.
How to Design An Influencer Marketing Strategy for Your Brand?
Planning is very important for the success of influencer marketing strategies. But what does planning involve?
It involves several things like selecting the right influencers for a brand, choosing social media platforms, etc.
But how to create a successful influencer marketing strategy? Here’s how:
1. Deciding The Goal:
To create a successful influencer marketing strategy, brands need to be sure of their end goal. Your intention can be anything from increasing brand awareness to generating more sales and revenue.
2. Target Audience:
When you have a clear goal set in your head, you need to understand your target audience. Target audience means the kind of audience you wish to reach.
For that, think about what type of audience you want for your campaign. To know your target audience better, outline some details about your focus audience, including their:
- Interests
- Age
- Geographic location
- Ideal budget
- Their online time
By doing so, choosing the right influencers would become easy.
3. Social Media Platforms:
Now as you already have your end goal and focus audience in mind. How will you complete that goal and reach the target audience? Through a social media platform, right?
So, find out on what social media platform you wish to perform marketing. Then, decide on the influencers according to the platform.
4. Correct Influencers:
Once you’re sure of the social media platform, move towards finding the perfect influencer for your brand. Having a good influencer to represent your brand is very necessary.
5. Three R’s
There are three that must be considered while building a marketing strategy. They are:
- Reach
- Relevance and
- Resonance
Reach means the number of people that could reach the content of a brand through the audience base of influencers.
For that, having large followers is not important. What’s important is if it reaches the target audience or not.
The perfect influencer posts content relevant to your brand. Check out how relevant they are to your brand. The followers of an influencer must match the target audience of the brand.
Resonance means the level of engagement an influencer can get with the audience of the brand.
6. Content:
Then, after doing it all, design a content brief for the marketing campaign. The format of content you choose must convey the message of your brand to the audience. Also, other than this you can perform contests, giveaways, blogs and so much more.
7. Timeline:
After everything else is done, then finalize the timeline of the campaign with influencers. Understand what content works(according to the platform), what’s the best time to post on social media platforms, and when followers are most active.
Then perform your campaign accordingly to gain maximum advantage.
8. Performance:
Finally, when you’ve successfully launched your influencer marketing strategy, it is time to track performance. Check how it’s doing, and what impact is it having on people.
Check out the engagement rates, sales, followers, reach of the campaign, and so on.
What Are The Benefits Of Influencer Marketing?
Read so much about influencer marketing in the blog, so now you’re already aware of the importance of influencer marketing.
But let us give you some points on why influencer marketing is better than any other option.
1. Cost Effective
In comparison to the other forms of marketing, influencer marketing is inexpensive. It is not that costly. It can give you more returns in less amounts.
Influencer marketing can give successful results at a minimal cost.
2. Builds Trust
The influencers are people who have already built trust and credibility with the public. Audiences love and respect their recommendations and content.
Using social media you must have also believed your favorite influencer when they suggest any product, right? This is their power.
So, brands can trust them totally because they can market better than anyone else can.
3. Enhances Brand Awareness
The most important benefit of influencer marketing is more awareness of the brand.
The audience that a brand wishes to reach will know your brand and offerings more and more. Therefore, it is very important to design quality content that increases the social media presence of your brand.
4. Generates More Sales
Influencer marketing brings more sales and revenue to a brand. By choosing the right marketing strategy, brands can benefit a lot from using influencer marketing.
This strategy is very effective and popular because the audience of influencers is loyal and is very much interested in their suggestions.
Conclusion
Let’s call it a wrap! Here we are done with our blog on the relationship between bloggers and brands.
Influencer marketing is indeed a very good marketing strategy. It is helping many brands in generating sales and revenue. Most importantly, the public/target audience listens to their voice and finds it meaningful.
So, in case your business is going down, then you might try this one to skyrocket your sales.
Got any doubt/confusion? Feel free to reach out to Contact us!
