What is Influencer Marketing and how to work correctly with opinion leaders

Influencers – opinion leaders who have an impact on the public – are becoming increasingly popular in social networks today. This is why the advertising industry pays special attention to the peculiarities of working with such people.

What is Influencer Marketing?

This refers to the promotion of a product or brand with the help of a well-known blogger or celebrity. Due to their authority, such a person increases the reach of the public and many companies take advantage of this. In fact, it is enough for an Influencer to talk about a certain product on his page in social networks, in order to attract more attention to it. Moreover, all this is done in a way that minimizes the advertising nature of the information as much as possible.

The main advantages of Influencer marketing

This type of promotion has several basic features:

1. Naivety. Advertising is perfectly combined with the main content of the blogger. This makes it virtually invisible, but it still draws attention.
2. Targeting. Companies with the right opinion leader can hit their target audience very accurately.
3. The ability to get feedback quickly. A blogger can talk about user reactions to advertising, feedback and suggestions.
4. Longevity. A post with an advertisement will stay on the account for a very long time. Even after the termination of cooperation, it will be seen by users.

Thus, if the expert is chosen correctly, Influencer marketing will be most profitable from the economic side. Moreover, if the product proves to be really good, the blogger will use it without any sponsoring, which would be a very good advertisement.

Disadvantages of Influencer Marketing

It’s worth understanding that Influencer marketing can’t be used in all cases. The fact is that sometimes advertisers face the following disadvantages:

1. Poor blogger performance. If the opinion leader is not chosen correctly, the opposite effect of the advertisement may occur. And people will treat the company with distrust.
2. If the product is not of high quality or the blogger has already had a negative experience of use, it is better not to offer him cooperation. Otherwise he will simply give a bad opinion, which will only alienate the target audience.

In addition, it is not always possible to find an opinion leader in a particular field. And if the company is highly specialized, it is better not to use this method of attracting attention.

Influencer marketing strategy

Product promotion through Influencer Marketing is done according to a pre-prepared plan:

1. Setting goals. It is necessary to understand what objectives will be achieved by the promotion. This will then allow you to determine whether the collaboration has been productive.
2. audience research. This is carried out according to several parameters. These include socio-demographic characteristics, behavioural factors and what kind of content people prefer.
3. starting the search. Several suitable bloggers need to be chosen and then it is necessary to determine with whom it is best to collaborate.
4. Drafting a mutually beneficial offer. It is important to be able to interest the blogger so that he wants to cooperate with you. Also, you need to decide in advance on the payment model. You can pay for the post, for sales or provide a discount on the product.
5. Evaluation of effectiveness. Necessary in order to understand how effective were the investments in this. Promotion model.

With the right approach, Influencer marketing can bring a lot of benefits. However, it is important to choose the right expert and formulate an offer for him or her. In this case, it is possible to come to a long-term cooperation, which benefits both parties.