Influencer Marketing: All Fluff or an Effective Marketing Strategy?

What’s the Difference Between Influencer Marketing and Brand Advertising?

The approach of Influencer Marketing is vastly different from conventional advertising strategies. Traditional advertising strategies entail the dissemination of promotional messages in a one-sided manner. The audience is often bombarded by the brand or product being promoted without getting a chance to interact with the brand – whether they’re interested in it or not. 

In contrast, when brands partner with social media influencers to promote their products, they allow the influencers to create their own content and publish it directly to their interested followers. In fact, it’s not uncommon for the influencers to create their own take on the product or brand in addition to featuring it in the images they post. The content is often therefore more authentic and relatable to the target audience members.

Pros of Influencer Marketing

• Authenticity: When brands partner with influencers, they allow the influencers to create their own content. Ideally the influencer would have already used the product or service and believes in it. This makes the content more authentic and relatable to the target audience members.
• More organic reach: When a brand creates its own content, it can be difficult to reach an organic audience. This may be due to the fact that the brand’s customers don’t trust promotional messages from brands directly. An influencer will be able to reach a wide audience to their followers in an organic way. 
• Cost-effective: Brands don’t have to spend all their time and resources creating the content to promote their brand. Instead, they can rely on the influencer promoting the product or service featuring it in their content.
• Return on investment: Many studies have come out praising the results of influencer marketing with some ROI resulting in 5X revenue. With influencer marketing, you can easily track your ROI depending on which software, platform or agency you use.

Cons of Influencer Marketing

• Authenticity: While this is a pro, it can also be a con. Often, the content created comes off as authentic, but if not managed properly there is a chance it could be misleading. Some influencers who have not shared truthful information about products or services, or who have partnered with brands that don’t reflect their own content, have created a negative reputation for influencer marketing. 
• Increased engagement: While increased engagement is usually a positive, it also leaves more room for people to react in a negative way.
• Expensive: Depending on the marketing agency, platform you choose and rates of the influencers you work with, the cost can add up quickly. So choose a plan according to your budget. 
• Return on investment: While many brands promise ROI, at the end of the day no one can predict the future and a campaign may lose money if the influencer was unable to engage their audience enough.

Where Next?

Influencer marketing is one of the most effective ways to engage potential customers and encourage them to take action. Rather than relying on paid ads and general marketing, you can target your ideal customers by partnering with specific influencers who share your values and appeal to your target demographic. 

If you’re a brand or marketer looking to partner with influencers, it’s important to do your research. Find influencers who align with your brand, and are a good fit for your campaigns. This will result in a more organic reach.  From there, you can outline the terms of the partnership, and negotiate terms that make sense for both parties.