Influencer marketing may seem like a new trend. It is clearly on the rise. A Social Media Influencer is a user on social media who has established credibility in a specific industry. Influencers are usually industry leaders or celebrities with a large following. And they have a heavy “influence” on their following.

Their followers trust and value their opinions, statements, and recommendations. A social media influencer has access to a large audience and can persuade others by virtue of their authenticity and reach. This helps brand to market and sell with real customer photos and videos. It works to develop a more authentic marketing experience and create stronger relationships with their most passionate customers.

Influencers- what do they do?

A social media influencer is a person who happens to have a really successful social media account with impressive engagement rate, often with thousands or even millions of followers. To indirectly promote their products to their communities, influencers are viewed upon by large brands and smaller businesses alike. The promotion process is indirect because influencers will casually talk about using certain products in their daily lives, why they prefer it the way provided. An influencer can also add some of your links to their blog posts or website.

Social Media Influencers- Trustworthy marketing platforms?

Gods of social media, the Influencers have a say in their channels with minimal effort, resulting in maximum benefit for the businesses they promote. They pretty much run the show when it comes to natively and authentically marketing products on social platforms.

Perfect influencers – who are they?

There are a few factors you need to take into account when selecting influencers to work with. They need to actually be influential. This sounds pretty basic, but in fact there are ways to tell how influential a person is on social media. Look at the number of followers on their account and don’t hesitate to ask the influencer for their engagement rate. Lots of followers doesn’t necessarily mean lots of engagement, so this percentage of engagement is fundamental when hiring an influencer. Remember your ultimate goal- to increase sales along with goodwill.

Authenticity

Counter-intuitive, but bloggers who have a smaller ratio of sponsored content tend to be more trusted and appear more authentic. Personal stories that include genuine use or mention of a product, service, or brand are things which attract the eyes more. Compelling, engaging stories also tend to get more shares and comments than deals and product reviews.

Engagement

Engagement is an indicator of how interactive a blogger’s audience is with the content. Do those readers respond, comment, and share? What percentage of readers are returning vs. new?

Relevance

One of the basic things which affect your work is how relevant are they? Before you look at unique visitors and other static metrics, it’s important to look at how aligned a blogger’s content is with your messaging. Go through the ins and outs by blogger’s archived posts to get a sense of what kind of consumer are they.

Reaction

While not the most important metric, reach is certainly a valid consideration. Moreover, how consumers react is important too. However, marketers should resist the urge to only look at unique visitors as a measure of reach. Traffic and followers are only meaningful to the extent that the influencer is reaching your brand’s target audience.