Ah, social media influencers. The hyper-perfect self-made models we all love to wish we are… or so they used to be.
Social media Influencers are no longer just the Barbies of the digital playground we spend our lives exploring. As social media behaviours progressed, so too did the look, reliability and profile of what ‘influencers’. Influencers aren’t just face-tuned models anymore, but instead are a cumulation of experiences, stories and reviews.
It’s mid-2021 and influencers can do oh-so-much more for your brand than take a mirror selfie in one of your latest trendy *insert product here*.
Appearing amongst posts of friends and family, social media Influencers bypass the guise of obvious advertisement and enter the realm of a friend of a friend giving their followers a hot tip on what to do, buy, eat, use or wear next, and there are multiple ways they can do this.
Following are some of the top 7 ways that influencers can leverage your brand in meaningful, measurable, creative ways.
1. As Your Consumer
Influencers, they are just like regular people- only more popular! Your brand can employ influencers to create user-generated content that is re-sharable and authentic. Whether you are employing an influencer to simply capture moments using your product or service for you to post on their behalf or to appear on their social feeds too, their content can generate authenticity and approachability for your brand. If a trusted influencer is using and recommending your product, your product can become trusted too.
2. Tell Your Brand’s Story Through Stories
Instagram Stories have a special power: they feel spur of the moment and far less manufactured than feed posts. This gives your brand and your partnered influencer the opportunity to reach your target audience quickly and (seemingly) more authentically.
Instagram Stories are interactive, algorithm friendly and a lot cheaper to use than feed posts. In fact, more than 500 million users interact with Instagram Stories every single day, and they don’t come with the baggage of needing to garner visible engagement (likes and comments) to be seen as successful. Plus, where an Influencer’s feed post may cost $400-600, a story may only cost $250. It may be there and gone again within 24 hours, but it is a quick and direct way to reach thousands at once.
3. Review Your Product
Fun statistic of the day: 70% of consumers trust customer opinions and reviews on a product, which is more than double of the consumers who trust advertisements. What does this tell us? Most of your target audience cares about what others think of your product. Influencers can be gifted your product in exchange for a genuine review on their platform.
4. Go Live
Nothing says ‘take a peek into my real life’ like a live video. Digitally jumping into the lounge rooms of our friends and favourite celebrities alike has become normal practice due to COVID-19, giving influencers another avenue to seduce their followers with their latest PR gifts, purchases and activities. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok influencers are all enjoying the opportunity going Life gives them to spontaneously deepen their connection with their fan base, and your brand can benefit too.
5. Curate Snackable Content
Sometimes less is more, and by less, we mean short, sharp, poignant features in product hauls. TikTok and Instagram Reels have users obsessed with super short videos and with that, sometimes the less time a product features on-screen, the hungrier the consumer gets. All it takes is a bite-sized flash of something looking out of this world desirable to drive consumers onto your website. And the biggest $$$ plus side? It’s not only effective but economical to promote something quickly in a video.
6. Align With a Cause
Looking to make a political or social justice statement? Want to demonstrate that your brand does in fact, care about the environment, or the football, or an overseas humanitarian crisis? Whatever it is that you believe in, there is an influencer who believes in it too, and more often than not, is actively campaigning for a cause. Aligning your brand with an influencer who aligns with your views is a sure-fire way to demonstrate to your audience that you care enough about the cause, that influencers that also care are choosing you above competitors.
7. Sell the Lifestyle, Not the Product
Influencers are not infomercials. They are human beings with enviable lifestyles, which is what gives them such large followings. Their audiences follow them to gather tips and tricks to help them emulate the life of their favourite influencer – one of the easiest ways being to shop the products or services they are using. If your brand becomes part of an influencers rotation, your brand becomes part of their lifestyle and shortly thereafter, their follower’s lifestyle too.
If you are looking for someone to vet through the long list of potential influencers to find the one that is right for your brand, then look no further. Red Herring Digital are experts at sourcing influencers that are right for your brand, establishing a relationship on your behalf and managing your partnerships. Take the guesswork out of Influencer Marketing and contact us today.