How to Choose The Right  Influencers to Increase Brand Awareness

17
Jun 2022

If you’re having trouble growing your social media presence, you may want to consider adding influencers to your marketing strategy. Influencers are a great way to help you get the word out and increase brand awareness. Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that uses endorsements, product mentions and shoutouts from individuals who have a dedicated social following and are viewed as experts within their niche. 

influencers

Partner with an Industry Expert

You can use influencer marketing to make your business known in your specific industry by partnering with influencers that have expertise in a similar industry a

s yours. For example, if you are trying to market a new board game that you just created, you might want to enlist the help of a family-oriented influencer to help you spread the word.  Their knowledge and connections within the industry can help your brand grow quicker and make new relationships.

Leverage Existing Relationships

Influencer marketing works because these social influencers have already built up a level of trust with their personal following. Therefore, they have an easier time persuading others to try a product or service they promote because they have a history of making great recommendations. 

People follow influencers because they like what they stand for, like their personal style, or identify with the way they approach life. Many feel like kindred spirits with influencers even though they’ve never met them. Brands benefit because recommendations from influencers can help serve as a form of social proof and actually transfer some of that trust onto your business.

We live in a review-based society, and word of mouth from the right person can help a business soar.  Customers trust their peers, friends, and people they admire more than the companies’ own claims and marketing. What someone else says about your brand can be far more impactful than what you say about yourself. 

How to Create an Influencer Marketing Strategy

Influencer marketing requires creating a strategy just like any other marketing tactic and won’t be a success without a solid understanding of how it works. If you plan to just wing it and send out free products to anyone who expresses interest in free things, you might have some issues. Here’s how to get started with your influencer marketing strategy:

Determine Your Goals

In order to pick the right influencers, you need to determine the goals.  Do you want brand awareness, or do you want sales or leads? Once you determine your goal, determine what an influencer’s success is with that specific goal. If you need sales and an influencer only brings you social media engagement, the partnership might not be beneficial. 

Decide on Your Target Platforms

Trying to be on too many platforms at once can be a challenge when you start your strategy. Decide which social media platforms are best for your brand and make sure the influencer you want to work with has success on that channel. If your product or service needs a lot of explaining, you’ll need written and video content in the form of blogging or YouTube.  Getting a TikTok  influencer may not be the right person. Conversely, if you have a simple product to promote, getting a YouTuber may not make sense.  Find someone who specializes in Instagram Reels or TikTok.

Establish a Budget

Identifying the budget may be your toughest challenge.  Influencers’ price tags can be eye-opening, but they are well worth it if their audience is your desired audience. Also, it’s important to use whatever content they create across as many tactics as possible, like your website, digital ads, social content or e-communications. You can definitely start small, which is actually a good idea to see what works best for you. Compensation varies wildly, too, so be sure to look at common rates for those influencer types. Deciding what rates you are going to pay your influencers will be based on a combination of things, including how many followers they have, their engagement rate, and your relationship with them, so be sure to maintain a positive relationship with your influencers. Sending free products and giving out discount codes is a great way to do this!

Increasing Brand Awareness

Once you’ve set your budget, sourced influencers and come up with a strategy, you can  jump right into the fun stuff! Here are some simple ways to increase brand awareness through influencer marketing:

  • Providing Free Samples: A great way to get influencers talking about your brand without having to pay them. This is a great word of mouth marketing technique that can help generate genuine reviews and promotional posts from influencers. 
  • Contests and Giveaways: Host a contest or a giveaway to get people excited about possibly some of your products/services. You can give away a big prize to really get people talking and wanting to participate. The more people participate, the more that word will spread. You can enlist the help of influencers by asking for their help with advertising in exchange for free samples.
  • Brand Ambassador Programs: Give influencers discount codes that they can share with their followers. Everyone loves discounts!!
  • Social Media Takeovers: Have influencers take over your social media account for a day to spice up content and draw new people in.
  • Paid Promotions: Lastly, you can pay influencers to post content that is reviewed by you. This allows you to have some say on what is being posted by the influencers in order to keep the content aligned with your brand. This also allows the influencers to work with you internally and establish a close relationship.

If you want help from influencers to market your business, you don’t have to drop loads of cash on A-list celebrity influencers; there are other ways to use influencer marketing to increase brand awareness without breaking the bank. Implementing influencer marketing is a great way to help spread the word about your business quickly and effectively by reaching new audiences and establishing social proof. 

If your business needs help implementing an influencer marketing strategy that engages and impresses your audiences, learn more about our influencer marketing strategy and management services here.

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