The past five years have witnessed the dramatic growth of influencer marketing and are estimated to become a $15 billion industry by 2022.
Influencer marketing has gained momentum, with over 90% of brands claiming to tap into this type of strategy.
To better capitalize on this unique marketing strategy, it is important to understand the different types of social media influencers that can benefit your brand.
Word of mouth has often impacted buying decisions. And the more people recommend your products and talk about them, the stronger your brand value becomes. That’s what social media influencers do. People are likely to trust them as they are experts in that field.
Here we have outlined the different types of social media influencers to help you understand which type can go best with your business.
But let’s get started with this simple definition of social media influencers first…
A social media influencer is someone who has established a reputation for their expertise and knowledge in a certain field. They can be experts in gadgets, fashion, and cooking.
They generally have a large following on their channels on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. People follow their piece of advice or recommendations, making them a “must-have” marketing tool for the brands.
Companies work with them to build awareness and promote their products as well.
For example, a cooking expert can recommend your food products to their audience. This will benefit you the most as your products are being promoted among the right people.
Social media influencers are important as they have a large and engaged group of followers as well as a level of credibility.
Convincing Facts to Consider Social Media Influencer Marketing
- Over 80% of marketers admitted to having better ROI from social media influencers than other channels.
- Over 70% of marketers say that they get better quality of traffic and customers from influencer marketing.
- Over 17% of brands are looking to devote half of their annual marketing budget to influencer marketing campaigns.
What are The Types of Social Media Influencers?
Celebrities:
If someone has more than a million followers, they have celebrity status on social media. Sometimes they are called “mega-influencers”. They can be actors, singers, athletes, or social media personalities. This type of social media influencer has the largest followings possible on digital platforms.
If you want to access massive audiences and huge exposure, celebrity influencers are the best bet. But the only concern is that they come with a big price tag. Maybe they charge you hundreds of thousands of rupees to promote your product.
Big companies often hire them since they can afford them.
Macro Influencers:
Macro influencers have followers between 100k and million mark. They are generally known for their blogging, videos, podcasts and something sensational. These influencers can create content that will help you increase brand recognition and visibility.
While they might have fewer followers compared to celebrities, they are still expensive but will be affordable than working with a celebrity.
Micro-Influencers:
Micro-influencers have generally between 10,000-50,000 followers on social media. Although they are not as popular as celebs or macro-influencers, they have established themselves as reliable sources of recommendation in targeted areas. They have sound rapport and credibility in their area by creating strong, tight-knit followers that are highly engaged.
Micro-influencers can charge you between INR 5,000 per post, although the rate varies based on the promotion over a specific platform.
Nano Influencers:
Nano influencers have followers between 1k and 10k. If you are on a tight budget, you can work with them. Keep in mind that you might not see desired results or get overnight results as they have a limited number of followers.
Employees:
What about turning your employees into your influencers?
This is because they are familiar with your business, making them credible when it comes to building trust with prospective customers. They can contribute to making the company special and help achieve reach and leads.
Promoting sharing on social as part of your company’s culture can help harness the power of word of mouth marketing and posing employees as brand ambassadors.
Customers:
Well, using customers as your influencers is a form of referral marketing that can increase conversion rates among the marketing channels.
Keep in mind that people are likely to trust someone who uses your products when it comes to buying from you. After all, your existing customer can tell the benefits of using your products to them.
You can post the customer “stories” featuring your product which is known as customer-generated content. For example, they can share how your travel agency can make their holidays memorable along with the pictures.
Ask them to drop their reviews and testimonials.
How to Choose the Right Social Media Influencer?
When you are ready to opt for social media influencer marketing, make sure to find the right fit to work with.
While there are many social media influencers to choose from, here are a few factors to choose from.
The Target Audience of the Influencer Should be Same:
Target audience refers to the people that are likely to buy your product and services. And this is the first factor while deciding on a social media influencer. For example, if you sell cosmetics, you are obvious to work with a beauty expert.
But not every beauty expert has the same kind of target audience. Maybe they are targeting the mid-aged while your brand is focused on the teens. Maybe their followers prefer organic brands while you sell chemical-based.
Therefore, you need to make sure that your target audiences are the same as that of your influencer’s.
Evaluate Them:
To choose the influencers for your business, make sure to vet them first to check their reach, engagement, authenticity, personality and genre.
Consider Your Campaign Goals:
Consider the goals that you have in mind for your brand and marketing strategy. If you are looking for a massive reach, choose the influencers who have a large number of followers. For increasing engagement and conversion, you can consider macro or micro-influencers.