Influencer marketing: the industry, future, and impacts to your brand

Social media advertising has undoubtedly brought a new dimension to the brand discovery game. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have been launching more sophisticated ad products for marketers in the past few years, giving marketers newer, more creative ways to attract eyeballs.

Marketers are reciprocating too. Over 80 percent of them are planning to spend more on paid social advertising within the next 12 months, of which, 42 percent of them will be spending on such efforts for the first time.

But even as more ad products, distribution channels, and analytics tools burst into the scene, digital marketers must keep in mind that their customers are more than just clicks, impressions, and conversions.

Creating and optimizing social media ads solely based on data can be a myopic mistake to make. Consumers are actual human beings, and their decisions are influenced by peer opinions and social validation just as much as, if not more than, good design and copywriting.

Word-of-mouth: the social element in social media

88 percent of consumers are most inclined to trust in word-of-mouth recommendations from people they know. No matter how much marketers spend on elaborate branding campaigns, a word from a trusted source is what helps a consumer make the purchasing decision.

This explains the famous saying of Brian Chesky: “It’s better to have 100 people who love you than finding a million who just sort of like you.”

Enter influencer marketing. A McKinsey research shows that marketing-induced consumer-to-consumer word of mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising. The research also found that influencers generate on average three times more word-of-mouth messages than an average consumer, and each message has four times more impact on a prospect’s purchase decision.

Searching for micro-influencers within your customer base or within the industry should be a wiser move.

For bootstrapping startups getting their product into the market with little or no marketing budget to speak of, influencer marketing can certainly be a worthwhile strategy to consider.

Influencer marketing should not be confused with celebrity endorsement, a tactic frequently used in TVCs. Approaching only famous social media personalities for massive reach is simply teaching an old dog new tricks and it can be extremely costly and inefficient.

Searching for micro-influencers within your customer base or within the industry should be a wiser move. This is because, while the reach is a lot lower, their opinions are considerably more trusted and valued by their closely-knitted network, resulting in a high-impact campaign.

Hearing from the experts

(L-R) Fergus Clarke, CEO, and Nathan Pacey, CTO of Lamplight Analytics. Photo credit: Lamplight Analytics.