Influencer Marketing

The evolution of social media has impacted multiple corners of our lives—from the way we keep in touch with friends and family to the fascinating thing we all do of showing the world what we ate for breakfast. Social media has become one of (if not the) most effective ways to reach, engage and connect with your target audience in a way that transcends transactional discourse. Social media has also cracked open a completely new type of digital marketing called influencer marketing. 

The global market size for influencer marketing is projected to grow by more than 25% every year from 2019 to 2015 (Grand View Research, 2019). To give you a clearer idea of just how powerful influencer marketing is becoming, let’s take a look at some of the latest statistics:

• 70% of teenagers trust social media influencers more than traditional celebrities
• The average return for every $1 spent on influencer marketing is $18 (influencermarketinghub.com, 2018)
• Eight out of 10 consumers have bought something after seeing it as a recommendation by an influencer (Rakutenmarketing, 2019)
• 57% of marketers said they increased their budget for influencer marketing in 2020 (Linqia, 2020)
• 80% of marketers say influencer marketing is effective, with 89% saying it’s is just as good (or better) than other marketing channels (Media Kix, 2019)

Influencer marketing has become a bit of a buzzword and there’s still some confusion about what it’s all about. As a small business owner, you may be wondering:

• What is influencer marketing?
• Should my business be collaborating with influencers?
• How does partnering with an influencer work?
• Where do I find influencers?
• How much does influencer marketing cost?

In this guide, we cover the fundamentals of influencer marketing for small businesses to help you understand what it is, who it’s for and how to get started.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing involves collaborating with an influencer to improve your brand recognition and/or promote your products, services or campaigns. Influencers have a large following because people trust and value their voice and the content they share. When an influencer endorses your product it functions as a type of social proof—their followers accept it as a recommendation from someone they genuinely like and trust. This gives you a great opportunity to put your brand in front of a large audience who are already engaged and interested.

What is an influencer?

The definition of an ‘influencer’ is someone who has the power to educate, influence or persuade a certain group of people because of their knowledge, authority or position within a particular space (usually on social media platforms). Unlike the old days when influencers could only be celebrities and rising social stars, many influencers nowadays share their everyday lives with followers on social media while also sharing their views and content on different subjects—ranging from climate change activism, veganism and travel, to beauty, fashion and food. 

Within the world of influencer marketing, there are different types of influencers. Let’s take a closer look.

What are the different types of influencers?

It’s important to understand the different types of influencers and their audience as this has a direct effect on the type of budget and strategy you’ll need. We’ve broken down the four main types of influencers below:

• The mega influencer:Mega influencers are usually social media stars with more than one million followers (e.g. famous singers and actors). 
• The macro influencer:Macro influencers are well-known social media stars that are one step down from mega influencers with 150K to one million followers. Macro influencers usually become famous through the internet, e.g. via vlogging or creating viral video content.
• The micro-influencer:Micro-influencers have a smaller audience of about three to 100K followers. They usually focus on a particular niche and create and share content for their followers. They communicate with followers via social media, blogs and websites.
• The nano-influencer:Nano influencers are the newest bunch of influencers and usually have a smaller following of fewer than 1,000 followers. They tend to focus on a hyper-niche market or have influence in a local community.

As a small business with a limited budget, collaborating with mega and macro-influencers with millions of followers may be out of the question. However, there is so much value in partnering with micro and nano influencers—their following may be smaller but it’s more targeted and engaged. Micro and nano influencers also charge less than mega influencers, which makes it more affordable to develop long-term partnerships to build your brand.

In fact, Fohr’s user data showed that micro-influencers (with 0-25k followers) had higher engagement rates on Instagram regardless of their target audience.

The first and most crucial step in influencer marketing is finding the right influencers for your particular industry. 

How do I find influencers in my industry?

There are over 500,000 influencers on social media today, which means there’s no lack of opportunities! But of course, it’s not as easy as that. One of the biggest challenges is finding influencers that align with your brand, resonate with your target audience and have a large enough reach. You also need to know where to find influencers and how to approach them about collaborations. 

1. Identify your target audience
2. Research relevant influencers
3. Create an outreach strategy 

1. Identify your target audience 

Knowing your target audience is the backbone of any marketing strategy. Who is your target audience? What type of people are you trying to reach? And where are they consuming content and information? You may have already identified your target audience and buyer personas for other marketing strategies, but either way, you’ll need to dig into this a little more. 

For example, if you are a skincare brand and your target audience is twenty-something-year-old women, find out which platforms they are spending the most time on, the people they follow, the type of content they are consuming, etc. From here, you can start researching relevant influencers.

2. Research relevant influencers

Thankfully there are a number of tools and tactics to help you find relevant influencers based on your target audience demographics:

• Influencer marketing tools:Tools like HootSuite, Buzzsumo and Google Alerts help you search for influencers using keywords, hashtags topics and locations. 
• Research using hashtags:Sometimes simply searching for relevant hashtags on social media is the easiest way to find influencers (e.g. #influencer, #blogger, #sponsored #ad).
• Look for mention of your brand: Come influencers may already be talking about your brand on social media. Look out for mentions using social listening tools such as HootSuite, Mention, Sprout Social and Buffer.

Once you’ve found a few influencers, you need to evaluate them to make sure they’re the real deal (the last thing you want is to end up with fake influencers). Below are some of the key metrics to evaluate:

• Authenticity:Check out the previous brand-sponsored content they have shared to see whether it comes across as authentic. Consumers nowadays can spot when someone is only recommending something because they’ve paid to do it.
• Reach:How many followers do they have? Check to see if they have a good number of followers on the social channel you want to run a campaign. 
• Engagement:Reach is important, but engagement is the key. How many people are genuinely interested and respond to the content they share?

3. Create an influencer outreach strategy 

Now that you’ve found your ideal influencers, the next step is to reach out and persuade them to collaborate with your brand. Bear in mind that they may be inundated with requests, so how do you do it effectively? Here are some tips to help you engage with influencers:

• Follow them on social media and start engaging with their content 
• Create a solid proposal outlining who you are, why you’re contacting them, what you can offer in exchange and how to contact you if they’re interested 
• Record all of your outreach efforts including the influencers you’ve contacted, dates and times, successful messages and no responses
• Send a follow-up message if you’ve not received a response after a few days

There are also a number of tools you can use to directly engage influencers in projects. Popular tools include Grin, Upfluence, #paid, CreatorIQ and Klear.

Once you have an influencer on-board you can begin to think about creating a campaign.

What are the different types of influencer marketing campaigns?

The great thing about influencer marketing is that it’s creative and versatile with no shortage of ways to collaborate and increase your reach and engagement. Below are some examples of common influencer marketing campaigns:

• Content collaborations 
• Sponsored content 
• Giveaways, competitions and gifts
• Reviews
• Social media takeover 
• Brand ambassador programs

What are the do’s and don’ts in influencer marketing?

As with any marketing activity, there are some do’s and don’ts to consider before you jump into influencer marketing:

• Do establish clear expectations with your influencer
• Do set KPIs and monitor them
• Do familiarise the influencer with your brand 
• Don’t choose influencers solely because of their metrics
• Don’t approach influencer marketing without a clear plan
• Don’t micromanage - remember, they have built their audience and have a pretty solid idea of what works 

How much does influencer marketing cost?

It’s difficult to say how much influencer marketing costs as it varies depending on the type of influencer and the campaigns they do. To give you a rough idea, below are some guidelines of what you can expect to pay a social media influencer:

The average cost of Instagram influencer marketing is around $1,000 per 100,000 followers. A micro-influencer with a smaller audience of up to 10,000 followers costs between $75 and $250 per post (Digiday).

Below are the average costs for other popular platforms:

• YouTube: $500 to $5,000+ per video
• SnapChat: $500 to $10,000 per 24 hour campaign 
• Blogs: $175 to $5,000+ per post 

Data sourced from: digitalmarketing.org

We hope this guide has given you a good understanding of the fundamentals of influencer marketing and how it’s fast becoming one of the most effective ways to build awareness and social media engagement. 

Identifying your target audience and the social media platforms they’re spending time on really is the most critical step to get started. From there, you can find relevant influencers and start reaching out to influencers to get them interested in your brand. But of course, with so many other parts of running a small business to manage, influencer marketing may be at the bottom of the pile. 

If you’d like to explore influencer marketing but you don’t have the time or resources, you can also consider getting in touch with an influencer marketing agency. They do all the heavy lifting and can help you find well-aligned influencers and build a solid strategy. You can also find out what other small businesses are doing with influencer marketing by joining in the community discussions.