Influencer marketing is a strategy where you try to influence your customer's purchasing decision by leveraging the credibility status of a third-party influencers or creators.
Influencers are individuals who have continuous and high visibility in various consumer communities or media channels.
Influencer marketers like any other marketer run your marketing campaigns or strategy. In this case they are responsible for identifying the right influencers for your business, establishing business relationships with these influencers, and collaborating with them to promote their brand/product through various platforms.
The role of an influencer marketer can vary, depending upon the size and industry. But the marketers are responsible for carrying out any task involving promoting or advertising a business' product/service through influencer or creators.
In addition to this, an influencer marketer needs to consider the superficial aspects of running a business, such as making deals with influencers, hiring appropriate staff, and managing finances.
The essential functions of an influencer marketer are listed below:
Marketers are anyone trying to promote a brand, product, or service in some way that will appeal to their target audience. They might be promoting through traditional channels (TV ads) or emerging digital channels (Instagram stories).
Influencers on the other hand are people with large social media followings who can introduce your business to their followers and impact them enough to take action (like purchasing a product or service).
Influencers and marketers are not mutually exclusive. They complement each other well because the influencer brings awareness to your brand and helps you develop influence among their followers, something that is usually the job description of a marketer. It is often ideal to have both types of people working together towards a common goal – increasing revenue for your business.
Essentially, an influencer marketer is responsible for implementing your influencer marketing strategy, managing creator relationships and building brand recognition through these creators.
But, why should you consider influencer marketing for your business? What are its benefits?
Influencer marketing has many benefits for both brands and companies. For example, getting people to talk about a newly-launched product or service online can be challenging. By working with an influencer who already has a sizable social media audience, you can reach thousands—even millions—of potential customers at once.
Influencers also tend to be great storytellers who know how to engage their audiences and make them feel like they are personally involved in what is happening (e.g., they may tell their followers that they were the first people to use your product or service). In addition, they can help build a brand's reputation and create authenticity for their followers.
An influencer marketer works closely with the brand and the selected influencers throughout the planning process. As part of this team, they find potential targets, draft messages, create content (written copy or video scripts), and develop distribution strategies (which platforms each piece should be live on) before bringing everyone together for approval at the end.
Companies can use influencer marketing based on their budget and other factors, such as the niche they are targeting.
There are 3 main types of brand partners:
Collaborators: They create sponsored content and share it across all social channels.
Cross promoters: They cross-share existing content from the brand via their social channels.
Ambassadors: They exclusively work on projects offered or pitched by the brand.
Here are a few examples:
Ultimately, this strategy has already proved to be effective in increasing sales and awareness about brands and products through influential social media celebrities.
In short a influencer marketer is part of your social media team and is responsible for your influencer marketing campaign which usually has the following steps:
1. Audience Identification
2. Messaging Creation
3. Outreach
4. Influencer Engagement
5. Content Promotion
6. Measurement Tracking
Final takeaway
Influencer marketing is an effective way for brands to promote products and services through influential people such as social media celebrities by creating mutually beneficial relationships. These influencers create great content for their channels and promote brands they are partnered with on these platforms. You would need someone who can own and drive these efforts and that is what an influencer marketer would do.
