In today's digital era, marketing has fundamentally changed, with social media presence and influencer marketing becoming increasingly important. Influencers have become the new brand ambassadors who significantly influence consumer behavior and purchasing decisions. Below, we have listed several points from which a brand can benefit by collaborating with an influencer.
Reach and Visibility
They possess a substantial number of followers. By collaborating with influencers, brands can significantly increase their reach and connect with a much larger target audience. Influencers know how to engage their followers and can create tailored content that is precisely aligned with the needs and interests of their target group. People follow an influencer because they identify with them and because they are interested in their opinion. This brings the brand into contact with a specific target audience.
How many people the brand can actually reach through the influencer depends on the scale on which the influencer operates. Nano- and micro-influencers have a rather manageable number of followers, but because of their close bond with their followers and their very authentic nature, they are an option that is mostly underestimated. With very large influencers, the bias of information loss is sometimes relatively high. As a brand, you have to consider which type of influencer suits you. Startups and small brands can work very well with nano- and micro-influencers. The budget is kept within limits here, as the influencers can be compensated with products. Particularly large and well-known brands like to work with macro- and mega-influencers, as they have a completely different budget available and want to have reputable individuals as brand ambassadors.
Nano-Influencers (1K - 10K Followers)
Micro-Influencers (10K - 100K Followers)
Macro-Influencers (100,000 - 1 Million Followers)
Mega or Celebrity Influencers (1M + Followers)
Credibility and Authenticity
Influencers build a strong connection with their target audience and gain their trust. Brands that collaborate with influencers can benefit from this credibility and authenticity and strengthen customers' trust in the brand.
We humans are built to trust a person, a real face, faster than just a logo. Influencers interact with us, show us results, and manage to enter our consciousness and make us receptive to advertising. Sometimes we don't realize that we have just been addressed by advertising and buy a product unconsciously through this influence. There are incredibly many logos these days; it can sometimes even lead to real sensory overload, leaving us unable to decide which is the best product for us. For brands, collaborating with an influencer can therefore be highly lucrative and represent an exciting way of marketing.
Customer Feedback
Many influencers have followers who have already been following them for several years. Here, people increasingly speak of a feeling of friendship. Followers look at influencers as "friends" and are willing to share their opinions with them. They comment on the posts in which the products are advertised with their own experiences, which in turn is a good source of customer feedback for the brand. The brand has access to the unfiltered opinion of customers and can actively see where the advantages and disadvantages of the products lie.
Creative Content and Storytelling
Influencers are experts at creating engaging content and can present brand messages in an authentic way. Through collaboration between brands and influencers, unique content is created from which business success can benefit. It leads to greater brand awareness and spreads the brand's image. Influencers know exactly what their followers want to see and must constantly think of new ways to reach them. There are no limits to creativity. No sooner has the algorithm of a social media platform been adjusted than a series of new content alignments is introduced. For brands, this brings the advantage that new ideas must be implemented again and again and ever more quickly, and influencers can take this part of the work off their shoulders.
Measurable Success
Influencer marketing must not only be planned but must also be evaluated. For a brand, it is extremely important to see how much a campaign actually brought in and whether influencer marketing is worth it for them. Sometimes there are individual influencers who perform exceptionally well, but it can happen that influencers do not deliver what they promised, and even then, it is important for both sides to know what might have caused it. This kind of feedback is constructive for both sides and can lead to the further development of the marketing strategy. For the influencer, it is helpful to see in which areas they can work on themselves or what their followers react to particularly well. Perhaps a completely new strategy is even discovered, with which companies and influencers can achieve joint success over a longer period.
The most important key performance indicators at a glance:
Engagement Number of times users interacted with a post ((Likes + Comments + Shares) / Reach x 100)
Impressions Number of times a post was displayed
Conversion Rate Average number of conversions per post
Followers Total number of all fans on social media
Content Reach Number of users who saw a post
CPC Average cost per click (Cost-per-Click)
ROI Relationship between result and effort (Profit/Investment x 100)
Conclusion
For a brand, it is important to select influencers for a collaboration who represent their own values and can authentically market products to their followers. In doing so, it is up to the brand whether they want to work with micro-influencers or target influencers with a very large reach. Collaborating with influencers can bring a major benefit to a brand. Be it from a financial perspective, since many other marketing measures can be saved, or from an efficient perspective, since influencers take care of the planning and editing of the content, saving brands a lot of time in this area.
