The development of an influencer marketing strategy in the digital environment is not an easy task. On the one hand, brands and products must be careful in their choice of influencer profiles, and on the other hand, they must assess the audience’s receptiveness to this type of activity. However, influencer marketing is a powerful tool to achieve reach, visibility and connect with users who are immune to traditional paid media and content marketing campaigns, so it is worth considering. So, let’s get to it.
The evidence suggests the answer is yes.
Should brands only develop an influencer strategy if they want to reach young audiences? The data tells us so. The accounts that users follow most are still those of their immediate environment, followed by influencers, according to the latest IAB Spain report on the use of social networks. 74% of women between the ages of 16 and 24 follow these profiles. 54% of women between the ages of 25 and 40 do the same.
On the other hand, according to 45% of respondents, Instagram is still the network where they follow the most influencers. This is followed by YouTube (29%) and Facebook (26%). 33% of respondents believe that the influencers they follow have credibility, and 43% believe that the comments of this group are somewhat or very promotional.
In addition, according to Fourcommunications, 49% of consumers state that they are recommended by the opinions of influencers on social networks, which has a clear impact on users’ purchasing decisions, for example. Finally, most of those who follow an influencer’s account trust them more than commercial communications. This is reflected in a 30% higher engagement rate in actions with influencers.
It´s clear that the data leads us, at the very least, to explore the possibility of launching an influencer marketing strategy. But what should this strategy look like?
Find your influencers
Identifying your brand and product values and finding influencers who align with them, not only in subject matter but also in tone and positioning, is the first step in creating a successful strategy. In addition, there must be verification that both the traffic to their website and their followers are real. Finally, we need to assess whether we want to target celebrities with hundreds of thousands of followers. Or do we prefer a network of micro-influencers with greater capacity?
When we make this type of strategic decision about the type of influencer we want to work with, we need to take into account this classification that we marketers use.
- Mega-influencers or celebrities: these are superstars with over a million followers, usually celebrities, managing a large volume of brand and product collaborations.
- Macro Influencers: Influencers with 100,000 to 1 million followers, usually celebrities, but with a more local reach.
- Micro-influencers: people with accounts that have between 1,000 and 100,000 followers, their authenticity and credibility is usually high.
- Nano-influencers: users with less than 1,000 followers who have an immense amount of influence in a small niche.
Celebrities vs. micro-influencers
A recent study by Bazaarvoice and Savanta, which analyzed social network users’ impressions of celebrity-generated content in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, and Australia, found that 56% of the 9,000 users surveyed prefer to follow anonymous people on their social networks. In contrast, only 34% said their favorite content was generated by celebrities, 29% by experts in certain fields, and 25% by social media stars.
In the same study, users also say that the sources they trust most on social networks are experts (39%) and ordinary people (38%), ahead of celebrities (14%) and entertainment 2.0 stars (9%).
This points to the growing importance of micro-influencers, accounts with fewer than 10,000 followers that are highly responsive and interactive with their own audiences. These micro-influencers are usually part of niche, hyper-localized and hyper-specialized communities and are a good tool for brands to gain visibility and generate more reach.