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One of the reasons that make social media the best medium of marketing is that it is cost-effective and efficient. With social media, we learn about influencer marketing. You may already be questioning what influencer marketing is all about, Well, influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. Influencer marketing is the best way to influence customer online behaviour on social media platforms. It strengthens your brand credibility.
Learn more about the Benefits of social media
Social media influencers bridge the gap between brands and customers. This is because social media users do not trust brands over the real people they interact with daily. when you’re planning of collaborating with an influencer, brands must take precautions before-hand because not all influencers stand for your brand’s vision, however, influencers who are “For what you are for” are much more valuable to your brand as their followers trust their opinion over yours.
Influencer marketing can simply be explained in the scenario below:
let us imagine you own a bakery located in Johannesburg; You are the best in town, but the problem is that no one has heard of you. So you decide to join social media with the hopes of showcasing what you are good at. The odds of your audience believing your claims of being the best in town are low, however, if you can have an individual or organisation to back up your claims curiosity is born. This could influence followers of the influencer to want a taste of what you have as they trust the opinions of their peers over you. This is simply human behaviour. Influencers are perceived not having anything to gain by backing up your claims, however, the same cannot be explicitly said for brands.
This scenario is the best way to really understand how influencer marketing really works.
Influencer marketing can be very beneficial to brands. Here are some of the benefits of influencer marketing:
- Brand awareness: If you want to create brand awareness, influencer marketing can be one of your marketing strategies. you can choose an influencer that has hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers, however, the more followers they have the more costly it becomes.
- Consumer online behaviour: online influencers are everyday people who have the power to influence, impact the purchase decisions of consumers. Consumers are more convinced by what they see. According to research done by Nielsen, 92% of people will trust a recommendation from a peer, and 70% of people will trust a recommendation from someone they don’t even know. This goes to show the real value of influencer marketing.
- Builds Credibility: Credibility is an asset that needs to constantly be nurtured by brands. Usually, it is not the brand that the consumers trust, but, influencers. when influencers recommend your product/Service already followers trust their opinion.
Influencer marketing is a powerful tool that can be used to market products/services indirectly. It is focused on advertising services offered indirectly to users and bridges the gap between brands and clients over the social media plane.
