In today’s digital age, it’s hard to escape the world of influencer marketing. Scroll through your feed, and you’ll quickly be met with an influencer posting a life update, workout routine, Pinterest-worthy outfit, or envy-inducing travel photo.

However, being an influencer nowadays is about more than just living a picture-perfect lifestyle and having millions of followers. Today, these social media socialites are fully fledged content creators – and as marketers, it’s our job to use them to our advantage. Let’s take a closer look at the world of influencer marketing, including how to pick the right ones for your brand and why they’re crucial for growing your brand on social media.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is a form of collaboration where brands partner with influencers to promote a product, service, or campaign. This is often done by gifting your product and asking for content in return or paying them to use their platform to talk about your brand. These influencers have a dedicated social following and are viewed as experts in their field. Since their followers already trust and look to them for recommendations, influencer marketers can act as a source of social proof for your brand.

How to Find the Right Influencers for Your Brand

Before collaborating with an influencer, it’s essential to ensure your target audiences are aligned. For example, it would make sense for a luggage brand to work with various travel influencers, whereas a supplement company will want to find influencers who primarily focus on health and fitness. Once you determine your audiences are aligned, the next step is to do your due diligence and assess an influencer on the following parameters: reach, engagement, authenticity, personality, and niche. This will help the partnership feel like a more natural fit while increasing your chances of seeing the results you want.

3 Reasons to Develop an Influencer Marketing Strategy

Influencer marketing is no longer just a trend or a “nice-to-have” – it’s an essential aspect of your brand’s social media strategy. Developing an influencer marketing strategy can help you grow your brand and reach your target audience. Here are three more reasons why having an influencer marketing strategy may be right for your business.

1. Build Trust and Credibility

Influencers have built a reputation for their knowledge on a particular topic, and they have a dedicated following who engages with and pays close attention to their posts. Therefore, when an influencer promotes a brand that aligns with their typical content and seems like a natural fit, their followers tend to find it helpful, engaging, and informative. The more authentic an influencer’s content is – and the more engaged their audience is – the more likely they will convert into customers.

2. Boost Brand Awareness

One of the most significant perks of working with influencers is that they provide a connecting point between your brand and its ideal target audience. By partnering with influencers who have amassed a following who engages with their content and trusts their opinions, you’ll gain access to an audience you might not have been able to reach otherwise – and vice versa. After all, as much as an influencer can introduce your brand to their audience, you’ll simultaneously introduce them to yours by reposting their content. It’s a win-win!

Related: Best Practices for Recognizable Branding

3. Simplify Content Creation

When you partner with an influencer for a campaign, it’s up to them to create the content themselves. The influencer already knows their audience and what they respond to, and they’re used to crafting content that’s high-quality and engaging. This will save you the time and money it would take to create an entire campaign from scratch, making it a worthwhile investment for your social media marketing strategy.

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Developing Your Influencer Marketing Strategy With Migration Marketing

While these tips can help you get started with building your strategy, it takes time and effort to develop an effective influencer marketing plan to grow your brand’s following and awareness. From vetting influencers and drafting contracts to developing campaigns and reviewing content, influencer marketing can be more time-consuming than you realize. If you’re looking for a team of marketing consultants who can help you create an influencer marketing strategy from start to finish, then contact us today.