Are influencers influential?
View(s):Opinion formers and opinion leaders are the two words one generation above us learned of influencer marketing about two or three decades ago. All these categories are now considered as influencers. They are influencing everything we do in marketing. A few years back, they were also referred to as ‘mini celebs” by marketers. These mini-celebrities are to be found on different social media platforms carving out their own segment/s to leave an impact.
Mini celebrities may remind you of teenage girls, or maybe even kids or mini minor cars. But these mini celebrities are none of it. They may be spouses of top-tier celebrities or may be moms and dads of mainstream celebrities, or even sons and daughters of mainstream celebrities.
In the case of Cindy Crowford, her daughter Kaia Gerber is a mini-celebrity.
Are all celebrities influencers?
The answer is no… not all celebrities are influencers. While many celebrities have a significant social media following and can influence public opinion, influence is not guaranteed just by being a celebrity. The effectiveness of a celebrity as an influencer can depend on their engagement with followers and the kind of content they share. An influencer is a person who has the ability to affect the opinion of a large pool of people regarding particular topics, and who uses this influence to promote brands, products and services of companies they collaborate with.
Influencer Marketing
The act of promoting a brand products and services via influencers is called
influencer marketing.
From this brief definition, we can draw 3 elements that need to be in place in order for someone to be called an influencer:
n The ability to affect public opinion on specific topics, measured in impressions, reach and engagement.
n The use of this ability to influence
people for commercial purposes, where the influencers promote brands’
products and services in exchange
for compensation.
n A pool of people following them, usually within a niche they actively participate in, where the size of the pool depends on the size of the niche.
The word influencer comes from the English verb “to influence”. Blogger, Vlogger, Instagrammers, YouTubers are some other complementary terms for influencers, referring to the primary medium used.
The word has become mainstream over the past few years – especially as Instagram and TikTok have become more and more popular.
Categories of influencers
- Mega Influencers = 1+ Million followers
- Macro Influencers = 500k instagrammers, tiktokers, bloggers and youtubers.- 1M followers
- Mid-Tier Influencers = 50k – 500k followers
- Micro Influencers = 10k-50k followers
- Nano Influencers = 1k – 10k followers
The vast majority of Influencers usually work primarily on Social Media (in particular Instagram, TikTok and sometimes Twitter), and video sites such as YouTube and Twitch, while some influencers still engage their audience through their proprietary blogs. While influencers usually use more than one channel to engage their audience, to maximize reach and appeal to more and different brands, they usually will focus on one channel.
n Bloggers
n Podcasters
n V-loggers and YouTubers
n Instagramers and TikTokers
How to Find Influencers?
Finding influencers is not complicated, and there is several ways to go about it.
One way is to just search on Instagram, for example looking at tagged posts of brands similar to yours that you know use influencer marketing, and then look at suggested similar profiles by clicking on the icon next to “message”.
Another option is to search on Google using this formula:
[micro/macro / mega + Instagram influencers for + “industry” / “vertical” in “country name” ]
For example: micro-influencers for beauty brands in Denmark. Influencers are now becoming a part of professional marketing teams. They are commanding a share of voice in the market and therefore a share of budgets in the marketing plans of brands. Interestingly, marketers are also clinging on to them when it comes to the Promotions mix of the marketing mix. In to the future, this aspect of marketing communications will get more intensified with the intervention of AI. The right combination of AI and influencers will pave the way for successful marketing campaigns in the future. How far are we ready?
These mini-celebrities or even mainstream celebrities can become influencers.
Next week’s discussion will be on how to make use of influencers in brand building.
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