How to Find an Influencer for your Brand - Gabby DiNucci
Influencer Marketing
No matter the age or social media platform you are accustomed to you, I am sure you have come across someone on the internet trying to persuade you to buy something or try out a new brand. Whether we know it or not, we are constantly being influenced by things we see on social media. A lot more goes into this persuasion than we think. So lets try to understand it:
What is influencer marketing?
At the most basic level, influencer marketing is a branch of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from influencers. An influencer is an individual who has a dedicated social following that could be seen as a way to promote your brand to their audience. These influencers create a great amount of trust between themselves and their followers and therefore, when they promote a certain brand or product through these endorsements, the sales of these products could greatly increase if the audience thinks it will benefit them. For example, if I follow a female influencer around my age that I really like and have been following for a while and feel like I connect with I will be more inclined to buy products that she promotes. If she were to go on her TikTok and say look at these awesome Nike Shoes and tells me all about how great they are, I may be more inclined to buy it!
How do I find the perfect influencers for my brand?
Finding creators to promote your brand is a crucial step so that you can have optimal success in getting you brand or product in the hands of the consumer. Just because an influencer is good at what they do, and good at influencing does not mean that they will be a good fit for your specific brand. It is important to find influencers that connect with your brand. At the end of the day influencers are people, not companies, machines or corporations. So when you have an influencer that is comfortable with your brand, it will translate over to the audience better. The people TRUST the influencers opinion, so influencers often times will only promote brands and products that they truly value and like.
To start looking for influencers for you brand… start looking here:
1. Social media: look at the persons hashtags, following, and engagement to see what kind of content they create already to see if it aligns with what the company stands for. Aesthetic is also an important factor as well as if they are keeping up with trends and are active on their accounts!
2. Bloggers: Some people have blogs to promote their content on their social media accounts. This is good to look for because you know that they have an idea on how to promote their own content, so they will hopefully be good at promoting the brand or product of your brand as well.
3. Youtube: This is another good tool because youtubers often have endorsements or ads throughout their videos and this could be a good place to find an influencer that could be a good fit for your brand.
Management Strategy
Different influencers have different money values that they will accept in order to promote your brand. It make take research and time to look at common rates for those influencer types but it is crucial in order to determine if they fit into your budget. When you reach out to an influencer you have to understand that they may be busy and balancing multiple partnerships, so following up with them and respecting their time is something you need to plan ahead. Next you will need to decide how you will reach out to these influencers whether it be through direct message, sending them a PR package, interacting with their socials, etc. You want to make sure they are legit, post similar things to your services, and are worth investing your time in! Affiliate codes and trackable links are two great ways to track how much traffic is being generated by the influencer. This is a good way to see if they are worth the companies time, money, and energy, or if it would be more influential to invest else where.
Influencers are here to stay as social media usage is increasing as we speak! If you think an influencer could help boost your brand or product then what are you waiting for, go start your research and get that influencer!
Sources/ Learn more:
https://getflowbox.com/blog/how-to-find-influencers/
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/influencer-marketing/
https://flockler.com/blog/4-goals-of-an-influencer-marketing-campaign