Who are the influencers on Instagram?
In the digital age, web-savvy and socially conscious individuals make up the bulk of these social media influencers. For some, a part of their livelihoods depends on creating and posting digital content. Some influencers are even more powerful than brands and agencies in the social media sphere!
Influencers have different niches and are often targeted in their areas of specialty – be it make up, fitness, food, travel, fashion or baking.
Influencers also have a platform with a steady fan base for them to deliver information. This helps them ensure that a certain amount of people would be reading, listening or viewing the stuff that they wish to say.
Identify Thy Influencers
There are different types of influencers:
Celebrities
These are basically actors, musicians, athletes and even politicians.
Bloggers
These are those who are widely known for their personal blogs or websites. Writing about their personal lives and thoughts, their followers often spill over from blogs to their social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
YouTubers
These are famous for their channels and videos on YouTube, just like bloggers on their own platforms. If they do film and share their personal day-to-day lives, they can be considered as vloggers.
Instagram stars
These folks gain popularity through the photo-sharing app itself due to their pictures, short 15 second videos and other visual content.
Remember that getting celebrities to promote your brand usually costs a hefty sum of money. Generally speaking, working with influential social media or Instagram stars generate a much better ROI for your campaign, at much lower cost.
Getting The Right Influencers For Your Brand
The concept of working with influencers and active social media users is called “influencer marketing”. You can use the strength and reach of these influencers to promote content in an authentic way.
Influencer marketing is not a new concept. It wasn’t invented in 2015. In fact, you would have probably seen it before on blogs and Facebook pages.
In a study conducted by Social Times, nearly 60% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budget in 2015.
Here are three things to look out for when selecting the most suitable influencers:
Reach
A valid measurement of reach is by looking at the amount of followers.
However, it is difficult to determine if an influencer with a larger amount of followers on Instagram is really more influential than another influencer with a smaller following.
You also need to be wary of those who buy their followers – such influencers often have very low levels of engagement in proportion to their total follower count.
Reputation
Reputation can be related to engagement. It is an indicator of how interactive an influencer’s audiences are with the content.
Are there a lot of comments and shares on their posts? Or are there only complaints and negative feedback?
Long-time audiences could be better judges than marketers. If there are only negative reactions, it means the influencer might not be as likeable as you think. And you definitely don’t want your brand to be associated in any way.
Relevance
Before getting carried away by the large number of followers and engagement, do make sure the influencer’s content is aligned with your campaign’s message.
For example, you should not work with influencers who do not have pets or are not advocates of loving pets to promote a message of pet abandonment. Doing so will not be convincing.
Start looking for your online influencers! Who are the ones that you are familiar with and why are you working with them?
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