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Influencer Marketing is having a moment.
It seems like everyone involved in marketing and branding is trying to figure out if it is worth doing or if it’s right for a particular brand. If you’re asking yourself these same questions, Ethos’ Director of Public Relations, Belinda Donovan can help.
Watch Belinda’s video to learn more about what influencer marketing is, why it works, how to select the right influencer, and more. Basically, she’ll tell you all you need to know about the role Influencer Marketing can play in your brand marketing.
Are you more of a reader? Here’s the transcript:
Hi, I’m Belinda Donovan, and I’m the Director of Public Relations here at Ethos.
I’m here to talk about Influencer Marketing. It’s this big scary word that everybody in marketing is trying to figure out. The question is: should you be doing it or not? Is it a right fit for your brand?
First of all, before we dive into the how we do it, let’s think about what it really is. Influencer Marketing is about partnering with different individuals who can influence their audience to support or endorse your product or organization.
The next big question is: why does it work? Influencer Marketing works because consumers really trust what influencers have to say… so much more than brand advertising these days. There’s been a huge shift with the focus on social media, and we want to hear from our friends and trusted advisors versus seeing an ad pop up on our page.
Another reason why Influencer Marketing works so well is because influencers have a built-in audience who are actively engaged with them. So, you can grab the attention of that audience with whatever message you want, as long as it’s portrayed authentically and in the voice of the influencer.
So, how do you go about selecting the right influencer? Before you can do that, you really have to know what you want to achieve – what are your goals with working with influencers? Is it brand awareness, or do you want to reach a new audience? Or are you just looking for someone to create content and sort of feed that content beast, because a lot of these influencers on social media are great content creators.
There are different types of influencers. There is the celebrity influencer like the Kim Kardashian. She has tremendous followers, but maybe lower engagement. And there is the micro influencer who is very niche and specific. Micro influencers are working in the food industry, they’re maybe fashion-focused, beauty-focused, sport-focused, fitness-focused. Typically, micro influencers have higher engagement rates even though their reach may not be as high or their followers as many. Because they have active, engaged audiences, you know that there is this two-way street going on in terms of conversations.
When you are selecting an influencer, the first thing to think about is…are they relevant? Are they a fit for my brand? Because it needs to feel authentic. You want to look at their reach, you want to look at their frequency, you want to make sure they have an authentic voice.
While there are lots of tools out there that you can use, I’ve found the best way to find the best influencer for the brand is to just research. You have to be on Instagram, you have to be on Facebook. You have to see what they are doing and who they are working with.
Budget is another big question that comes up. This is a place where you have to dedicate some funds to. It can be a small budget, a large budget, it just depends on what you are trying to achieve, because there are different types of campaigns that you can do. You can work with ambassadors, or you can have a micro influencer campaign. You just have to decide how you want to spend your money, and sometimes it’s just working with one influencer to dip your toe in the water and see how it works.
So bottom line: you want to keep it authentic and you want to create great partnerships with people because once you do, they can help spread the message about your brand and really activate their audience to get behind you and become loyalists too.
About Ethos
Ethos is a multiplatform branding agency that develops and executes integrated marketing campaigns across multiple channels for companies inside and outside of Maine.
At Ethos, we believe that the most effective way to set a company’s marketing course is by finding its core truth – its ethos. We know that once we discover and communicate that core truth, we can truly make a difference for each client’s unique marketing and business objectives.
With Ethos, you get more than a marketing agency. You get a long-term partner whose goals are your goals.
Learn more about the Ethos approach and the work we’ve done for our clients. Want to have a conversation about your brand’s core truth? Contact us!
