As every digital marketing pundit seemingly predicted, the last few years have seen social media go from strength to strength, to the point where SMO (social media optimization) is just as important as SEO (search engine optimization) for any serious business.
But social media marketing has not just ‘grown’ over this time, it has also changed and evolved. Today, the strategies we use to try and gain a footing on Facebook or Twitter are somewhat different from those that we would have used a while back and one of the biggest buzzwords at the moment is definitely ‘influencer marketing.’
Influencer marketing is the ‘next big thing’ in online marketing and is a logical next step for a whole host of reasons. As this subsection of SMO continues to grow, will we see influencer marketing platforms emerge as prominent tools in our marketing efforts?
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is often referred to as a ‘growth hack,’ owing to its ability to accelerate the growth of a website and help it to reach a much bigger audience in a short amount of time.
The basic idea is that the owner circumnavigates the need to put in months and years of hard work by leveraging the influence that another website or blogger already has.
So let’s say that you are selling hats. Normally, the way you’d go about generating buzz online would be to spend months writing content stuffed with keywords for SEO purposes, and posting to Twitter and Facebook with status updates that no one would read. It can take years before you gain any real momentum – even if you decide to outsource the process and pay a company to handle it all for you.
Of course you can try other more direct marketing methods, but seeing as there are 200 million numbers on the “Do Not Call” list, 86% of people skip television commercials, and 44% of direct mail is never opened, that’s started to lose its luster too…
With influencer marketing, though, what you would do instead would be to find a prominent fashion blogger who had a big following on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or YouTube. Then you’d get them to review your hat. They’ve already put in the hours and months and years to get thousands of subscribers, so when they give you a referral, you are exposed to thousands or even millions of people who devour the content that person puts out. You can see your sales go through the roof literally overnight. In an age where people are cynical of advertising and don’t trust corporations, this is rapidly becoming the most successful and effective method of gaining an audience.
Influencer Marketing Platforms
The only problem with influencer marketing? It’s difficult! Big time bloggers are like mini-celebrities and getting through to them is very difficult. They get thousands of e-mails a day and are very cautious when it comes to lending their name.
That’s why influencer marketing platforms are so useful. Companies like ShoutOurBiz are finding unique ways to connect brands with prominent influencers so that they can make themselves heard. This represents a great opportunity for influencers that are looking for sponsors or even just review products and it’s brilliant for small businesses that want to gain direct access to a gigantic audience.
And the best part of it is that it’s still personal and highly targeted. It cuts out the big corporations entirely and means that people can find great deals from small companies by listening to reviewers they trust. This is the best of what the internet has to offer and it’s a very promising new direction for digital marketing.
Featured photo credit: Michael Vadon via flickr.com
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