As Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, and other social media platforms have become venues for businesses to directly engage with their customers and potential leads, marketers have naturally focused their attention on strategies and tactics that leverage social media to its full potential.
Some of these tactics include publishing content that users can share with others and boosting your brand’s social proof and credibility with product reviews and social interactions.
One of the more recent developments in social media marketing has been the emergence of influencer marketing.
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is a type of digital marketing that leverages agreements and partnerships with social media influencers who promote specific brands and products in their content in exchange for compensation.
Looking to build their own brand, these content creators strive to grow communities of their own through unique, targeted content and word-of-mouth marketing. Many social media influencers have learned to use their reach to help established businesses expand their brand awareness into new market segments.
Influencer marketing, as a component of a well-structured content marketing strategy, leverages all of the same SEO elements as traditional marketing content. However, instead of coming in the form of written content or video sourced from the company, companies partner with content creators. These influencers in turn act as brand ambassadors and create content that shares their own experience with the business’s products or services, presenting them in a positive light.
Influencers take the idea of sharing a post with friends or family members and scale that up to their large, devoted community of followers. Since influencers have spent time building rapport with their communities, they have very engaged audiences. This personal connection adds a level of trust that other forms of marketing lack. Generally, an influencer’s follower count filters them into one of three categories:
Macro or mega-influencers
These influencers’ audiences typically contain a minimum of 100,000 individuals, with many boasting millions of followers.
Micro or mid-tier influencers
Mid-tier influencers still have a significant following with communities generally between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. However, larger mid-tier influencers can bump up against macro-influencer territory, with follower counts approaching six figures.
Nano influencers
These influencers often operate in extremely niche markets and have extremely close relationships with their small communities of hundreds of followers.
Should small businesses use influencer marketing?
Shouldn’t every brand be leveraging social media influencers within their marketing strategies? The simple answer to that is that it depends.
“Depending on the product or service, influencer marketing should be considered by small businesses, used alongside other growth and marketing strategies. A business selling an ‘over-the-counter product’ such as tea or shoes, for example, will likely have better conversion rates through influencer marketing than a company that deals in services such as web design or accounting. Not to say that can’t be beneficial. Social media exposure is invaluable to any company, especially from their customers, and people who use their product. People trust other people more than brands.” —Benjamin Gibson, Creative Director, Toronto Creatives
With an understanding of the types of products or services that might benefit from social media influencer marketing, other experts in our community focus on the fact that, with 72% of Gen Z and Millennials following influencers on social media[1], the tactic allows direct access to segments of your target audience that might be otherwise inaccessible.
“Yes SMBs should use influencer marketing. Using influencers who have a prebuilt audience can give your products exposure to many potential customers who have never seen your product. People like hearing about good products from those they know and trust. Hence why working with an influencer that has your target demographic in their audience will be your best chance to sell your product.” —Scott Thompson, Owner, Dreamvision Media
There are also the financial considerations and how well social influencer marketing will support the brand’s overall strategic initiatives.
“SMBs have several hurdles when approaching influencer marketing. The first is marketing budget distribution and ROI. The second hurdle is brand identity properly communicated that will set grounds for their brand’s social personality. If these two factors are covered, influencer marketing can become a great source of expanding the business efficiently.” —Anna Turner, Business Development & Marketing Executive, Corecentrix Business Solutions
What are the benefits of SMBs leveraging influencer marketing?
Our community of experts who support the use of influencers as part of their marketing strategies point out that it’s a perfect way to build visibility in your brand without pushy, sales-focused advertising.
“Influencer marketing is a great way to reach new audience members. The more people you reach, the more potential sales you make. Influencer marketing is also a simple way to make your content more relatable and accessible to your current audience. It builds trust when customers see real-life people using the product or service. It also provides an inside look at your offerings rather than an obviously ‘salesy’ campaign, it’s more natural and helpful than pushy.” —Madi Taylor, Content Marketing Coordinator, 97 Switch
It is important in understanding the benefits of influencer marketing, that it’s not a stand-alone strategy, but rather a perfect way to enhance and improve your content marketing campaigns.
“Let’s not forget about the content game. These influencers are pros at creating killer content that grabs attention and keeps people scrolling. So when they show off your products or services, they’re delivering engaging, drool-worthy content that gets people talking and sharing. It’s like having your own personal content army.” —Steve Rock, Creative Director, Good Kids
While commercials and advertising in traditional media often rely upon celebrities to deliver their messaging, social media provides brands with more affordable and accessible advertising channels in the form of influencers.
“Generally, influencers aren’t what we’d consider traditionally famous people. They’re not singers or movie stars. They’re people who build up a following on social media, usually by finding a niche that interests them and entertaining people who share their interests. Because of the way influencers gain their audience on social media, their followers feel closer to them. They feel like they know them and therefore put more trust in what they tell them.” —Denis Sinelnikov, CEO, Media Components – Digital Marketing Agency
Key to all of these arguments is how influencers have established very personal connections with their communities. Being so engaged and in tune with their followers, influencers can in turn speak about your brand or services in a very intimate and direct way with an audience with whom they have already established a built-in level of respect and trust, ensuring you will get the best results from the partnership.
What are the biggest disadvantages and challenges of influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing isn’t without its challenges and drawbacks. As with any marketing strategy, you must align your influencer marketing efforts with your brand’s goals and the needs of your target customer base.
“Beyond common challenges that can apply to any form of marketing, such as budget constraints, influencer marketing has some particular challenges. For one, identifying and finding the right influencers to partner with can be difficult. Like any other aspect of a comprehensive marketing strategy, SMBs must dedicate time to properly researching relevant influencers to ensure that they are suitable to partner with and that they can generate the desired results for the SMB.” —Ilona Roberts, VP of Client Success & Head of Digital Marketing, inSegment
Traffic increases and boosts in sales can often be tied back to influencers through the use of special discount codes or other methods to ensure your sales team understands the source of a lead or conversion. However, having a true understanding of the traditional marketing KPIs that are impacted by leveraging the help of an influencer can be difficult to track.
“The biggest challenge we’ve seen is lack of clarity on how to measure the ROI for influencer programs. Attribution is one aspect of this, but because influencer marketing is still a new and emerging marketing strategy, SMBs are still figuring out how to allocate budget, track success, hire, and iterate on programs that can scale as their business does.” —Lauren Jones, Marketing Director, AppIt Ventures
You will only be successful with influencer marketing if you can identify a content creator whose audience is attuned to your industry segment.
“Making sure you have the perfect influencer for your goals. Be sure to look at their overall content and the authentic engagement on their posts. This doesn’t mean you have to reinvent the wheel, but rather take the time to narrow down influencer options and choose based on what your target audience would like.” —Whitney Derr, Digital Marketing Strategist, ForeFront Web
Small business tips for influencer marketing
With 83% of marketers saying that influencer marketing is an effective marketing strategy, the industry is unsurprisingly anticipated to grow to a value of $21.1 billion dollars in 2023[2]. Experts across the UpCity community lauded social media influencer marketing as a strategy, but cautioned against launching content campaigns that rely solely on influencer endorsements.
“Focus on supplementing your content marketing channels with evergreen content. Small businesses that have smaller budgets for influencer marketing should use that money for broad-purpose content. If you cannot afford to regularly hire for new campaigns, you want to avoid highly seasonal content or influencer campaigns for short-term deals.” —Christian Vasquez, Project Manager, Premier Marketing
One piece of advice that was offered up by multiple experts was to ensure that you’re doing your due diligence to ensure you’re partnering with a social media influencer who can truly deliver on the partnership and sell your brand to their audience. This means ensuring the influencer aligns with your business goals.
“My top tip for small businesses new to influencer marketing is to carefully research and select influencers who align with your brand values and target audience. Authenticity and relevance are key. Collaborate with influencers who genuinely resonate with your product or service to maximize the impact of your influencer marketing efforts.” —Nick Fernandez, Founder, Upsway Marketing
Identifying and working with an influencer who is aligned to your current business needs is crucial, but influencer marketing isn’t a set-and-forget strategy. Like any other marketing tactic you leverage in the modern economy, it’s necessary to remain future-focused and continually reassess your strategy, needs, and target audience.
“Our top tip for small businesses that are new to influencer marketing is to start with thorough research and find the best influencers who align with your brand and target audience. Remember, influencer marketing is an ongoing process, and learning from each campaign will help you improve your approach over time. Stay open to experimentation, adapt to trends, and continuously evaluate and optimize your influencer marketing efforts to achieve the best results for your small business.” —Lexie Becker, Strategic Partnerships Manager, Fifth & Cor
Influencer marketing gives SMBs the amplification they need to succeed
There are thousands of influencers operating across the array of popular social media platforms. Discovering who is in tune with the trends in your industry might be as simple as following the hashtags or as complicated as sifting your way through a hundred channels before finding the one whose content resonates with your own brand’s vision and mission. Sometimes it takes a social media-savvy professional to know just which doors to knock on to find the right voice for your brand’s influencer marketing campaign.
If you don’t have a marketing-savvy team capable of navigating the complex landscape of social influencer marketing, you can always count on the marketing experts who offer their B2B services through the UpCity Marketplace.
Sources
- The Influencer Report, Morning Consult
- The State of Influencer Marketing 2023: Benchmark Report, Influencer Marketing Hub