Using Influencer Marketing to Your Business’ Advantage

Influencer Marketing is going to be the shit for the next five years—at least, that’s what marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk believes.

With every new year comes new feats and challenges that businesses (local and huge alike) would have to hit for their year’s goals. Of course, developing a solid strategy for your social media campaigns and new models for a digital marketing plan would definitely help you hit the right notes. However, there’s something equally powerful than those combined, and these are the online influencers—the bloggers, vloggers, Instagram models, Twitter comedians, Facebook viral pages, and more.

Influencer Marketing has risen from the depths of just being famous on social media. Now, brands seek them out one by one in an effort to gain brand recognition and leverage through their following. It’s not exactly a new thing, but more businesses are recognizing the power these influencers possess.

If you want to step up from where you are right now, Vaynerchuk offers a few tips on how Influencer Marketing can give you staggering results this 2019.

Influencer Marketing means exchanging value

For a startup, influencers can be a hit or miss—you have to know how to partner with them efficiently. If you’re only starting out and don’t have the necessary funds to acquire a solid monetary partnership with an influencer, you can still partner up by offering something that would give them value too.

If you are a restaurant, inviting bloggers over to give you a review means giving them the best of what your menu has. Local Baguio bloggers like Pilipinas Popcorn has been partnering with various restaurants over the past three years to exchange value and unique food experiences. You don’t necessarily have to pay them for the review, all you have to do is give them a taste of what you can offer and they would do the work of spreading the word.

If you own an online makeup brand, consider getting to know the influencer. Maybe they love binge watching on Netflix? You can offer them a free month-long subscription (on you) to the service in exchange for a product review.

Of course, you have to make sure that these influencers will deliver on their promised value exchange, as some only call themselves “influencers” to have access to free stuff. That’s one of the things you’d want to avoid. But more often than not, influencers would give you the results you need efficiently—even better than you expected.

Build a bridge

Money is often an excuse for some businesses to opt out of influencer marketing. But in reality, influencers work with brands that they personally like or have some kind of attachment to. That means that when seeking out influencers to help your business reach out to more people, you’d have to build the bridge.

Find out which platforms the influencer is more active on. Run through their latest posts and see what you can do to offer up good comments while hinting at a possible collaboration. Remember, the brand has to reach out and build a good relationship that’s not only focused on getting them to review your product. When you seek them out, you have one endgame—build a lasting rapport with them.

Background checks

Working with an influencer means knowing the power of their following, reach, and engagement. You need to evaluate each influencer and their audience if it’s applicable to what you’re selling or doing. If you’re reaching out to a millennial influencer but you only offer products for an older demographic, then you’re going to miss out on proper engagement and response. You have to know who their audience is and figure out if it aligns with what you do.

Another way to do a background check is to find out their engagement vs. followers. An influencer might have millions of followers that don’t translate well into their social media engagement. Their follower count must match their post interaction. Quality must come with quantity. There must be authentic conversations and buzz going on, not just a simple “haha nice” or mundane comments that don’t add anything of value to the influencer’s content.

Don’t Just Think Big, Think Small!

It could be hard to offer up a partnership with influencers like David Guison, Ida Anduyan, Kerwin King, and Kat Valdez due to the massive amount of requests that they get every day. That’s why it’s easier to link up with micro-influencers, or those that have a decent following and who also live within your city or area. For one thing, they’re more affordable and easily accessible. Secondly, their raw audience translates into authentic engagement, which is what you’re gunning for in Influencer Marketing.

Adapting influencer marketing into your business strategy this 2019 would reap tremendous benefits for your brand, regardless of what niche you’re focused on. By extending your horizons through the influencer’s clout, you are opening up more lines of communication and awareness for what you do—ultimately giving you the right results that you’ve always needed.