Social media has recently impacted the world of marketing and advertising. Businesses are constantly trying to find ways to set themselves apart from their competitors. Utilizing influencer marketing has become one of the most popular choices.

What is an influencer? An influencer, in its broadest term, can be described as a person with the power to impact the buying decision of others because of their in-depth knowledge and expertise about a particular product or service.

Influencers typically have a relationship with their followers because of an established trust. A social media influencer is merely someone who utilizes social media to share their knowledge by making regular posts, and thus, gaining followers.

Influencers help businesses to establish higher trust with their consumers as well as generate more sales. Which raises the question, how does a business utilize influencers in order to grow?

Create a relationship with your influencer

By creating a relationship with your influencer, they are more likely to respond to you positively when requested to make certain posts. You will most likely need to pay an influencer to gain an established and beneficial relationship.

By paying an influencer, you will also have more control over what they post versus when you ask them to make a post as a favor. Influencers will respond to those who are willing to pay them for their time because it is recognizing their hard work in gaining followers and the trust that they have built.

State your goals

It’s important to understand the reason for using an influencer. This also comes from understanding what business goals you want to accomplish.

Another reason that it’s vital for knowing the goals you have in mind, is to be able to measure the performance of your campaign. Without having something to measure, how will you know if you accomplished anything and didn’t just throw money at an influencer?

Knowing your goals will allow you to choose the right kind of influencer for your brand. If you don’t need a celebrity influencer, why spend unnecessary money on them?

Choose your target audience

One of the first steps that a business can take is determining who its target audience is. If you do not know who you are trying to reach, then why run the risk of choosing the wrong influencer?

Choosing the wrong influencer can be detrimental to your budget because of all the wasted dollars spend on the wrong person. Therefore, you need to know your target audience so that you can choose the influencer with the power to influence the right people.

Determine the method of influencer campaign you will run

Finding the influencer most fit for your brand is very crucial. Therefore, how you find them is another important step.

Typically, one of three methods will be used to select an influencer. You can find them organically by searching for them yourself, using platforms that help you to find the right fit or outsourcing the job to an influencer agency.

Finding the influencer that is interacting with the audience you are trying to reach should lead to a positive result in the goals determined at the beginning of the process.

Maintain the relationship

In order to maintain a favorable relationship with your influencer, it is important for it to remain a mutually beneficial relationship. If it is not mutually beneficial, you run the risk of losing your influencer and no one wanting to work with you since you are the only one who is benefitting.

It is also important to keep in mind that the content should remain unique and in the style of the influencer. Their posts should look more like a collaboration and less of a takeover.

If the posts do not remain in the style of the influencer, then their followers will not feel like it is genuine and therefore, defeats the purpose of hiring an influencer.

Measure the results

It’s important to measure the results of the campaigns run because it will lead to more effective campaigns later. Since goals should have been created at the beginning, at the end, the results should be able to be measured.

For example, if the goal was to increase follower engagement, you should be able to measure the increased likes, comments, shares, etc. If people are responding to the posts influencers are putting out, the more success your business will have.

Due to the advancement of technology, it has become much easier to measure the ROI of an influencer marketing campaign. The influencer should also have access to the results of the campaign and be able to share the results with you.

In the end, it is necessary to post frequently in order to stay in front of your target consumers. An influencer helps with that as well as reaching new consumers along the way.

Keeping your company name at the forefront of your target audience is crucial to keeping your business alive. Therefore, by properly using an influencer, your company will greatly benefit from the impact that they have.

Written by McKenna Mueller, Social Media Manager

McKenna lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, and recently graduated from Colorado State University, Go Rams! However, her dream is to move to Florida someday. She enjoys creating engaging and trending content for clients across the country through Social Media at Madwire. She has loved learning so much through her team members and the community of Madwire. Outside of work, McKenna loves spending time with friends and competing in some type of sport, no matter what it is.