Influencer Social Media Campaigns Can Be Powerful Marketing Tools
Influencer social media campaigns are powerful marketing tools because influencer marketing as a whole brings diversity to a social media strategy. The authoritative voices of influencers from your community can unlock your target audience. They also build credibility and increase your revenue.
Diversity has become an increasingly important topic for marketers across industries. According to a recent study, U.S. marketers agree about these benefits. Diversity in your advertising can boost credibility, brand recognition, and revenue.
At first sight, the two topics of influencer marketing and diversity seem to be separate points of emphasis. But in reality, both concepts are intrinsically intertwined.
In fact, one can easily lead to another. Use it the right way, and your influencer marketing campaign will unlock your desire to reach more diverse audiences. Here are 5 ways influencer marketing can be used as a social media strategy for your brand.
1) Find the Voice of Your Audience
When looking to unlock any type of new market, you have to be able to understand your audience. That is true as much in diverse audience groups as it is for new geographic regions. Through influencer social media campaigns, you can more easily find the voice of your audience.
How do they communicate? Do they prefer any slang or jargon words, particularly words that might not be as common for other audiences? How do these preferences translate into the visuals they use to emphasize and accentuate their speech?
All of these are essential questions to answer before you begin to use influencer marketing to communicate with your audience. Influencers help you get that first understanding. That, in turn, helps you develop messaging that reflects your audience rather than your own preferences.
2) Build a Network of Credibility
With your existing customers, you likely have some degree of credibility. In looking to unlock more diverse audiences, you do not. Simply reading brand messages will not get any minority segment excited about your brand.
Because influencer marketing can diversify your social media campaign, you can circumvent that problem. Find influencers that match your audience profile. Then, build a network of credibility. That includes a wide range of voices that already have built trust with the audience you’re looking to reach.
As a result, you’re taking away the first and most difficult step in unlocking a new market. Your influencers can focus right on your biggest brand communication pillars. Their established credibility will make your audience listen actively to what they have to say.
3) Maximize Authenticity in Your Messaging
Both of the above points combine for a crucial third conclusion about influencer social media campaigns. Through influencer marketing, you can make your brand voice more authentic. Consider how Bitsbox used diverse families as messengers to get their intended message across:
Influencer generated content was the perfect way for Bitsbox to add diversity to their content. The settings are different, the kids are different, and it’s all authentic. The content they get from influencers is more diverse and better looking than the content that they used to get from photo shoots.
The result was not just more brand awareness, but conversions as well. Third-party sources are naturally more authentic, especially if you allow and encourage them to be. As a result, their message will be heard more willingly and will be more convincing.
4) Explore Potential New Markets
Unlocking a new market can be expensive. Any business looking to increase the scope of their audience as their business scales has run into that problem. New delivery mechanisms and a large and expensive amount of initial advertising increase costs. That cost may be difficult to sustainably support for many businesses.
That’s why so many brands ‘test the market’ before a full investment. But even that test might not be enough. What if it simply cannot measure the potential effect of a large-scale launch an advertising campaign? Influencer marketing can help you explore potential markets before this type of investment.
Think about the process. You find influential individuals within your new target audience and work with them to develop messaging. Now, you can easily test whether or not these messages are actually successful. That testing happens before any type of major investment in a larger campaign. It’s a more reliable indicator of success for future investments.
5) Organically Grow Your Audience Network
Finally, influencer social media campaigns have immense success potential in growing your audience network. After all, the people involved will not just be your initial influencers. They have collaborators and ‘super fans’ that get frequent shout-outs. With the right strategy, you can amplify your message even beyond the original influencer.
A YouTube star has a guest on that just happens to try your product as well. That guest promotes the video to their own followers. Just like that, and without much effort, you have grown your audience. Through influencer marketing, you maximize your sphere of influence in this new, diverse audience.
Of course, none of that happens by chance. You need a comprehensive strategy that helps you select the right influencers. These influencers don’t just have sway over their audience, but also the necessary contacts to expand that audience.
Unlocking the Full Power of Influencer Marketing
Studies suggest that if done right, the ROI of influencer marketing can top 1,000 percent. Once you understand the extent to which influencer marketing can diversify social media strategies, that number makes sense.
Of course, you have to be strategic. That means not just finding the right influencer, but also building valuable relationships with them. These relationships have to be mutually beneficial. You also have to make sure that their voice remains authentic and independent while still promoting your brand.
How can you walk that tightrope? One option is to work with a partner experienced in influencer marketing or an influencer marketing agency. Contact us to learn more about our services. Let’s start the conversation about how influencer social media campaigns can diversify digital marketing strategies.