Online shopping is at its highest today as we do most of our shopping online. Before buying anything online we look up that product online for reviews, features, and prices for that particular product. But what influences us to purchase that product or be attracted to it in the first place? 

Apart from our need for a product, the people promoting it such as actors, models, leaders, etc drive us to buy those products or avail of a particularservice. These people are known as influencers and promoting your products through such influencers is known as influencer marketing.

What is Influencer Marketing?

The term influencer marketing has been around for a long time. However, it has gained quite a lot of popularity in the past decade thanks to the introduction of social media and the way it impacts our life. It’s a type of social media marketing where a product, service, or place is advertised by influencers who have a large following in their posts/ videos. Influencer marketing is somewhat similar to celebrity endorsements we’ve seen on TV or in print ads. Here a particular brand collaborates with certain influencers to create awareness about their product or deliver a social message. 

Each influencer has a different niche and their followers admire them for that particular content. This makes it easier for you to reach out to your target audience to improve brand awareness and drive sales with the right influencer. 

As influencers have a large number of followers, it makes influencer marketing a great way to build trust for your product. This impacts the purchase decisions of people as they look up to and admire such influencers and buying the products they promote makes people feel more connected with them. In short, it can be said that influencer marketing is word-of-mouth marketing done on a very large scale across social media.

Why Choose Influencer Marketing? 

Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube have evolved significantly since their inception. Nowadays you can find a lot of content creators on these platforms having millions of followers. With 42.7% of internet users worldwide using AdBlock it becomes difficult to promote your products with pop-up ads, here’s where influencers come into play. 

As people follow these influencers to enjoy their content it’s a direct way of promoting your product without actually annoying the user with pop-up ads. Unlike celebrities Influencers can be anybody, they can be content creators, business owners, political leaders, and even entire businesses. Sure social media influencers also have millions of followers online, but a content creator with 10,000 followers can also help you significantly drive sales and it’s much easier to collaborate with them. 

Here are some statistics to show you just how effective influencer marketing is:

• Nearly 70% of teenagers tend to trust the advice of influencers rather than celebrities
• 60% of people are influenced by social media or blogs while shopping at a store
• The influencer marketing industry is expected to grow into a $16.4 billion market in 2022
• 93% of marketers consider influencer marketing a key part of their marketing strategy 
• Influencer marketing campaigns earn you $5.78 for every dollar spent 
• TikTok has created a $1 Billion TikTok creator fund to nurture influencers 

Apart from these, Influencer Marketing Hub has listed many other impressive stats that show why influencer marketing needs to be part of your marketing strategy for 2022 and beyond.

Benefits of Influencer Marketing

1. Builds Trust and Authority

Building brand credibility and trust are very important if you want to attract consumers online. When shopping online, people tend to shop from brands they trust as they have a better authority as compared to others. But building brand authority online is difficult as it requires a lot of time and effort with one small mistake or bad review washing out all your hard work.

So what should you do? Well, influencers gain their massive following as the audience connects and trusts them due to their expertise in a particular field. That’s why whenever an influencer promotes your products or addresses its features, people tend to trust your brand more. However, if you have a bad product and try to build trust with influencers it just won’t work. 

As people connect with their content, promoting your product or brand with influencers is a great way to build credibility and earn loyal consumers.

2. Increases Brand Awareness

Brand awareness plays a crucial role in increasing your sales. The more consumers know about your product and its features the more they’ll be attracted to it. Influencer marketing helps you expand your reach to newer customers and improve your positioning.

Instagram is a great way to reach out to newer customers. Implementing influencer marketing in your social media strategy allows helps you in reaching out to a large and targeted audience who has an actual need for your product. Moreover collaborating with top influencers and promoting the right product makes people believe your brand is an industry leader. 

3. They’re less assertive than Ads

Seeing pushy ads while browsing through social media can often be very annoying. Moreover as mentioned above 42.7% of people use Adblock. So how can you promote your product without being assertive with the consumers? Well, the best way to do so is by collaborating with influencers.

People like watching their content and thus a simple product promotion in their posts doesn’t appear that pushy. Consumers willingly follow such influencers so they don’t mind looking at such promotions but enjoy them as it’s a trusted and secure way to find new attractive products online.

4. Improves Customer acquisition 

Influencer marketing delivers a great ROI of $5.78 per dollar spent and is 11x more effective than banner ads. As followers respect, love, and trust influencers due to their expertise, they build a positive image in the mind of consumers for your brand. This positively impacts their decision-making process and drives more sales quickly.

Moreover, 49% of people make purchase decisions based on influencer recommendations making influencer marketing the fastest way to acquire customers online.

5. Boosts your SEO

SEO plays a major role in your brand’s organic growth and influencer marketing boosts your SEO score directly and indirectly. The best way to improve your ranking is by having genuine and authoritative backlinks and working with influencers can help you generate more trusted links through multiple social media platforms. 

A study from Quicksprout shows how social media can impact your SEO indirectly in 2022 as it drives more organic traffic, interactions, and backlinks to your website improving your overall SEO score. So having backlinks on trusted influencers’ social media posts or websites (if they have one) can increase your Domain authority and enhance your SEO efforts. 

6. Pocket friendly 

Unlike celebrity endorsements, influencer marketing is not that costly if you’re working with the right influencers. The costs charged by an influencer depend upon their following and even niche sometimes. This makes it easier for brands of all sizes to collaborate with different influencers based on their following. 

Thus working with micro-influencers is much more effective for smaller brands as it costs anywhere between $100-500 while providing more conversions, increased awareness, and overall better ROI as compared to other social media ads. You can also cut barter deals with smaller influencers if they have a need for your product. 

7. Delivers fresh content

Content marketing requires a lot of time and creativity. Delivering fresh and engaging content regularly is often a task for many brands no matter how effective their social media marketing is. It’s even more difficult to hop on the latest trends before everyone else and create viral posts which can drive HUGE attention to your brand.

Influencers are trendsetters on social media and are always up to date with the latest trends. Influencers are professional content creators and can help you promote your products in the most unique and creative way. Thus having a strong influencer marketing strategy is crucial for your brand as it not only impresses the customers but also provides value to them which your competitors can’t. 

Conclusion

In the evolving world of e-commerce and online shopping, building trust is very important for brands to grow online. The best way to build brand credibility online is through social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn as well. Nearly every internet user, especially Gen Z is largely attracted to Social media. Thus influencer collaborations play a major role in creating a strong word-of-mouth marketing strategy as people relate to them compared to celebrities who can be untouchable for many brands. 

Thus it’s important for you to build long-term relationships with influencers to significantly improve your social media efforts. Influencers are the most excellent way to expand your customer base, build credibility and drive sales online via content. By choosing the right influencers that match your niche and cost expectations, influencer marketing can play a major role in the growth of your social media marketing strategy in 2022. 

After reading this blog influencer marketing looks like a lucrative option doesn’t it? But finding the right influencers can be a very tough and time-consuming task that if done wrong can impact your brand image. That’s why we at AdsCult help you successfully embed influencer marketing in your social media strategy.

We’re a leading digital marketing agency in Mumbai that helps you connect and build good relations with social media influencers that not only match your need but also cost expectations. From influencer research to collaboration deals and post-creation, we help you in every stage of the process. So get started with influencer marketing today and ‘Make IT Happen’ with AdsCult.