Influencer Marketing - 5 reasons why it is important to listen to influencers of your industry
There could be several reasons a business with a great product and providing excellent service still doesn't succeed.
One could be, in a crowded market, the product hasn't been noticed. Or it could be targeting the wrong audience through the wrong channels.
A third reason may be that the company does not have the power to persuade the audience to try its product or service.
Here, it needs a thought leader to help boost the business and make it successful. There are people who have spent many years building that authority. They are the INFLUENCERS who could turn your business around using his or her influence and presenting your business in the great light with the help of influencer marketing.
The idea of influencers has always been around. Word of mouth marketing has been around for decades and it is one of the most trusted sources of brand awareness because people trust what they hear from their friends and co-workers, more than the most grand advertising. The idea of social media influencers, has become popular with the rise of millennials in the marketplace. Marketing to millennials requires new marketing tactics and strategies in, but they are a breed who are on social media all the time and find brands and products through social media influencers.
A key influencer would, therefore, be someone who is active online and is followed by a huge audience, rather your target audience. These are not your competitors, but they are individuals who are passionate about your industry.
These "influencers" are so called because they are individuals who can sway the sentiments of their online audience in a particular direction regarding a brand, idea, business or person. You have to be prepared that there just might be such people out there who are already making or breaking the reputation of your brand and there could be those who have the potential to help you increase your popularity.
Marketers are today heavily engaging social media influencers and it has become necessary to identify them. It is important to build good relationships with them which will strengthen their advocacy or convince them to be associated with your brand. However, identifying these influencers in the huge web of social media users is not an easy task. Social media listening can help identify That's where social media listening can help as well as different tools available which help to identify your loyalists or even the ones who hate your brand. These tools help to not only identify the top authors in terms of numbers but also measure their influence and categorize them as your promoters or detractors, and engage with them in real time.
Here are 5 reasons why it is crucial to listen to influencers for your industry.
- Wide and Loyal Audience All social media influencers carry along with them a large Twitter following, long Facebook friends list or heavy blog traffic which means that through them you can reach a wide audience. If they mention your brand name, talk about it or retweet or share your posts, they are automatically channelling your brand communication to a huge audience.
- Excellent Networks Influencers are good at networking and build up impressive networks. Their contacts engage in conversations or discussions on the various subjects the influencers post about, which can lead to more brand building. Moreover, the contacts share or retweet these posts which means that your audience multiplies, increasing your visibility. Also, through them you can identify other influential people as well, who are a part of their audience. They can in turn influence their own audience's opinion of your brand.
Influencers get the message across to the people in their network, who in turn send it to their own audience, and so on, thus resulting in a snowball effect by reaching out to a much wider audience. - Content In a survey conducted by Vocus and Brian Solis, 62% of the respondents said that they follow an influencer because of the content they create. The quality of the content is crucial to any marketing campaign. Influencers have the knack of creating great content that would easily strike a chord with the audience, and thereby reduce your work. They might even come up with creative ideas for content marketing that your brand itself did not think of. Some influencers post reviews of your products and services, features, and quality, some may simply write stories related to your brand, and so on.
- Credibility Influencers have the immense quality of credibility. This is one of the most important factors responsible for their large following. In the same survey, 51% of the respondents said that they follow an influencer because they consider them as opinion leaders and 40% follow them because of their relationship with the influencer.
The expertise these influencers hold in a particular field combined with the good relations they maintain with their audience makes them reliable and trustworthy to people. Their opinion of a brand will most likely become the general opinion among their audience. A word from an influencer can be crucial in making or breaking your brand. - New Trends & Insights It is the Influencers who are active online, that come to know early of the latest trends of the evolving social media platforms. They are also among the first to try these new trends, the firsts to discover new platforms to reach and engage with their audience. Through them, you too could get to know about the new trends and ideas and make use of them to build up your customer base. As they are the experts in the field, you could gain from deeper insights about your industry from them.
Intermind has a comprehensive influencer marketing program that has performed consistently for our clients. Using micro influencers with a small but relevant following over a long term association is the mantra to our success.
