What’s an Influencer, and Should You Hire One?

The term ‘influencer’ has become somewhat of a dirty word in today’s society. Most conflate the title with Instagram fitness models who try to sell their impressionable audience ‘useless’ fitness teas and expensive workout plans. Certainly, there is some truth to this stereotype. The lack of regulation regarding influencer promotion has led to scandals: Outrage over Kim Kardashian endorsing dodgy detox teas and gaming influencers hyping up CSGO gambling to their vulnerable audiences, to name a few.

However, it’s certainly not all bad. There are plenty of Canberra based companies that do it right. So we thought we’d give you the rundown on what influencers are, why they’re becoming more important, and how they can benefit businesses.

What is an Influencer?

An influencer is a social media personality with an online following in a particular niche (e.g. gaming, makeup, fitness, etc.) via personality-led content. The term ‘influencer’ comes from their ability to sway the purchasing decisions of their audience.

Canberra native Camille Aniversario is a perfect example of a modern influencer. The mother of three started off by sharing photos of her young family on Instagram and writing accompanying blog posts about their lives. The account quickly gained attention from other Instagram users and traditional media outlets.  She now is the owner of four Instagram accounts with a combined audience of over 22,000 followers. The content found on these accounts ranges from lifestyle blogging to business promotion and more recently, advocating for local women’s rights organisations.

Why are Companies Moving From Celebrities to More Niche Influencers?

Online content platforms have drastically changed the media we engage with and how we consume it, and so has people’s views of mainstream celebrities. The younger generation no longer looks to inaccessible Hollywood movie stars for guidance, instead turning to more relatable online content creators. Who are you more likely to trust: a movie star who you might see in one movie a year, or an online blogger whose content you consume everyday?

The statistics reflect this shift as well. A study conducted by Roth Capital found that 78% of millennials aren’t influenced by celebrity endorsements, whilst another conducted by MediaKix showed that over 80% of marketers find influencer marketing effective. Moreover, industry experts believe that as traditional media platforms continue to become eroded by online content hubs, global expenditure on influencer marketing is expected to reach $6.5 billion annually by the end of the year. This figure is even crazier when you take into consideration that expenditure was only $1.7 billion in 2016.

Why would you hire an influencer?

1. Improves Brand Awareness – Tapping into a highly engaged online audience is an effective way to further the reach of your brand. The key to maximising influencer strategy is ensuring that you’re providing valuable content that adds to their social media presence, ensuring value on both sides.
2. People Value Authenticity– Influencers often spend years building relationships, trust, and credibility with their fans. People not only respect their content but also their personal recommendations. Your brand can leverage this relationship to motivate their audience to purchase your product.
3. Allows For More Targeted Marketing – Influencers aligned with your niche alreayd have a strong audience bas of people who might be interested in your product. This means you can forgo spending additional funds on market research in order to find and test your target audience. The influencer has already done the leg work by curating an engaged audience.
4. Cost-effective – Recruiting influencers to market your product is much cheaper than other traditional avenues. A study by Bloglovin’ shows that a majority of micro-influencers charge less than $500 for a sponsored post. 
5. Improving Your Content Marketing– Most businesses are unable to dedicate the resources needed to constantly create engaging content for their customers. This is where influencers come in: they can help fill in the gaps of your own content schedule by producing more diverse, higher quality content.

Influencer marketing can be incredibly beneficial for startups or established businesses who struggle to gain traction with their social media marketing.

If you want to learn more about how you can effectively incorporate influencer outreach into your marketing strategy, contact our team and schedule a consultation. We’re proud to be on the cutting edge of influencer marketing and we’re excited to show Canberrans how it can help them reach their goals!