Using Influencer Marketing to Succeed as a Startup on Social Media

Using Influencer Marketing to Succeed as a Startup on Social Media

You can expect a bumpy ride if your startup lacks a sensible and effective marketing strategy. It can be difficult to brand yourself, communicate with your audience while trying to speak their language, choose the best marketing channel for your goods or services, and decide only on the best marketing tactics.

This does not imply that the task at hand is insurmountable, as there are numerous ways to launch the marketing strategies for your startup. One of the most effective marketing techniques available today, according to experts, is influencer marketing. Although developing and implementing an influencer marketing strategy can be overwhelming, you can work with Atlanta-based agencies that specialise in this field.

Influencer marketing: What is it?

The use of well-known social media users or bloggers (influencers) to recommend or endorse a company's goods or services is known as influencer marketing. Businesses can use the large, devoted, and engaged followings of these influencers to increase their credibility, which will lead to a large number of conversions and increased sales.

Although the idea of influencer marketing was first introduced in 2006, it has since evolved and, for many, revolutionised the entire field of marketing. Influencers now have a wide range of options to choose from, including a wide variety of social media platforms and content types. There are ways around this even when the influencers are overseas and unable to access certain apps.

An influencer on social media is what?

An influencer, as the name suggests, is a person who has developed significant credibility in a particular niche to the point where they have the necessary clout. Their devoted followers, who adore them and respect their tastes and opinions, are the source of their authority. This does not have to be your main line of work. You can maintain such a lifestyle and use it as a hobby while working from home.

The actions of their followers are influenced by what they do, think, or even want. Remember that these people view the influencers more as close friends because they are accessible, rather than just as paid brand ambassadors.

The Benefits of Influencer Marketing for Your Startup

Social media is currently used by more than 3.6 billion people worldwide, and by 2025, this number is expected to reach almost 4.41 billion, making it one of the most popular online activities. Simply put, this market is too large to ignore.

And as more and more people joined social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, to name a few, you'll find that some of them began to 'influence' others by creating, curating, and sharing their own stories, experiences, photos, and videos. Hence, the emergence of influencers.

As a result, many marketers are searching for influencers to use as their most effective marketing tools. This explains how influencer marketing evolved into a crucial component of any company's marketing strategy.

Influencer marketing, in short, is a potent marketing strategy that enables you to more effectively and authentically connect with your target audience. And if done correctly, it is particularly economical for startups. Additionally, as a startup, you'd want to develop your brand and broaden your reach as much as possible. What method would be better than influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing types

Influencers and your brand can collaborate in a variety of ways to create fresh concepts that will excite and engage your audience. Although the main goal of influencer marketing is to have an influencer share and advertise your good or service, there are many ways to do this:

1. Competitions and freebies

I mean, who doesn't like free stuff? Given this, it's understandable why giveaway campaigns are so popular. It is easy to implement, and best of all, it benefits both you and the audience you are trying to reach. This ensures growth through comments, shares, retweets, and follow-ups. This may increase potential conversions and, as a result, increase ROI.

You'll give your influencers a good or service to distribute to their followers. The giveaway can be based on a simple contest (the first 50 to share to at least 100 users) or an upscaled one. We advise keeping the contest as straightforward as possible.

But watch out for any hiccups that might occur during competitions. It's possible that you've attracted an influx of followers who are only interested in the prize and not your brand. As a result, you'll notice a sharp drop in followers after the contest is over. Not to mention the potential for receiving fake accounts and bots, both of which can be security risks.

Keep in mind that it's crucial for the entire contest process to be as transparent as possible, and take extra precautions to avoid criticism from those who didn't win. To prevent anything bad from happening that might backfire and damage your brand, this must be handled very carefully.

2. Giving Presents to Get Honest Reviews

You do this by contacting an influencer whose niche aligns with yours and inviting them to use your product for free. In exchange, the influencer agrees to film an unboxing video and give a candid review that they can then upload to their social media accounts. It's fantastic that the influencer will take the fans on a virtual tour of your product.

However, since you're receiving a frank assessment, this could either work to your advantage or backfire. Some influencers aren't afraid to tell the world outright that they detest your product, despite the fact that most would feel obligated to be "gentle" in such situations.

Therefore, if you choose to use this strategy, exercise caution. You want credible, favourable Google reviews embedded so that your followers will be more likely to purchase and experiment. Keep in mind that micro-influencers typically perform better in this type of influencer marketing.

3. Sponsored Content

As you are aware, Google emphasises quality content, so even if you have excellent and helpful content, there is a chance that it won't gain enough traction. Influencers can help in this situation.

Typically, you'll work with an influential person in your field. Then, in order for the influencer to understand your expectations, you send them a campaign brief that outlines the rules, criteria, directives, or themes from your brand. You must, however, also give the influencer some creative leeway. In the end, the influencer is the one who is more familiar with the followers than you are.

The influencer then produces marketing material (images, videos, posts, etc.) to push your brand everywhere, expanding your outreach to locations you never imagined possible. This kind of influencer marketing, to put it simply, uses the influencer's voice to "speak" and engage with more people. Then, you'll be able to gain more momentum.

4. Affiliate Marketing

One excellent way to collaborate with many influencers simultaneously and for little money is through affiliate marketing. The influencer uses a special promotion code to advertise your product or service on their channels. Then, in an effort to drive more visitors to your website, they will advertise via posts and shares with their followers.

The influencer will receive a commission once a promotion code is used on your website, and you will receive a sale. It benefits both parties.

5. Social Media Takeover

Instead of you appearing on the influencer's platform(s), as is the case with other types of influencer marketing strategies, the influencer appears on yours in this case. So-called social media takeover occurs when you give an influencer access to manage and control your social media channels. This could last for a day or it could go on for weeks.

However, doing so will require you to divulge your login information to the influencer, which calls for a high degree of trust. If you're worried about the security of sharing login information, you can choose tools that let the influencers do it without requiring your login information.

6. Prolonged Collaboration with Influencers

Do influencers really matter, especially in terms of your sales?

According to a global survey of 1200 respondents, 45.4% of micro-influencer followers said they tried something the influencers recommended, and another 26.9% said they bought something as a result of seeing the post. Businesses now have a plethora of opportunities thanks to the way consumers act when making purchases.

Therefore, yes, influencers do affect your sales; influencer marketing has enormous value and offers a good return on investment over the long term. You can implement influencer marketing in a targeted, strategic, and successful way by using influencer search tools to identify influencers.

7. Consistent Brand Ambassadors

Influencers are brand ambassadors, and as the name implies, long-term ambassadors work closely with your brand. Therefore, it is similar to forming a long-term partnership with an influencer that can last anywhere from a few months to a year. The influencer, in essence, serves as the "face" of your brand.

A brand ambassador actively shares and advertises your brand's content on social media in a variety of formats, including photos, tweets, videos, and articles. This can help your brand's image stick in the audience of the ambassador, which raises brand awareness.

In the eyes of the audience, a stronger relationship with the influencer would equate to greater trust, credibility, and authenticity.

Influencer marketing advantages

Influencer marketing can do so much for your brand for startups and companies of all sizes and types, especially since it shatters many of the previously impenetrable barriers. People believe that their influencers understand them better than even their friends because they perceive their influencers as approachable.

Influencers also interact personally with their fans. This one-on-one communication helps influencers and their followers develop a trusting relationship over time. As a result, over time, followers have greater trust in influencers.

The advantages of influencer marketing for your startup are as follows:

1. Boost Brand Recognition Across All Social Media Platforms

A more reliable positioning in the market can be achieved through influencer marketing, which is a very efficient way to increase your reach. Social media users (including followers of influencers and others) will become aware of your brand, your narrative, and the goods and services you provide. You can convince people that your brand is a pioneer in your field by moving the needle with the right content promoted by the right influencer.

2. Expand Your Content Strategy

When you work with an influencer, you frequently choose someone who is well-known in your sector. As a result, you can collaborate with him or her to create original and compelling content. After all, the influencer would be more familiar with their audience. Simply put, an influencer can help with the creation of your content so that your audience always receives high-quality, diverse, and visually appealing content.

3. Successfully Reach your Target Audience

Influencer marketing can help you reach your target audience directly. Influencer marketing, in contrast to traditional marketing strategies, is extremely organic and thus conveys a more sincere approach rather than passing itself off as a simple ploy to attract customers. What could be better than receiving a glowing recommendation from a trusted influencer?

People would therefore be more receptive to your brand as a result. Keep in mind that connecting with millennial and generation Z consumers will allow you to connect not only with your target audience but also with other market segments. In order to increase sales and revenues, you should target this market.

Displaying your collaborative and creative influencer-generated content on social walls at upcoming product launch events, business conferences, and other occasions can help you get better and faster results from your influencer marketing strategy.

4. Increase brand authority and trust

Influencers have a large fan base. They have established credibility and trust with their fans over time by developing real relationships with them. As a result, the fans value their opinions and suggestions. In other words, social influencers have some influence over the goods and services they promote.

Find a person with authority in the industry and work with them to help people notice and recognise your brand. Due to the influencer's sentiment and endorsement, this promotes the idea that your brand is reliable, respectable, and a leader in its field. Building authority and trust is crucial in the business world of today.

5. Increase in Click-through Rate

As you now know, influencers have a natural ability to persuade and direct their followers towards the goods and services of your brand. Influencers are after all very relatable individuals with relatable lives. Influencers are becoming a more popular source for advice from consumers on what goods and services to choose.

The likelihood of people clicking on the specific links to see what happens next would then increase. Every marketer wants this because it increases CTR, which is a popular metric for determining the effectiveness of any online advertising campaign.

6.Enhance Brand's SEO

Your featured affiliate links and high-quality affiliate links can send a lot of traffic to those pages if used properly in your influencer campaigns. As a result of this traffic, Google will raise your page's ranking. Additionally, once you enlist influencers who are experts in the field, your Expertise, Authority, and Trust (E-A-T) will increase, giving your website more credibility and authority.

As an alternative, influential sites with high domain authority can link to your website favourably, improving its SEO, much like Ahrefs, MOZ, SEMrush, MjSEO, etc.

In conclusion, influencer marketing can undoubtedly help you become more visible online, which benefits your SEO.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing focuses on specific important industry leaders who already have a sizable following and uses them to spread the word about your brand. To increase the level of engagement between your brand and the followers of the right influencers, you must clearly define your marketing objectives and take advantage of their organic influence.

As a startup, you might be tempted to run a one-time campaign with the influencer to test the waters. However, maintaining a long-term relationship with the influencer has many advantages that you ought to consider. Influencer marketing has the potential to be a very cost-effective strategy for helping your brand break through in the marketplace if used properly.