Mediaboss Marketing

These days it seems like were in need of some unique marketing tactics, and although influencer marketing has been around for quite some time, its not something many companies have perfected. This particular type of marketing is a great way to propel your business forward and should be one method that never gets old or penalized. The biggest question most people have is how do you start without coming on too strong.

Influencer marketing takes a lot of careful planning in order to make sure it continues to grow, and this requires a plan. For many companies influencer marketing just happens, but sometimes youre not so lucky and/or you want to grow this approach for your business. You have to ask yourself: What exactly is influencer marketing and how can I make sure Im successful?

Influencer marketing refers to finding people who have a voice in your industry. You want to see who really influences your target audience and then build a relationship with that person or company. The idea is that those who are influencers have a lot of power when it comes to swaying your target audience. This could be for a variety of reasons, but typically it just means that the influencer has probably been in the industry for quite a while and has built up credibility and trustworthiness through reliable articles, projects, referrals, etc.

There are several different things an influencer can do to help you:

Of course, someone who can persuade your target audience because they are credible took a long time to get there. In other words, you cant expect to reach out to an influencer and immediately strike up a partnership to help get your brand name out there through someone your audience trusts. You have to prove yourself so an influencer will want to work with you in the first place, and this isnt always easy.

In case you need a little bit more convincing: according to a SocialChorus report from 2013, influencer marketing campaigns drive 16 timesmore engagement than paid or owned media. It will take some time to create a solid strategy, but its well worth it in the end.

Below are a few tips to getting started with influencer marketing.

You first have to identify your target audience and then see who out there is able to reach and influence that audience. If youre still a little bit unsure who your audience really is at this point, I recommend spending some time on your own campaigns and gathering data to see who exactly is clicking your content. Buyer personas are also a great way to get a feel for your audience, which you can learn more about hereon our blog if youre interested.

Once you have a good feel for your audience, you want to determine what they are reading, what platforms they are using, what they are sharing, etc. As you go through and do research, you might see some of the same authors popping up often. Take a look at these authors social profiles and see how much influence they really have. You want to look not only at the number of social followers, but the quality. Its also a good idea to look at other things they have written to see the quality of commenters and the content in general.

In most cases, though, the influencers will really pop out and be easy to spot (you probably have some in your head already, right?).

Read the original here:
Marketing 101: How to Create a Successful Influencer #Marketing Plan