Over the past few years, the influencer marketing industry has grown at an awe-inspiring rate — from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $9.7 billion in 2020 — showing no signs of slowing down. Even more, the numbers are projected to hit $16 billion by the end of 2022. Making your influencer strategy key for getting the best results.
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This means you can leverage your high social media followership and make some income as an influencer for brands and businesses. However, your bargaining power significantly depends on how many people you can reach through your platforms or accounts.
So, here’s the million-dollar question — how do you grow your visibility and reach?
This article discusses some proven influencer marketing strategies for growing your reach. We also explore some hacks on how to attract your target clients and businesses. But first let’s start with some basics!
Influencer Marketing vs. Celebrity Marketing: Are They the Same?
While influencer marketing and celebrity marketing seem very similar and even sometimes overlap, they have two distinctively different marketing strategies. Yes, they both involve people who are generally more popular than others. That is just about where the similarities end.
Not to worry; we’ll break it down for you.
Businesses that use influencer marketing leverage the services of well-known people in specific circles to build awareness and spark conversions from their target audiences within those circles. Market influencers are specialists within their niches and usually have communities they engage with steadily.
Celebrity marketing attaches a star’s popularity to a company or product. In other words, they become a face for that company. This way, consumers who idolize those famous people may extend their love to the celebrity-advertised products.
However, celebrity marketers are rarely very knowledgeable about the products and usually do not engage with their audiences — it’s one-way marketing.
Why Will Influencer Marketing Keep Growing?
Many businesses use influencer marketing as a critical component of their marketing plans. Collaboration with authentic and relevant influencers promotes brand awareness, fosters audience trust, and ultimately increases sales.
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Here are four reasons influencer marketing will continue growing and why brands will continue to leverage it.
1. Influencers Are Increasing in Number
While increasing influencers may seem like a problem, that’s not the case. As social media platforms keep growing and new businesses emerge, new influencers also have more opportunities to come onto the scene.
Besides, the types of content and target audiences often vary widely. It is almost impossible for the existing number of influencers to cater to the needs of all interested brands and businesses.
2. It Increases Brand Awareness
Because influencer marketing allows businesses to target a specific demographic and helps them build brand recognition, companies will keep requiring influencing services, resulting in the industry’s continuous growth.
3. There Is a Large Variety of Content
Several content formats are now available on social media platforms, which has caused various categories of influencers. Besides, there are now more social media sites today than ever before.
For instance, long blog entries evolved into post captions or were condensed into 15-second summaries that nonetheless had the same, if not more, effect than blog posts from the past. Also, platforms like TikTok have allowed more and more people to create short-form and engaging video content that builds interest in certain products.
Pro tip? Always take the time to learn what kind of content gets the most engagement on your preferred social media platform. Here are some TikTok video best practices to give you some perspective.
4. There Is a High Demand for Influencer Marketing Agencies
Influencer marketing is increasingly being used as a cornerstone of many firms’ marketing plans.
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Influencer advertising agencies provide services to speed up the production of campaigns in response to the rising demand. As a result, influencers will likely always be desirable in the foreseeable future.
5. Influencer Marketing Is Highly Targeted
Before being selected as a brand’s ambassador, influencers have built up a following, particularly of people interested in a particular topic. Because they already have a close relationship with their audiences, influencers are free to suggest whatever products or services they choose.
Brands seek out influencers who can motivate their audiences to take the right action, such as making a purchase, accessing a website, or following a social media page.
9 Effective Influencer Marketing Strategies to Increase Your Reach
One of the best strategies for growing your clientele, boosting your authority, and becoming a thought leader in your area of specialization is influencer marketing. The following are effective influencer marketing strategies to increase your reach.
1. Find Influencers in Your Industry
Connecting with the right influencers can help you understand the latest advancements in your industry and how to join the conversation. The best strategy is to hone in on those already driving influence.
A great place to start is on social media. For instance, you can search on Instagram for conversations and influential accounts in your niche. Pay attention to their followers and engagement — what content are they putting out? How do they interact with their audiences?
You can also connect with thought leaders on Twitter Spaces, IG Live, etc. Free web tools like BuzzSumo and Google Alerts allow you to search for influencers using specific keywords and trending industry topics.
2. Focus on a Niche
The best way to increase your reach is to figure out your niche and define your target audience based on that. In reality, you may have already come across people associated with your niche from interactions and conversations on the timeline.
This niche could be related to food, fashion, parenthood, DIY, or other topics.
For example, if you want to create content on fashion, focus on a specific style, such as street fashion, vintage, used clothes, etc. You’ll connect with followers who genuinely care about your content and are looking forward to new updates because they share your passion for the subject matter.
3. Define Your Target Audience
To be successful in your influencer marketing campaigns, you need to understand your target audience clearly. Understand who you are trying to influence — their needs, most frequented platforms, preferred content, etc.
This way, you can create content that best appeals to them. By focusing on one niche, you can better establish yourself as a voice of authority in that area. Businesses will know to reach out to you when they need someone to push their brands, and customers will be more willing to trust your recommendations.
4. Be Genuine, Accessible, and Responsive
Social media has completely changed how individuals communicate online. Today, followers anticipate having direct access to the influencers they like. Therefore, you should put in the effort to initiate conversations if you want others to find your content and interact with you and your followers!
Thankfully, you don’t have to struggle to find someone’s email address before you can communicate with them. Instead, you can reply to comments or DMs at a tap.
So, you should actively comment on other people’s profiles, like their posts, and respond to questions on their stories. In this manner, you not only increase your visibility and attract new followers, but you also build support in your community.
5. Build a Happy Community
The importance of having a happy community cannot be overemphasized. A community reflects your loyal followers who have come to trust your recommendations over time.
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Doing this means providing consistent value that builds trust and promotes influence. When people recognize you as an authentic and sincere voice of authority, you can better influence them and push other products their way.
6. Aim to Influence the Influencers
Many people think they need to reach as many people as possible to become recognized and successful influencers, but the situation is a little more nuanced than that.
Influencer marketing is about reaching the right individuals, not simply a large number of people.
Influencing the influencers requires building strategic connections with professionals and thought leaders. After all, for your content to be taken seriously, you’ll need at least the tacit support of other professionals in your industry.
7. Turn Loyal Clients into Micro-Influencers
Your loyal clients can also be great influencers for your brand. For instance, a customer who is happy with your service will be more willing to share their experience and push others to reach out to you.
You want to start by recognizing the clients who are satisfied with and devoted to your brand. Then, proactively reach out and express your gratitude for their support. Your client engagement skills play a critical role here.
Next, offer incentives that will get them to create reviews of their experience with you. In addition, you can set up affiliate and referral programs to encourage people to promote your services.
Here is a referral program case study to give you some inspiration.
8. Standardize and Track Your Influencer Marketing Efforts
Set benchmark dates to track the development of your influencer marketing campaign’s return on investment.
Monitor your outcomes. Remember, influencer marketing efforts are not 100% foolproof. So, analyze your analytics and rework your plan to focus on your weak spots.
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Social media marketing tools, such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Buffer, etc., offer in-depth reports for analysis. You can also leverage user feedback software to help you gain insight into your progress and growth.
In addition, consider the significance of approaching influencer marketing as a systematic strategy intended to be successful over the long term rather than as a one-time lucky happenstance.
9. Be Patient
At the end of the day, growing your reach and gaining a solid foothold as an influencer marketer is not a sprint. Instead, it is a marathon. Therefore, you need to be patient and give yourself enough time for your efforts to generate the desired results.
The truth is, when you can consistently put out the right content while following other engaging strategies, you will, in time, begin to see an increase in your results.
What Do Brands Look for in Influencers?
Now that you know how to improve your reach, here are some tips on positioning yourself as the right influencer for your target brands and businesses.
Have a Clear Brand Voice
Your brand voice speaks volumes about you and your chances of securing influencing deals.
Since businesses want to see that you have developed a personal brand voice using defined picture styles, colors, text, and hashtag usage, carefully consider your online persona and make an effort to differentiate yourself from the competition.
With such consistent branding, companies can also anticipate what their sponsored posts would look like should they choose to work with you as an influencer.
Stay Active on Multiple Platforms
While you may be more active or have a better reach on one particular platform, it is also an excellent idea to keep active profiles on other social media platforms. Brands are looking for influencers who can expand their reach beyond just one platform.
Even if you don’t have a sizable following on Twitter or TikTok, you should strive to maintain an active presence on at least one additional site as a content creator.
Post More Than Just Ads
As a rule, influencers should not fill their feeds with sponsored ads. However, you’ll hear various opinions on how much original material an influencer should post compared to their marketing posts.
While there is no right or wrong answer here, 3:1 is a good ratio. In other words, you should try to have at least 75% be organic posts — designs, reels, videos, etc. — while the remaining 25% can focus on your marketing activities.
Be Consistent
Brands are looking for influencers who consistently post original, up-to-date material. So, if you want to draw brand partnerships for your Instagram, blog, YouTube, or other media, you must be able to provide consistent, fresh, and quality content.
In addition, you want to strike a balance between posting too much and too little. While some could define regularity as posting on Instagram five times per week, others say three is a good enough number. Whatever your schedule, be aware that a six-month hiatus from the app will unavoidably indicate to sponsors and consumers that you aren’t interested in producing content.
Grow a Healthy Engagement Rate
Before businesses collaborate with influencers, they go beyond examining their follower bases. This is because they have realized that many people with large followings have used certain strategies to get fake followers or interact with followers that are not even in their niches.
In other words, it is possible to gain thousands of followers rapidly, most of whom don’t know you or care about what you do.
Smart brands will instead consider your engagement rate.
- How many of your followers comment, like, and share your posts?
- Are the comments well-written, and do they further the conversation?
These meaningful interactions are far more valuable than a sizable number of unresponsive followers.
Super effective Influencer Strategy
Influencer marketing is a super effective tool in today’s highly digital and competitive marketing space. Unfortunately, your online visibility and influencing reach will typically limit how much value brands think they can get from you.
Thankfully, you can grow your reach and position yourself as a valuable addition to their marketing teams.
With the strategies and hacks you’ve found in this article, you should now have valuable insight into how to ground influencer marketing reach and make yourself attractive for potential partnerships.
Remember, growing your reach as a social media influencer is a strategic process that will take time. So, put in the work and give it time!