Chapter 14: Influencer Marketing

Chapter 14 of Charello’s Essentials of Social Media Marketing covers influencer marketing on social media. Influencers have been used to market products and services for a long time. In fact, influencer marketing has been used for centuries. An early and successful example of influencer marketing was performed by Dodge in 1933. Dodge used Babe Didrikson, an Olympic athlete, to sell the new Salon “6” Brougham car. Social media has made it significantly easier to have more targeted influencers since individuals choose which influencers they follow. This has made utilizing influencers on social media a very effective strategy. In fact, influencer marketing will have a return on investment around 11 times larger than other forms of digital marketing. Many marketers also state that influencer marketing results in higher quality customers than other forms of marketing.

There are a number of factors that differentiate a good influencer from a bad influencer. The first factor is reach. A small reach is not necessarily bad, but it is important to consider. Nano-influencers have one to 1,000 followers and can be successful when marketing to friends and family. Micro-influencers have between 10,000 and 50,000 followers and are able to market to much larger groups. However, the groups they can influence are much smaller than mid-tier influencers with 50,000 to 500,000 followers. These influencers are considered industry experts, but these industries tend to be relatively niche. Macro-influencers have 500,000 to 1,000,000 followers and have a much larger reach. At this point the influencer’s job is to be an influencer. They can also effectively utilize a talent manager to effectively use their reach. Mega-influencers have 1,000,000 or more followers. They are typically celebrities with massive followings. These influencers are usually able to charge per post due to the scope of their reach.

The next factor that determines the effectiveness of an influencer is their credibility. Influencers need to be considered to be credible in order for their followers to trust their recommendations. Authenticity is the next factor. This refers to whether or not the influencer is perceived as truly believing in what they recommend. It doesn’t matter how much an influencer posts about a product if followers don’t believe that the influencer doesn’t believe in the product. It is also important that an influencer is active on social media so that the influencer is on their followers’ minds. The last factor is engagement. If an influencer’s followers don’t engage with the influencer, posts from that influencer likely won’t be very effective. Ensuring that the influencers selected by a brand are effective is needed to make sure the campaign is successful.