What is influencer marketing?

Influencers have a great influence on a large number of people. Companies that want to take advantage of their reach can use influencer marketing to market their products or services.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is much more than a simple buzzword that gets thrown around by every self-styled marketing expert. This popular, newer form of online marketing emerged from the interactive dynamics between traditional online PR, referral marketing and social media marketing.

The main task when employing an influencer marketing strategy is to identify relevant influencers for your individual company or brand, contact them and build a working relationship with them. Whether unboxing brand-new electrical appliances on YouTube or delivering details of a vacation where the tour operator is mentioned, examples of influencer marketing can be found on all types of platforms. Companies try to integrate influencers into their communication strategy and use them as multipliers for their corporate messages and advertising objectives.

What is an influencer?

Influencers are people who have established themselves as opinion leaders online. They typically have a very broad reach, which they’ve earned with their own online presence through the use of social media channels like Twitter, Instagram or YouTube, or a combination of all of the above. They have a significant influence on the opinions and consumer behaviour of their followers.

How does influencer marketing work?

The media landscape has changed dramatically in the past few years. Classic mediums simply don’t command the same level of influence on public opinion as they did several years back. Younger audiences in particular seek role models within the digital realm. There is an extensive variety of ‘experts’ on numerous topics. Some individuals have millions of readers and followers and are leading figures in their specific fields. Depending on the influencer’s thematic focus, companies can reach a valuable, very well-defined target audience through them.

When an influencer gives tips and recommendations on products, services or brands, fans and followers listen. They often rely on the opinions of online celebrities, mimicking their behaviour and unconsciously allowing them to make a significant impact on their personal buying decisions. Companies can leverage this trust and amplify their advertising message through influencers. Consumers place more trust in personal recommendations than in traditional forms of advertising. Companies can use influencers for social media marketing to create even greater proximity to potential customers and ensure that their brands and products are visible on social media and get noticed.

Outlined below are the typical steps involved in influencer marketing:

1. Identify influencers: The first step is to find relevant influencers. Companies can use influencers’ expert status, reach within the relevant target group and their engagement as guidelines for selection.
2. Contact influencers: Next, companies need to contact the influencer or their management, either directly or via specialised agencies or platforms, to discuss a collaboration and decide on the conditions.
3. Content development: The influencer then creates content that presents the company’s product or service in an authentic way.
4. Publishing the content: The influencer shares the content on their social media, giving visibility to the product or service.
5. Engagement and interaction: The influencer communicates with their community, answers questions and encourages interactions such as likes, comments and shares.
6. Analysis of results: Companies analyse metrics such as reach, engagement, sales and brand awareness to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign.

What platforms and forms of cooperation are there?

There are various platforms and even more types of cooperation in influencer marketing. The platform and style of communication you choose depend entirely on what you want to achieve with your campaign and which formats you want to use.

Influencer marketing platforms

Influencers operate on different platforms and each of these platforms appeals to different users. The formats supported (e.g., whether postings are in the form of images or videos) also depend on the platform.

• Instagram: Instagram is the best-known popular influencer marketing platform. In addition to posting pictures, it’s also possible to create Instagram stories or reels.
• Twitch: Twitch is particularly popular with gamers. The platform is primarily used for live streams.
• TikTok: TikTok is an app where users can publish and watch short videos.
• YouTube: The website is primarily known for publishing longer videos. However, short videos, called YouTube Shorts, can also be uploaded.
• X: Formerly known as Twitter, X users mainly post text and images.
• LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a social network with a focus on business topics.
• Pinterest: Pinterest publishes images, known as pins, which users can add to their own virtual pinboard.

Ways to cooperate

In addition to choosing an influencer marketing platform, companies can also select what type of collaboration they want to have with an influencer. The type of collaboration you choose can have a significant impact on your marketing campaign. There are a variety of different formats to choose from, including:

• Post: This classic form of influencer marketing involves having posts directly on the influencer’s page or profile.
• Unboxing: Unboxing usually consists of videos where influencers show how they open products for the first time.
• Story: Short videos ensure proximity to followers and can also be used for interaction.
• Tutorials: Tutorials show the correct use of a product, usually in video format.
• Discount code: Discount codes are offered by influencers to motivate followers to buy a product.
• Brand ambassador program: Influencers become brand ambassadors, i.e., ambassadors for a company.
• Live events: Influencers visit companies and share their individual experiences there with their followers.
• Competitions: In competitions, products are not only presented but also given away in a prize draw at the end.

How to find suitable partners for influencer marketing

Finding influencers

Consider the following points when searching for an influencer:

• Activity: Which channels does the influencer use? Where are they active and where does all their communication take place?
• Reach within the target market: Does the influencer speak to the sort of people that you want to reach with your product? It’s not just important to check the reach of the channel – you have to make sure it’s reaching the relevant audience too.
• Expert status: Which central topics are part of your company communications strategy? Which influencers could be considered experts in these fields? Do these experts fit your company image and ethos? Are there influencers who have already built a reputation tackling similar topics and are well-known within the industry?
• Engagement: Numbers are not the only decisive factor. Interaction with users and community engagement are also crucial. Retweets, comments, shares and likes are important indicators of the level of engagement that an influencer has.

Influencer marketing tools

Personal communication and research are essential aspects of influencer marketing. Evaluating whether a particular influencer is right for your company doesn’t just come down to their social network figures. However, when it comes to reach, follower/subscriber numbers and interaction rates, special tools can provide valuable initial insights. The list of influencer marketing tools is long so we’ll briefly introduce you to some of the most popular ones here:

• Buzzsumo: Analyses data from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. Various filters (e.g., location) allow for good segmentation.
• Kred: Kred is a basic tool for all important influencer metrics.
• Followerwonk: This free tool offers the option to search Twitter biographies by keyword as well as additional analytics features.
• Meltwater: Meltwater is a powerful tool for identifying influencers within your network. Its paid features also offer excellent insights for distinguishing different types of influencers.

All of these influencer marketing tools are a great way to get started with influencer marketing. If you want to go one step further in influencer analysis, you should work with a professional social media monitoring tool. Most of these programs include integrated functions to search for influencers.

How to interact with influencers

To win over the influencer you want for your company, it’s important to take the following things into consideration:

• Don’t try to influence the influencer: The worst thing you can do is to give an influencer the feeling that you are trying to ‘buy’ them. An attempt at trying to shape or control the influencer’s content will quickly be recognised as such. When making cooperation requests, it’s essential to let the influencer create their content how they want to.
• Compensate fairly: In the past, influencer marketing has often been equated with trying to spread advertising as cheaply as possible. However, influencers know their market value and are aware that the biggest beneficiaries of such collaborations are usually companies.
• Be honest and transparent: As a company, you should always avoid any kind of deception and establish a business relationship based on mutual respect. Many large companies now even organise influencer events.