For the past two years, businesses noticed the effectiveness of influencer marketing to reach their target customers and generate leads. Influencer marketing indeed increases brand awareness and conversion. Now, it seems everyone wanted to dive into the influencer marketing hype – individuals, artists, and marketers. Let’s take a look at how influencer marketing really works and have a glimpse of what it takes to be an “influencer”.

Who is considered an influencer?

Influencers are people with large followings on social media like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Tiktok. They have strong engagement and reputations for promoting different products related to their niche. They have the ability to capture the attention of their audiences towards the products and services they promote.

Depending on their chosen niche and platform, influencers are equipped with a lot of skills; they are photographers, models, subject matter experts, writers, videographers, graphic artists, animators, bloggers, and so on.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is a new form of marketing where businesses tap influencers for collaboration through paid promotion, sponsored blog post, affiliate links or product reviews. Then, results are determined through defined metrics such as engagement and reach. However, sales are not guaranteed and should not be taken as part of the metrics because this is actually the job of the sales and marketing team.

Here are a few factors to consider for a successful influencer marketing campaign:

• Influencers should be aligned with the brand. A group of micro-influencers who uses the products of the brand is more powerful than selecting a highly followed influencer who most likely won’t use the product.
• The influencer’s target audience is also aligned with the brand.
• The influencers should be given the chance to be creative with their content to make it feel more natural.
• Make sure to set the terms and guidelines clearly. The deliverables and payment must be committed and released on time to build trust and a lasting relationship between the influencer and the brand.

As mentioned earlier, influencers are skilled professionals thus most of them prefer calling themselves “creators” as they wanted to be respected for their work. Influencer marketing continues to evolve and start new trends as creators and marketers explore new opportunities ahead.

Here are some of the trends to watch out for this year:

1. Creators are finding more ways to get paid, aside from monetizing through paid sponsorship. For YouTubers, view counts and watch time matters. Some are into affiliate marketing or brand ambassadorship.
2. Brands opt to collaborate with micro-influencers over celebrities.
3. Influencers should be aligned with the brand, so as their values and principles.
4. One-off campaigns will likely decrease in favour of long-term partnerships. This kind of partnership becomes more persuasive and easier to believe.
5. Short video content will continue to be popular for more engagement. People nowadays have a short attention span that’s why short videos will always be a hit.
6. Paid advertising will be used to expand reach. Both brand and influencer will benefit from well-targeted Facebook ads and other advertising tools.

Influencer marketing will continue to become bigger this year as more and more social media platforms are yet to be born. Influencers will continue to develop their authority in these platforms to stay relevant and attractive to brands. Brands and influencers working together will definitely create more opportunities and powerful content for customers and loyal followers to enjoy – indeed something to look forward to.