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Does Influencer Marketing Still Work?
Over the last few years, influencer marketing has become one of the most talked about marketing strategies in the business world. Piggybacking off of the success of social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube, social media personalities, who we refer to as influencers, have provided brands with a streamlined method of reaching their fan base.
Unfortunately, like with any other industry, there are people that will find loopholes to exploit it for personal gain. In influencer marketing, deceitful practices have come to be commonplace. Because of this, many brands have become reluctant to put their dollars into the pockets of these social media stars. However, when done correctly, influencer marketing is absolutely still valuable for a brand. In this blog, Hollywood Branded explores four reasons of why influencer marketing still works, and what dangers a brand should look out for.
The Problems With Influencer Marketing
Sure, influencer marketing definitely has its hiccups, especially in recent years. Lacking industry standards, influencer marketing is a prime target for deceit and manipulation. There are few different problems with influencer marketing, all of which can lead a brand to believe that investing money into this strategy simply isn’t worth it. These include:
Want even more ways to spot fake influencers? We wrote a second blog 5 Ways To Spot Fake Instagram Followers PART II to the one referenced above to provide you with even more insight, and actual tools to use, to help protect your brand.
Why Influencer Marketing Still Works
Look, influencer marketing absolutely works. We know it because we see the results for our clients. You just need to know how to do it effectively and how to watch out for. And there are four reasons why it still works.
#1 People love popularity: Sure, finding a new product via traditional advertising may work but it’s not all that exciting. Instead, influencer marketing allows people to find new products by placing it on popular figures. Not to mention, the likes and comments that influencer content get make it even more enticing for a prospective consumer to want to purchase your product.
#2 Trust: Who trusts traditional advertisements anymore? There’s nothing more annoying than seeing a brand plaster ads in front your face trying to get you to buy their product. Instead, influencers serve as trusted mediums for your brand to deliver your “ad” in an authentic way. How? Well simply put, people trust people.
#3 Scalability: It’s hard to reach all of your consumers on one platform. In order to combat this, companies need to run large scale campaigns on multiple platforms at once. When it comes to traditional advertising, this can be a logistical and financial nightmare, especially for smaller brands. Instead, influencer marketing allows you activate multiple influencers on multiple different platforms for a fraction of the price.
#4 Content is King: In today’s world, having quality content is incredibly important for brands. With that said, there is no better way to get content that effectively resonates with your consumer base than through influencers. First and foremost, influencers are content creators. If it weren’t for their content creating abilities, they would have never reached their influencer status. Secondly, you will be able to get a lot more content out of an influencer for a lot cheaper than what you’d have to pay a creative agency to create content for you. When it comes to content, influencer marketing takes the win.
Looking Forward
A lot of brands that have given influencer marketing a try are a bit discouraged from the method. For some, we really can’t blame them. Influencer marketing may seem like a straightforward strategy but in reality, it takes an expert to implement a successful influencer campaign. Those that try to jump into it without understanding how to avoid some of those pitfalls will surely lose trust in the strategy. But, that’s not to say influencer marketing is going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, 92% of brand marketers say they plan to increase their budgets for Instagram influencers. Those that fumble through some of the low points of influencer marketing will surely reap the benefits when the industry full matures. We recommend your brand does the same.
Check out these 5 blog posts our team has written.
As an agency we can help you find influencer marketing success, whether you work with us as a client, or take one of our influencer marketing classes. We offer three different classes which will help you up your influencer marketing game whether you work for an agency, a brand or are a student with a career path in marketing. Check it out below!
AJ graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a degree in entrepreneurship. Following his four year stint in college, AJ went on to launch his own marketing agency whose focus was to help brands better engage with multicultural consumers. It was during this time that AJ’s love for marketing and working with brands really began to blossom. Although quite elusive, this lovely bearded man can be spotted in any country in the world at any point in time, having already visited over 25 countries by the ripe age of 22. When not jet setting to the next location, AJ can be found eating weird foods (most recently a scorpion in Thailand), watching Chelsea FC win the English Premier League or sitting down with a bucket of kale watching an overly cheesy romance film.