To Go With An Influencer Or A Regular Gal?
With influencer marketing partnerships, brands can receive more exposure, broader publicity, and even create a significant impact on their sales. And that's why over 80% of brands have said they are growing their influencer marketing budgets. But here is the thing to know. Having an influencer with millions of followers will get your brand attention. But, so can the average person with a relate-able story.
For brand managers, regardless if you are marketing your brand using influencers who have massive follower base in the millions (or even 10,000), or working with an ordinary person who may have a few hundred to thousand followers, there are pros and cons to both. In this blog, Hollywood Branded discusses the pros and cons for brand marketers of working with popular influencers versus the average guy or gal next door.
Why Choose A Popular Influencer?
Did I hear you say VIEWS!
Choosing a popular influencer will definitely get your product or service attention. You can have thousands or millions of eyes on your brand, depending on the influencer’s status. Social media influencers, specifically, have deep connections with their fans, and they are constantly engaging with their audience on a daily basis.
Around 70% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase because of a social media referral they saw from an influencer. YouTube influencers can even do hands-on tutorials or package hauls to show off your product to their viewers. If you know the target audience you want to attract, you can pick an influencer with those same qualities.
It's important to note that there isn’t just one type of influencer but a long list of categories, including beauty, travel, fashion, and even food influencers. This creates SO. MANY. OPTIONS. and allows your brand the opportunity to reach your intended market.
Why Pick An Average Joe?
Having an average individual promote your brand can also attract a large audience.
The average number of followers for a brand on Instagram is 1 million. That's a lot of fans - and a lot of fans who might be interested in sharing your product with their friends (free gets you a long way here.)
But it is also about choosing the demographic you want your brand to be marketed toward. If the viewers see someone like them using the product, they may want to purchase the item since they identify with the user already.
Typically ads do very well when there are two factors involved: an authentic person with a good story. Whenever there is some sort of moral feature integrated with the product, viewers feel the emotion and will remember the ad. And that translates over to influencer marketing too.
Let's take Dove's 'Real Beauty' Campaign, for example. The company conducted a study asking many women about their priorities, interests, and thoughts on beauty. These women were on billboards, commercials, and YouTube videos that went viral because they portrayed beauty in all forms. Having these real, diverse women for Dove's campaign left a longer impression on the audience. Additionally, it will cost FAR less to have an ordinary individual be the face of your campaign over an extremely mainstream influencer or celebrity. Like a lot of zeros.
Photo Credit: Dove
Can Working With A Mainstream Influencer Hurt You?
As a matter of fact, yes! It could if you don’t do your research. Sometimes the viewers can’t relate to certain influencers, which might give them the impression that the brand won’t work for them.
Case in point: If you have a gorgeous female influencer with perfect skin promoting an acne skincare product, it stands to reason that many girls with acne may not believe the campaign and find it inauthentic. However, using an average girl with actual acne may get the audience to trust the marketing because they can see results that are more believable.
If you don’t choose the right influencer to be the face of your campaign, the endorsement may not have credibility. It's also important to note that because influencers are constantly promoting different products on their accounts, viewers have become more accustomed to ignoring them. And you don’t want your brand to be another tag in an image users are scrolling past.
Is the Average Joe Worth It?
The ordinary person may give the viewers emotional feels or a relatable bond, however, they will have fewer followers. And it still takes a long time to reach out, ship, and then follow up, poke, remind, remind again, and then finally capture the content. Should that effort go to influencers with a higher following instead?
The average Instagram user has between 100 to 1,000 followers. That being said, it would take more out of the marketing team to make the promotional campaign a success, whereas mainstream influencers can design the promotion all on their own, tailoring it to their own brand to make it more authentic.
Your company would need to reconsider how they will draw attention to the brand via social media. Finding the people to be brand ambassadors may take more time as well. As no one will recognize this person promoting your product, you will need to incorporate a compelling story or unique visuals to make your ad stand out.
A Guide To Help You Know Who To Choose
Let's take a look at what you need to keep in mind:
Influencers
Pros:
- More followers/higher fanbase
- Personal and engaging connections with their fans
- Typically more 'finished' content
- Can present your brand hands on to a lot of viewers
- Many influencer type options - from micro to macro to celebrity!
Cons:
- May not relate to influencer
- Viewers may doubt the product if it feels inauthentic
- Costs more
Regular Individual (Also Known As Nano Influencer)
Pros:
- Viewers can relate
- Good stories leave longer impressions
- Cost less money - often can leverage free product in exchange for the post
- Super high engagement from family and friends
Cons:
- Less followers
- Less polished content
- More work from the brand's marketing team to herd those cats as the coordination of all the elements can be an absolute mess to work with - and will take a lot of time.
Making A Decision
The 'rage' right now is brands using nano influencers - and really, the reason why is they are typically looking at making dollars feel like they are going further than they actually are. It really does take a tremendous amount of time to work with influencers of any size - and the smaller you go, the more influencers you need to work with. And the work for each influencer - regardless of it being a mega million influencer or someone with just 25,000 followers - or 250, in fact, is exactly the same in each and every case, although you can perhaps lower the time spent on an influencer if there is no contract and no fee to process for payment.
But if you are a brand that is super interested in developing a ton of content, then that is where leveraging those nano influencers makes a lot of sense.
Check out some of the other blogs our team has written below, which will help you along your pathway of influencer marketing:
- The Top Entertainment Influencers and Branded Partners
- 4 Reasons Why Influencer Marketing Still Works
- 3 Examples Of Influencer Marketing Gone Wrong
- How To #7: 5 Steps To Tell If An Influencer Has Fake Instagram Followers
- Questions To Ask To Get Influencer Marketing That Works
After reading up on the pros and cons of influencer marketing, are you interested in working with influencers? Then we have the course for you! Enroll in our Influencer Marketing School to learn how to best leverage influencers for your brand!
