Social media can be used for so many things these days. Although it started as something that was just seen as a fun and entertaining way to stay in contact with friends and families, it has now developed into a whole world of its own. From breaking news, creating content, and everything in between, social media truly dominates a lot of aspects of life.

One of those things that social media has now become a big part of is running a brand and business. It is almost impossible these days to be able to run a successful brand or business without having a strong social media presence. A lot of brands will thrive on running an entertaining social media account which helps businesses since more people know about them.

Another way that brands are now using social media to their advantage is through influencer marketing. By using influencers who already have an established audience and fanbase, they can appeal to their following since the niche has already been established. Influencers work around this niche which helps the audience be able to connect with the influencer in better ways than usual advertisements.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is the act of using a person with a large and niche following to show off a brand or business through a campaign. Since these people already have these large followings, there is no real cliental that has to be built since it has already been established.

Influencers work to create these communities in these niche fields. Once the community is established, that is when they are labeled as an influencer. Many different places have different definitions of what an influencer is based on follower or subscriber count. Many places have the definition with numbers as small as 1,000 people while others have totals north of 100,000. No matter how people define an influencer, the important part of defining an influencer is their niche following. Typically, an influencer will have a certain kind of interest that will appeal to a lot of people. In doing so, they create communities that people feel comfortable in.

The business will hire these influencers to advertise their products through a person. They will be hired by being paid in other normal wages or free products from the company. Either way, they will then use their platform to show off the product in a much more subtle way than basic advertisements. In doing this, they must let it be known that they are supporting a brand or company as this is against Federal Trade Commissions laws. This is not hard to do as it just has to show somewhere in the post that the person is being supported by a brand.

Why does this work?

Using social media for any kind of purpose can always seem a little risky. However, influencer marketing is one of the fastest-growing business practices because of how successful it has been. Since 2016, the term itself, Influencer Marketing, has drastically increased in searches by 465% on Google with a 1500% increase from 2016 to 2019 due to its rapid popularity. In a study conducted in 2020, the market for influencer marketing was projected to increase by over $13 billion after it had risen to nearly $10 billion in 2020. These numbers are continuing to grow more and more as a business is continuing to put money into the strategy.

There are many reasons why influencer marketing works with one of the major ones being that it is much more efficient than regular advertisements. People are not very drawn to an advertisement they see randomly scrolling through any kind of social media platform. Instead, influencers can bring a whole new dynamic to showing off any kind of product. The reason being is that this is a real person who lives a real life. Many people can see influencers going about their lives and doing things that they may also do in their everyday lives. Because of this, they see that they can relate and want to be a part of the trend.

This helps build trust within the brand and product because they see another person fully supporting their brand. It can be tough to trust something that only has a logo to its name with a lot of different products and websites. However, having a face that is attached to the brand that people can relate to and even talk to helps build a level of trust that cannot be obtained without having this kind of brand and consumer relationship.

It is also successful because the influencer themselves are creating most of the content. Yes, the brand has to make the products that have to be shown. However, the influencer themselves are the ones that create their post to show off to their audience. There are usually rules and guidelines that have to be followed when it comes to what they post, but they are typically just that they are to only show off one brand instead of having conflicting interests. Besides that, the influencers have the creative freedom to create content that creates more of a personability with their audience.

Influencer marketing is going to continue to grow stronger and larger with each passing year since the growth of social media will do the same. This kind of marketing has shown to be one of the most effective ways to market any kind of brand and is much worth the investment.