Influencer Marketing the biggest thing since word-of-mouth.
With the explosion of the internet, social media and smart phones world-wide, we have seen a shift in consumer tendencies. The internet has given individuals the power to portray their thoughts, feelings and views instantly to public in ways never seen before. This has seen a world of new opportunities for businesses and marketers around the globe. One of them, and we feel most prolific, marketing tools that has arisen and this is the Influencer!
Influencers have turned the world of content upside down, with their individual voice shared across their strong loyal followings, brand expertise and compelling messages. With the increasingly noisy world of advertisements which, quite frankly, most people ignore; consumers are turning to social media for advice and inspiration on what to do, where to go and what to buy.
Influencers are the new word of mouth.
People are no longer interested in the normal advertisements and tend to shut of when they are on or even skip straight past them. Most advertisements have become so unoriginal that 90% are not even remembered or spoken about once aired. These outdated marketing techniques are well past their sell by dates and a complete waste of time, money and effort. As we all know word of mouth has massive benefits to businesses, brand awareness and overall sales. 74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decision[1] -. It is important that brands tap into this ‘talk’ for them to truly develop and increase their market share.
This is where influencers come in. They have built trust around themselves from first blogging about their hobbies and stuff the truly enjoy, not just acting something or being paid to do so. They have become specialists in their niches without even realising. They already have the markets in place from this because people have been, and are, genuinely interested in what they have to say, the content they share or write and views they express. People listen to them and are persuaded by their views, some even more so than most celebrities. 88% of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts.[2]
These influencers haven’t built a strong following for nothing, they have tapped into their markets by sharing their hobbies and interests in exciting and stimulating ways, which people naturally want to keep up with. I mean, on the flip side, who would sign up or follow an advertisement or sales person, I know I wouldn’t, this is because you know that they have a vested interested to try and sell you something or persuade you in a certain way. People like to buy, but not be sold to. Automatically a barrier is subconsciously made without you even realising, our minds drift away, we start to day dream our attention is gone. Unless the advertisement is truly remarkable, outstanding or different 90% of the time we tend to switch of, I’m sure you would agree.
Something I am sure you will also agree is that the population as a whole spends a ridiculous amount of time on the internet and social media; the reason being the content is there and you, the individual, are the controller of this content. The saying goes content is king and the internet has it all. Social media, is and, has a very clever way of organising this content to make it easily available to the people that want it. Through liking pages on Facebook, to following someone on Instagram, to recognising our traits through algorithms, in this day in age we are the controllers of the content we view, the articles we read and the information we digest. We have the power in our hands and at the click of some buttons to access almost every piece of information ever made available to us in history of the human race.
This is why influencers and influential accounts are so valuable they have the market in place for their content to be farmed out. In an ever increasingly noisy world of today, be it millions of followers to 10,000s, the pure size does not matter just as long as they have engaging followers. How engaging these followers are, is crucial to understand what is being heard and by who. Influencers create the talk around brands to the smaller accounts/ crowds and open people’s eyes to such. People just trust people. 68% trust online opinions from other consumers[3].
It goes back to some of the fundamentals of marketing; product, price, place and promotion. If you can place the right product in the correct position within influencers accounts; if the other end of the spectrum is all good (Website and online shop) this can work wonders for brands, awareness reputation and most of all sales. Here at big influence media, we work together with businesses and influencers and always make sure that the right products fit in the right places to not jeopardise both sides the strong following in which an individual account has, but also to make sure that a business is reaching the best and right markets for them.
We are masters in influence marketing and specialist in portraying you brand in the best ways to your markets. Whether it be imagery, content, storytelling marketing we have you covered. As trust in paid advertising declines, word of mouth marketing via social networks has become the most effective means of building a loyal base of brand ambassadors, meaning more engagement and more revenue for your brand.
[1] http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/ogilvy-cannes-study-behold-the-power-of-word-of-mouth_b94186
[2] - http://www.brightlocal.com/2014/07/01/local-consumer-review-survey-2014/
[3] http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/under-the-influence-consumer-trust-in-advertising.html)
