Is Influencer Marketing Actually Profitable?

by Frankie Wallace, Guest Contributor

​Having a social media marketing strategy is par for the course for most companies at this point. Facebook alone has a bustling marketing community with millions of active advertisers and tens of millions of business pages busily promoting, advertising, networking, recruiting, and providing customer service. Add onto that sites like Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and TikTok, and there’s no doubt that social media serves as an effective tool for most modern marketing strategies in one way or another.​

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With so much going on in the social media marketing game, though, one question that naturally arises is how to cut through all of the white noise. How do you break through that wall of competition and reach the endless sea of customers waiting to hear your message on the other side? The answer: influencers.

What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing typically consists of popular personalities — these are often individuals who have found their fame through their own social media efforts — who promote a brand, product, or service to the followers that they “influence” on social media. 

Influencer marketing works because it skips the “cold calling” part of marketing in which a brand must find prospective customers and build initial loyalty. Instead, influencers allow a brand to create instant trust through their own personal endorsements —  endorsements that are typically reimbursed by payment or free products and services.

Broadly speaking, there are five different kinds of influencers:

• Industry experts: Influencers whose natural qualifications and experiences qualify them to endorse a brand.
• Celebrities: Influencers who already have an established reputation as a celebrity.
• Micro-influencers: Influencers with small yet potent audiences between 1,000 and 100,000 followers.
• Macro-influencers: Influencers with moderate audiences between 100,000 and 1 million followers.
• Bloggers: Influencers who run popular blogs with associated social media channels.

How Effective is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing has been growing apace in recent years. For example, influencer marketing on Instagram grew by more than 39% in 2018 alone — although the social media giant’s recent shift to remove their “like” option on posts may have serious repercussions for Instagram social media influencers down the road.

Regardless of the specifics, though, there’s no doubt that influencer marketing is effective — at least at times. When executed carefully, influencer marketing certainly allows you to create targeted advertising that increases brand awareness, grows your customer base, and drives sales. 

However, in order to succeed in the influencer marketing game, you need to make sure you choose your influencers with care.

How to Find Influencers
Influencers, especially micro-influencers, are a dime a dozen. Nearly every industry in existence has numerous social media personalities out beating the drum for the companies they endorse every single day. 

In fact, there are so many options that choosing which personalities to ally yourself with can quickly lead to a case of analysis paralysis — especially if you simply look for anyone and everyone who technically lines up with your line of business. 

Instead of recklessly diving in, then, take the time to ask yourself a series of questions that can help you narrow down the authenticity and effectiveness of each influencer you consider:

• Are they relevant to your brand? If you sell skincare products, simply choosing a popular micro-influencer who models clothing may not be a close enough match. Look for influencers who genuinely endorse messages that line up with your brand, vision, and message.
• Are they an authority? When it comes to influencers, credibility is critical. Just because someone wrangled up 5,000 followers through posting funny memes every day doesn’t mean they are respected as an authority within their niche. Make sure the influencers you’re considering are actually respected in your industry.
• How big is their audience? This isn’t just a “bigger is better” kind of question. Seriously consider the size of an influencer’s audience from a holistic perspective. If you’re looking to grow your brand awareness, a million followers are great. If you’re looking for an effective way to make sales, a smaller, more focused audience can have a better ROI.
• Do their followers engage with them? Along with the size of the audience, consider how engaged they are. If someone has a small audience in the thousands, it can often be bought and paid for. Investing money to promote posts is easy, particularly at the micro-influencer level. However, if their audience regularly engages with their posts, that’s a sign that they follow the influencer out of genuine interest, loyalty, and respect.

Along with these considerations, make sure to keep your marketing budget expectations and limitations in mind as it’s easy to get carried away if you’re not careful. Taking the time to vet each potential influencer, while also considering how they could fit into your larger social media marketing strategy, can lead to a powerfully effective influencer marketing campaign.

Upping Your Influencer Marketing Game in 2020
While there are many things to keep in mind, there’s no doubt that influencer marketing is still an effective way to reach your audience as the third decade of the 21st-century kicks off. From celebrities to micro-influencers and everyone in between, there are plenty of ways to make influencer marketing work for businesses across the board. If you want to find success, though, make sure to do your homework before you set out influencer hunting.

Author bio:

Frankie Wallace is a recent graduate from the University of Montana. Wallace currently resides in Boise, Idaho.

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