Businesses have always used social media influencers to drive revenue but the importance of this has increased for businesses during this time.
The industry experts believe that the authenticity, cost-effectiveness, and relatability that micro-influencers have with their target audiences is important. Due to the pandemic, businesses across industries have seen that e-commerce has grown like never before.
As a result, brands are keen to get it right and drive business revenue above competitors, especially in the digitized world. Certainly, having a sophisticated online store, social media strategy, and paid advertising is an effective approach to attract a modern-age, tech-savvy audience.
Given the current scenario, most consumers are working from home, and are in front of their screens most of the time. Even though brands are re-evaluating their content marketing strategies to strive in this uncertain marketplace, influencer marketing is still a significant subset in their business model.
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With the increased usage of social media, influencer marketing is more relevant for businesses to create long-term partnerships – as people seek a sense of ‘community’ at the moment! This way, brands can facilitate greater connectivity and can even enhance the lifestyles of the audience amid isolation while communicating commercially.
“It was only yesterday I saw an influencer on Instagram wearing a brand I hadn’t heard of before. I went to the brand’s Instagram page instantly and, within moments, had purchased the exact same item the influencer was wearing. I can’t remember the last time I bought clothing from a retail outlet and not online.” – says Kitty Walker, Agency Lead at Kingscom Worldwide.
Even before the pandemic, brands had influencer strategies to drive revenue. This is a step away from the use of celebrities in marketing campaigns, which come with a large expense for businesses. Hence, this is the time to make most of the micro-influencers. They are regular social media users who have an engaged following of more than 3000 – be it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.
It is successfully the new-age marketing trend, more importantly, while people are not allowed to socialize in large groups anymore or visit local shopping malls with COVID restrictions in place. Brands should implement the use of micro influencer campaigns in their marketing mix to help run influencer strategies rightly in this unprecedented time.
For instance, a fitness brand should avoid partnering with a micro-influencer that primarily deals with beauty products. Instead, businesses should make the best use of the engaged audience of the micro influencer. This will eventually be easier to convert their likes and comments to end sales.
In fact, it is crucial to building long-standing relationships with the influencers that the brands connect with. This approach will ultimately help them become fans of the brand – and as they grow, brands can also grow with them.
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In this context, Kitty concludes – “Choose micro-influencers who have a niche which aligns with your brand. Do not put strict guidelines in place when gifting products for micro-influencers to post. I have found that when you give them fewer instructions, they come up with innovative, engaging, and beautiful content which is authentic to their tone of voice and resonates with their particular followers. They’re talented in what they do, so let them do it!”
