The influence of social media is rising at a spectacular rate. More companies now using the power and clout and reach of social networks to influence their potential customers and achieve conversion goals. Paid ads or other forms of marketing through social media is helping brands realize their true potential and compete against the best in the business.
And yes, the emergence of influencer marketing has brought a tectonic shift to the way brands want to connect to their customers. Today, businesses are ready to benefit from the people whose influence on social media has weight among users. Brands are looking to collaborate with influencers with big following on their own.
At the core of influencer marketing lies the change in the way we all approach social networks like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn etc. for serving own purposes. Companies can leverage influencer marketing to great effect and carve a niche for themselves in a cost-effective manner.
Here are tips to use influencer marketing to boost traffic and conversions –
1. Know your audience first
For brands, the first priority should always be to know their audience first and then plan marketing strategy around them. Once the audience type is known, it becomes easy to figure out the type of influencers that would do the trick for your business.
This will give an idea about the type of content the audience before, so you can check influencers based on their blogs, tweets, articles, forums or YouTube channels.
2. Identify the most relevant influencers in the industry
Customers today are more likely to value the opinions of people rather than companies. They want feedback from third parties, not from the brands selling their products as this almost often cause a certain bias.
So, it’s good to build relationships with influencers that can help you reach to the target audience in a credible manner. Naturally, you will then have to find the most relevant influencers in the industry to serve the purpose.
3. Choose the type of influencer required for your campaign
It’s obvious that influencer types will vary in the industry as your goal is to find the one that is the best fit for your campaign. The criteria for selection would be anything like the tone of the influencer, their efficiency at making customers act, their thought leadership credentials or as their industry inside. The selection should also consider, whether you want to drive traffic to the site or blog, want to boost social media presence or hope to increase the reach.
4. Seek out influencers
The most crucial aspect is to seek out an influence to work as an advocate for your brand. To do this, it’s key to analyze the actions and activities on social networks to align the brand with the content an influencer is sharing with their audience. And if someone is already spreading the word about your brand, take them on board unhesitatingly. To find right influencers, you can join the same conversation circles, add value to the narrative, contribute to their content and this will help build the relationship.
5. Take active participation in content creation
If you could get influencers to generate content for you, it would lead to more traffic, superior conversion rate and more leads – the things you are desperate for. So, take time to join forum discussions, or take part in Facebook conversations, post-user-generated content on your official channels and upload images of existing customers on your official social media page.
Then, follow influencers, share their content, reference them on social channels etc. After that, you can think about collaborating with them for content creation.
6. Be subtle and avoid paid ads altogether
Stop relying on paid ads as they no longer work nor stir the imagination of users. Rather, look to provide useful content to readers so that they can get information. So, ditch the idea of peddling your wares through paid campaigns and focus more on devising nuanced sales pitches that center around providing information.
Since people trust influencers for impartially, it’s better to tie your brands with them and take messages in a subtle manner to customers. For that reason, the use of influencers is growing in spreading the word about businesses and boosting conversions easily.
7. Reward your influencers
It’s quite apt to reward influencers spreading words about your products services or brand. This will motivate them to talk more about your brand and let you bring home all the marketing advantages. But yes, don’t give away money else their content might carry the risk of sounding paid ads.
Rather, it’s better to give away discounts, free products or commission. And perhaps the best way to recognize their effort is by sharing their content, commenting on their posts. You can consult a top SEO company India to know more on this subject.
Author Bio:
Praveen Singh is a writer and blogger, and a professional interested in sharing interesting ideas with the world. His blogs give a peek into things that aim to inform, enrich and entertain the readers. He loves sharing views on anything that provides value to the readers and helps broaden their horizon.