Influencer marketing with Livestream shopping is a new type of digital marketing that stems from a collaboration between a brand and an influencer. An influencer is a person who uses social media to interact with an audience of loyal users.

 

The spread of this marketing strategy is exponential and constantly growing. This is because, currently, we are seeing both canonical media and traditional sales techniques slowly being overtaken.

 

In short, on the one hand, we have social media which is day by day taking power away from older media like radio and television. On the other hand, we have influencers who are replacing older promotional strategies because of their ability to capture specific audiences.

 

Are you skeptical of influencers and their work? Yup?

 

Nevertheless, if you are a growing business owner, you cannot fail to know the marketing strategies involved!

 

Keep reading!

 

Influencer Marketing: What Is It?

 

As expected, influencer marketing is an online sales strategy that was born with the development of modern social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Youtube.

 

Influencer marketing assumes a working relationship between a brand and an influencer. It can also be someone who has built a community of active fans on one or more social networks over time. Influencers, under brand compensation, take it upon themselves to "influence" their audience by bringing them to the attention of a product or service the company wants to promote.

 

Obviously, influencer marketing objectives are not limited to selling products. An influencer can be the promoter of an event or invite their followers to learn about and follow a particular brand.

 

The success of influence marketing globally is indisputable. According to data collected by Influencer Marketing Hub:

 

●     the influencer marketing market went from $ 1.7 billion in 2016 to $ 9.7 billion in 2020 ;

●     In 2021, on the other hand, it rises to $13.8 billion;

●     Companies associated with influencer marketing will grow by 26% in 2021, reaching 18,900 worldwide;

●     In 2022, brands are expected to increase their influencer marketing budgets.

 

Who Are The Influencers?

 

To understand the success of influencers, you must first know them and understand their work.

 

In most cases, an influencer poses as an expert on a particular topic. Thus there are hundreds of influencers in each sector. Like Entertainment, Sports, Cooking, Finance, Music, Current Affairs, Publishing, Arts, Crafts, etc.

 

The more valuable content an influencer is able to communicate to their audience, the more loyal and vigilant their audience will be never to miss a post or update.

 

To achieve good results, an influencer:

●     Creates a structured editorial plan, which has specific "appointments" with the audience. For example, a cooking influencer might post a new recipe via Reel every Wednesday at 12 pm;

●     It makes itself recognizable and identifiable: a peculiar tone of voice, a graphic design of effect, a gesture or repetitive joke;

●     Positively interacts with his followers, makes them part of his life, and invites them to share ideas and thoughts.

 

When an influencer enters into a partnership with a brand, they will integrate stories or opinions about the sponsored product into their content lineup. This should be done in a subtle way and should be in line with what the influencer usually does.

 

Some influencers do not apply specific strategies, but still, reach a large number of users. Thanks to their ability to empathize or relate. The more the audience gets to know the influencer, the more the latter is able to build a strong community.

 

Types Of Influencers

Social media is teeming with influencers of all genres, specializing in multiple subjects. Also, they differ from each other by the number of followers, communication style, personality, and more.

 

Let's look at the two most common classifications together.

 

The 10 Archetypes Of Influencers

 

A US platform specializing in influencer marketing identifies 10 archetypes of influencers :

 

●     Celebrity, a character with a large audience;

●     Authority, a renowned and respected influencer in his industry;

●     Socializer, a personality who creates connections and relationships between users;

●     Guru, a person who invests heavily in personal branding;

●     A communicator specializing in analytical, scientific, and objective data;

●     Activists, influencers who work on social issues;

●     Specialists are highly specialized in a particular sector;

●     Internally, influencers are very close to certain brands;

●     Controversial, a character who creates discussion within his community;

●     Journalist, news, and current affairs communicator.

 

Nano, Micro, Macro, Mega Influencer

Additionally, influencers can be ranked according to their community size. Take the Instagram social network as an index of information and a reference.

 

●     nano influencer: 1,000 - 10,000 followers . These are influencers who occupy a well-defined niche: they are often highly specialized in a particular topic and have very high engagement rates (e.g. user engagement).

●     micro-influencer: 10,000 - 100,000 followers . Micro-influencers also have high specialization and engagement rates: interactions with communities are still ongoing and frequent.

●     mid-tier influencer: 100,000 - 300,000 followers . They may have a team or organization behind them that can support their activities.

●     macro influencer: 300,000 - 1,000,000 followers . They have established figures in their sector who need support in managing their communications.

●     mega influencer: 1,000,000 followers and up. These are web personalities who have become very famous or celebrities such as actors, athletes, and footballers. They must have a structured team that manages their online presence.

 

How Do You Assess The Credibility Of An Influencer?

Like all jobs, there are more or less professional and qualified people.

 

Being an influencer is a new job, which is why many jump on the bandwagon hoping for easy money and using illegal means.

 

So, how do you distinguish a serious influencer from an improvised one?

 

Look At The Number Of Followers!

He's not a serious influencer if he doesn't have at least a million followers!

 

Obviously, this is not the case: community size is not a parameter to take into account when evaluating influencer legitimacy.

 

On the contrary: it can happen that an influencer, in order to make a good impression, buys fake followers to increase the number of his profile.

 

This practice, besides being unethical, is prohibited and severely punished by the regulation of social networks. Fortunately, fake followers are easy to spot - they often have standard nicknames, no profile picture, and no followers.

 

Additionally, if you've been paying attention to what you've read above, you've probably guessed that nano and micro-influencers offer much more revenue opportunities than major influencers: a small and loyal audience is much more likely to convert than a general audience to a mega influencer.

 

Study How And How Much It Interacts With Users

Do influencers respond to their users under each post? Does he ask polls and box questions on his Instagram stories? How do you deal with your audience?

 

Studying his behavior will give you an idea of his level of community engagement and loyalty.

 

Analyze His Past Collaborations

Which brands have you collaborated with before? Are they in line with your content, values, or lifestyle?

 

Analyzing influencers' collaborations will help you understand their level of consistency and loyalty.

 

Keep An Eye On His Editorial Plan

How present is it in social networks? Do you use a certain social network? Do you have a constant editorial plan?

 

These questions will help you understand how seriously the influencer is taking their work.

 

Influencer Marketing: Is All That Glitters Gold?

So, is influencer marketing the promised land of online earnings and sales?

 

As always, it depends!

 

Creating an influencer marketing strategy requires time, study, and analysis on the part of the brand and the influencer themselves.

 

Slips are just around the corner if the collaboration is rushed without assessing the potential public response and true affinity between the brand and the influencer!

 

In fact, many influencers offer collaborations to their audiences that do not correspond to their reference sector, values ​​, or identity.

 

For example, if an influencer who works with cooking starts offering sponsorships in beauty products or technological devices, what will be the result?

 

Clearly, there is a sense of resentment and mistrust in the community. If a user follows a cooking profile, he expects to find content on that topic in his feed. When the profile starts caring about something else, the "promise" between the influencer and the follower is broken.

 

Furthermore, it is not uncommon for a single brand to engage multiple influencers – including mid-level and macro – to sponsor a product or service. The result? That brand appears indiscriminately on many profiles and creates a real boomerang effect: users review the same article advertised by different influencers several times and develop intolerance of both the brand and the content creator.