Influencer marketing is a marketing method that gains recognition and leads to purchases by influential people who greatly impact SNS post ads for their products and brands. Since it is advertised to influential fans, it is easier to see with more favorable eyes than conventional advertising and has the feature that it is easier to acquire fans of the product and brand.

 

This time, we will give a thorough and comprehensive explanation of such effective marketing.

 

What is an influencer in the first place?

 

Influential people are people who are mainly active in SNS, have a large number of followers, and have a strong influence. Until now, social influencers were people like talents and athletes, but there are many “influencers” who are ordinary people but they have a lot of followers.

 

Influencer types

Depending on the number of followers on SNS, the nature of the influencers and their followers will be different. So, when promoting a product, it does not mean that the more followers you have, the better.

 

By realizing the features of each influential scale, you will be able to do more open marketing.

 

Mega influencer

Influencers with more than 500,000 followers are called "mega influencers". These include popular and well-known talents, athletes, and famous YouTubers.

 

Mega influencers are often followed not only by the general public but also by other influential people. So when multiple influencers share a post, you can expect an explosive secondary spread.

 

Middle influencer

An influencer with 100,000 followers is a "middle influencer".

 

Although it does not come into contact with TV, it has a strong influence on SNS and often specializes in certain genres such as gourmet, beauty, health, fashion, and makeup.

 

Micro influencer

Influencers with 10,000 or more followers are categorized as "micro-influencers".

 

It’s often more influential in the niche genre than moderate influencers and it’s easy to find sympathy far from followers, even in PR posts.

 

Nano influencer

Influencers with thousands to 10,000 or fewer followers are called "nano-influencers".

 

You can't expect explosive power. But since you have a friend-like relationship with your followers, your engagement rates, such as likes and comments, tend to be higher.

 

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is a marketing method that introduces products by expanding product and brand recognition by powerful influential people in SNS.

 

Since influential people are often ordinary people, they are closer to their followers than entertainment and talent. The impact of reliable advertising, such as word of mouth, can be expected from their friends.

 

Influencer marketing market size

The influencer marketing market size in 2020 is said to be 20.7 billion dollars. And it is said that it will grow to 71.3 billion dollars in 2025, which is about 3.3 times that size. The reason is that the new coronavirus is increasing the number of SNS users who need to connect with people online.

 

As the number of SNS users increases, so does the size of the influential marketing market, which inevitably employs influential people in SNS.

 

Benefits of influencer marketing

 

Influencer marketing is expanding its market year by year,

 

●     More user-friendly than traditional advertising

●     Different measures can be taken depending on the product/service

●     Accurate targeting is possible

●     The effect is easy to analyze

 

There is merit. In this section, we will explain each advantage in detail.

 

More user-friendly than traditional ads

One of the impressive marketing features is that posts with ads are easily accepted because influential people who are close to customers send information to their fans.

 

Conventional ads, such as TV ads and billboard ads, send one-sided information from the company, which can make it difficult to understand customer feedback and sometimes make them feel uncomfortable.

 

But through effective marketing, influential people advertise to their followers. You can get rid of unilateral information because you can accept it because your friend's post is flowing in SNS.

 

Various measures can be developed depending on the product/service

Influencer marketing is conducted for a variety of purposes. Such as traditional marketing, sales promotion, awareness-raising, and customer attraction.

 

One of the virtues of effective marketing is that you can develop systems in the best way to suit different purposes and features of products and services.

 

The following measures can be used in influencer marketing.

 

●     Gifting

Send the product to the influencer's home and ask them to post their impressions on SNS. Even in apps and smartphone games, you can tell customers directly what they're using to create a video.

 

●     Visit the site

 

Invite influential people to shop and tourist spots to get local reports and information about the place. Also, you will be able to attract customers to take them to the stage as guests at the discussion event and let them know.

 

●     Live commerce

 

It is a method that introduces the product to influencers through live distribution. Since you can promote the product while contacting the customer, you can ask questions and answer questions on the spot with answers, so purchasing is easy.

 

●     Ambassador

 

By recruiting enthusiastic fans of the brand as “messengers”, we will post them in the SNS in the medium to the long term where they are using or wearing their products. Since the information is passed on enthusiastically from the fan base, it is easy to get a favorable idea from the users.

 

The measures taken vary depending on the characteristics of the product or service and the capabilities of the influencer. It is important to understand the characteristics of each measure and to do the best marketing for your company's PR.

 

Accurate targeting is possible

Most influential followers are interested in the kind of information that influential people send.

 

That way, you can easily narrow the target from the content that influencers usually post. So you can accurately provide product and service information. In particular, the more influential information they send, the more accurate the goal will be.

 

Also, by searching for insight information for each SNS, you can set specific goals that take into account factors such as gender and age.

 

Easy to analyze the effect

With each SNS function, you can see the number of impressions. This is the number of impressions of the post and the number of "engagements", which indicate the number of likes and comments so that you can easily analyze the impact of PR posting.

 

One quality is that the effect is easy to analyze because each numeric value can only be seen at a glance by sharing the screen with the influencer.

 

In particular, it is possible to analyze users' buying behavior by checking "engagement rate" and "number of sales site transfers".

 

Disadvantages of influencer marketing

 

While influencer marketing has many advantages, it also has disadvantages.

 

In particular,

 

●     Lots of resources are needed for implementation

●     Choosing influential is very difficult

●     Effective management is essential

●     There is a risk of burning due to stems etc.

●     Etc.

 

These disadvantages can often be avoided by adding caution and ingenuity. Such as by utilizing an agency that specializes in external services and influencer marketing. So be sure to understand how to do so.

 

Many resources are required to implement

Influencer marketing requires time and staff who can perform a wide range of tasks such as selecting and requesting influencers, meeting posted content, managing, confirming posted content, and measuring impact.

 

Also, it can be said that human resources are also essential along with effective marketing knowledge. Since influential people are often ordinary people, it may not be possible to send the requested information without the knowledge of the requesting party.

 

Especially when it is run for the first time, there are some cases where more man-hours are required due to lack of knowledge and lack of an image of different resources.

 

Very difficult to select influencers

The points to check when selecting influencers are

 

●     The real number of followers

●     Active SNS

●     Engagement

●     Contents of past PR posts

●     Influencer follower attributes

●     A sense of distance between influencers and followers

 

At least the points such as

 

Also, the influencer also needs to have a view of what kind of image is seen by the world and even if it can be selected, there are many cases where the influencer does not respond. Thus, selecting an effective influencer is an extremely difficult process.

 

Influencer management is essential

Influential people are often ordinary people, and some young people do not have social experience, so their literacy may be low.

 

If you don’t manage such influencers properly, you can post something that is not the purpose of your company, which can lead to reverse branding.

 

Also, if multiple influential appointments are made at an event, etc., it will be more difficult to manage physical condition management, late / absent during the day, event progress, aftercare, etc., so be careful.