Author and blogger Seth Godin once said, “People do not buy goods and services; They buy relations, stories and magic”. That was exactly what marketers used to do – create stories and weave magic and thereby entice potential customers into buying their products and services. This was followed by the advent of the internet through which the consumer was suddenly bombarded and courted by the marketing wizards using multiple avenues of advertising and promotion. Slowly the magic began to fade as consumer distrust in advertisements and their stories reduced, the amount of clutter that the consumer was exposed to increasedwith the advent of social media and influencers began appearing on the scene.
Let us understand who is an influencer and what is Influencer Marketing? An influencer can broadly be defined as “someone who wields the power to affect purchasing behaviour of others. This power could be due to his knowledge, experience, authority, or relationship with the influence”.Influencers typically engage in a distinct niche, have a dedicated following and are viewed as experts within their niche. Simply put, Influencer Marketing is therefore the use of such influencers to support and endorse your brand with a view to increasing consumer awareness, adoption and drive sales. In addition to directly approaching the consumer, the marketer focuses on leveraging the power and reach of the influencer who has his own following to drive your brand’s message to potential consumers. The goal here for the marketer is to effectively use the social footprint of the influencer to connect into new communities of consumers by building a bridge between the brand and the consumer through the influencer.
Influencer marketing is different from celebrity endorsement. In celebrity endorsement, the marketer aims to attaching the fame of the celebrity with his brand. The marketer uses celebrities who are idolized by the consumers to associate themselves with his product/ brand, thereby enticing consumers to purchase his brand. On the other hand, all influencers may not be celebrities. Influencer marketing uses key people who are trusted in certain circles or communities to create positive word of mouth about his product/ brand and thereby influence sales. While celebrities need not be experts in the product categories they advertise – they are so well known that people associate them with the brand and vice versa, influencers are typically knowledge bearers and specialists in a particular area. Also, influencers tend to be continuously engaged in dialogue with their community following. The community of consumers is therefore primed to receive messages from the influencer and believes what the influencer has to say. While the celebrity is the face of the brand, an influencer may be perceived as being the originator of the entire brand message. Notwithstanding the above, celebrities could also function as influencers given their wide fan following which provide access to multiple industries to connect with their potential consumers.
A few types of influencers could be:
(a) Micro Influencers – have a relatively modest following in their particular niche category. The following could range from thousands to tens of thousands. They engage with their community through blogs, written content, websites and other social media platforms. They typically have high engagement rates owing to their smaller size of following which enables them to constantly engage with their followers. Some examples of micro influencers in India are Neha Mathur (Whiskaffair - Food and Travel Blogger – Instagram), Aishwarya Kaushal – You Tuber (Beauty and makeup), Teekhi_Mirchi (Food blogger and recipe maker – Instagram), Suraj Kumar (Movie review – You Tube).
(b) Celebrity Influencers – are usually famous people like cricketers, actors and other celebrities who have large fan followings. They are widely recognized and hence carry the potential to influence a brand’s target audience. In addition to using celebrities through endorsements in advertisements, marketers could also look at innovative ways of using them as influencers. For Eg., Amazon sponsored Khloe Kardashian’s baby shower. By hosting her baby shower, Amazon was able to feature their entire range of baby products through Khloe who boasts of a large Instagram following and is well known on television.
(c) Nano Influencers – are relatively new on the Influencer marketing scene and typically have smaller number of followers than micro influencers. Nano influencers are usually persons who have high influence within a small community – e.g., a local corporator/ leader, a local activist, or the pastor of the church in a town. Marketers use nano influencers when their intent is to influence potential consumers through regular people who have the ability to influence their small following. Brands represented by nano influencers may be perceived by consumers to be more authentic if the influencer has a significant relationship with his/ her followers. A drawback of using nano influencers is however that they would provide the marketer with a limited reach.
Some useful tips to select the right influencers for a brand include:
Prof. Kala Mahadevan
Assistant Professor,
DR V N BRIMS, Thane
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