When Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger set out to create what we now call Instagram less than a decade ago, they just wanted to make a simple photo and video-sharing app. What they never anticipated is what Instagram has evolved into—a top marketing platform that has attracted startups and top global brands alike.
The spoil is an immense consumer audience that recently hit the 700 million mark. Instagram’s response was decisive through ad campaigns in the mould of sponsored posts tailored for specific target audiences.
Quite evidently, the owners of Instagram have not been the only parties to tap into the incredible financial benefits from advertisements. The meteoric rise of Instagram as a marketing tool has overseen an equally remarkable rise of Instagram influencers who can be likened to online marketing executives. In fact, currently, up to 12% of Instagram influencers earn a living primarily from the role they play as influencers!
Just who are these Instagram influencers? They are influential personalities, mostly celebrities, on Instagram with a significant audience that looks up to them. Studies have shown that the purchasing decisions of the modern consumer, especially among the millennials, are highly influenced by their favorite personalities on Instagram. This new crop of consumers is easily swayed by posts and comments on social media. Therefore, any content coming from influencers is likely to gain a lot of traction with their followers.
Influencer marketing, as a strategy, is about building a relationship with these influencers as a pathway to their audience base. The objective is to tap into their influence to build your brand or market your products. It is also about driving traffic to your page in order to foster engagement with potential customers. Finally, it is akin to implementing a word-of-mouth marketing strategy on social media.
That said, employing influencer marketing as a marketing tool on Instagram must be strategic and methodical. The first, and arguably the most crucial step, is identifying the right influencer. It is not just about the size of their following. It is all about recruiting influencers with the right audience. That is why it works in the reverse. You have to determine your target audiences before you identify the influencer with the right mix. The process can be painstaking. Grin.co has created an Instagram search specifically designed for that purpose; eliminating the guesswork of finding the key influencers with targeted audience demographics that align with your brands voice.
Once you have the right influencer with your target audience, the next step is to use them to attain the goals of your marketing strategy on Instagram. You can work with them to:
This is the primary reason why you need them. They will help you gain instant access to an audience that could take you ages to build. That way, you will get an opportunity to sell your brand to the right audience within a short time.
Reaching a larger audience is not enough if no engagement or interaction is created with your brand. Creating engagements makes people talk about your brand or products and, in effect, recruits them into your marketing campaign.
Influencers can help you gain new followers easily by directing traffic to your page. When their audience is impressed with your brand or what you have to offer, they will most certainly visit your page and follow you.
In summary, influencer marketing is rapidly overshadowing conventional marketing techniques and their influence cannot be ignored in an age where the social media is the new marketplace. The keys to a success influencer marketing campaign in Instagram are these: understand your target audience and engaging the right influencer.
Katherine Mitchell is a full time digital marketing professional since 2011 who helps to increase online visibility on search engine by proper implementation and with white hat Technics. She is also technically skilled and is a great believer in hard work and patience, and likes to explore nature
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