The Importance and Impact of Influencer Marketing in 2017

Influencer marketing is making use of well-known people on the Internet to market your product or service. These influencers are people with a huge follower base and authority to influence their fans or followers in some way. You can find these influencers on social media, and hence they are also known as social media rockstars.

Influencer marketing is up and coming. Check out this trend for the term ‘Influencer marketing’ on Google trends from Jan 2015 to Jan 2017, for instance.

Why Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is making a splash. Many thought it was just a fad and would vanish soon, but it is growing rapidly. Let us see some reasons why influencer marketing is important:

• Almost every company is using it to reach their target audience quickly.
• An efficient way to enter the target market quickly and reach the real audience.
• An alternative to paid ads and more efficient.
• High ROI because of targeted exposure.
• A great strategy to position the brand image and identity.
• The safe way to market the product or service through trusted people in the industry.
• A known personality talking about your product sells better than a text with a clickbait call to action.

What Makes a Great Influencer?

Personal branding and building authenticity are two important factors everybody should consider while becoming an influencer. Being yourself, putting in a lot of time and effort in something you believe and passion is not enough. You need to have a social media presence and should be able to share your thoughts out confidently on these social media platforms. Once you know you have built a decent follower base, it is time to become a great influencer.

SOURCE: Altimeter

Some of these points mentioned below can sum up more about becoming a great influencer:

• A great influencer is someone who has built a huge follower base organically around his expertise.
• Someone who creates real and trusted stories around brands and makes people believe them.
• A great influencer also inspires and persuades people to take proper actions, from filling a simple lead form to buying a product or service.
• A true influencer is also passionate and confident about what he is doing and how his thoughts are going to impact.
• He is someone who has exceptional networking skills. Connects with people easily and strikes a friendly conversation.

The Future Impact of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is here to stay, and we will see many changes in the way we do marketing. This Instagram post is a perfect example of influencer marketing where Kylie Jenner is posing with her new jeans from Fashion Nova. There are many such examples where celebrities are taking photos pertaining to a certain  brand they are associated with. Then they share these photos on their social channels.

Instagram makes a good fit for beauty and fashion related businesses, and hence you will find a lot of influencers in this site. You can find many of these influencers making connections and exchanging ideas with each other through Facebook, as well.

The future impact of influencer marketing is going to be big: 
1. We will see a tremendous increase in the growth of social media channels.
2. Many influencers will try to build their own agencies rather than being an individual freelancer.
3. The power of tier two influencers will grow since it is easy to connect with them.
4. Many mainstream marketing experts will try to become influencers.
5. There will be more platforms to find real and authentic influencers.

Influencer marketing is the perfect strategy for brands to reap many advantages of being influential through a well-known persona and reach the customers that matter most in a more efficient way. An article on Forbes explains why influencer marketing will explode in 2017. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, etc. are the primary sources.