The power of influencer marketing: how to choose the right influencers for your brand

When was the last time you bought something after getting a recommendation for it from another person? These are the most valuable tips that we often proactively seek out ourselves, because it's one thing to see an advertisement, but quite another to hear a first-hand opinion from someone who has used the product. If you think about it, that's influencer marketing in everyone's daily life.

It is this authenticity of word-of-mouth recommendations that is at the heart of the huge success of influencer marketing. Influencers have great power, but also even greater responsibility because many consumers base their buying decisions on their advice.

What makes influencer marketing a successful strategy for many businesses and how to choose the right influencers for your business will be found out below. But first...

What is influencer marketing?

Influencers are trusted because they have expertise in a given area or because users perceive them as peers.

Interesting facts about influencer marketing:

• Instagram is the most popular influencer marketing platform, and according to HubSpot, Facebook is the most effective.
• Of all the generations, Gen Z's trust influencers the most. In 2023, 33% of Gen Zs bought something after a recommendation from an influencer , according to HubSpot data.
• Influencer marketing drives the highest ROI of all digital techniques.

Influencer Marketing and Psychology. Why trust influencers?

Actually, the answer is very simple and it lies in the science of human behaviour and perception - psychology. When someone:

• whom we admire and like;
• with whom we identify and perceive ourselves as similar;
• whom we perceive as an authority figure...

...recommend something to us, we're willing to trust him. It's just the way our brains work - a discovery made in the 1980s by psychologist Robert Cialdini and described in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

In it, Cialdini describes six principles of persuasion, and decades later adds a seventh. In influencer marketing we find four of them:

• Authority - we trust people more easily who have (or appear to have) expertise in a particular area;
• liking - we trust people we like more easily;
• social proof - we copy the actions of the group we identify with;
• unity - the more we identify with a group, the more their actions influence our decisions.

The Influencer Marketing approach works because it combines the tactics listed withword-of-mouth, which is an effective method for asking for and getting referrals.

Influencer marketing real life example

An interesting real-life example of how these techniques come into play comes from Facebook and the communities there. Parenting groups on the social networking site have naturally spawned a multitude of influencers who have amassed thousands of loyal followers in 2-3 years. These are women who share details of their daily lives with children at home, recipes and tips for child nutrition and recommendations for clean and quality products.

Some of them, after 2-3 years of influencing as a hobby, decided to turn it into their main occupation and it seems to be working for them because they are creating more and more polished content and partnering with more and more brands.

What makes other mothers believe them? Chaldini's principles are clearly seen in this example, in which one (sleep-deprived/nervous/guilty) mother identifies with another (sleep-deprived/nervous/guilty) mother. When the latter says "Product X is great, it helped me a lot" or "My evil child eats product Y to bursting", the former will be hard-pressed not to try the solution to all her problems.

The Influencers in the example were successful because they were authentic. After all, who would risk their own child's health, and when you see a toddler pounding yogurt straight from the bucket, it clearly can't be a lie.

How to choose the right influencers for your brand in seven steps?

Now that we've clarified the principles on which influencer marketing works, you're probably wondering how to find the right people for your business. It's not the most complicated task, but like anything involving relationships with people, it can sometimes take time. Here's how we'd approach it - in seven steps:

1. Determine the goals of your business that you want to achieve with your influencer campaign.

Every marketing idea you have has to start here, otherwise it's like shooting in the dark. The effectiveness of any campaign depends on its objectives. Whether you want to increase brand awareness, drive more traffic or increase new orders is reflected in the messages and techniques as well as the budget you allocate.

Influencer marketing, for example, would be extremely effective for gaining new customers because, with the right choice of content creator, it is assumed that their audience overlaps with yours in terms of demographics and interests.

2. Identify your target audience.

This is key, as well as creating a profile of the perfect customer (buyer persona). If your perfect customer is a man over 45 who is interested in a healthy lifestyle and goes to the gym regularly, you probably won't find him in the audience of mom influencers.

Ideally, the chosen influencer could be a customer themselves and try out your products to make the recommendation credible to the audience.

3. Do research on influencers who have expertise and/or interests related to your niche/industry.

Search by hashtags on social media, especially Instagram this will work well for you. Compile a short list of potential influencers who are in your sphere and have the reach and number of followers you want.

4. Choose the most relevant influencers for your business

Your best bet would be to find an influencer who isn't in it just for the money.

Authenticity really is the most valued quality in social networking nowadays, when anyone can pay for a post, and filters can make it more beautiful.

The quality of content created and audience engagement should guide you in choosing influencers for your brand. The number of followers isn't as crucial as making sure the influencer's values and image match yours.

In the selection process you can ask yourself the following questions:

• Does this influencer and his lifestyle match my brand image?
• Has he worked with any of my competitors?
• What is his audience and how much of a match is it with mine?
• Is/would he be a customer himself?
• Do I have the budget to work with this influencer?

5. Make contact in a personal and authentic way

This step may take a little longer, but your efforts will pay off in the long run. Once you choose the influencer(s) you'd like to work with, follow them and start engaging with their content. This way you have the opportunity to start the communication in a personalized way and tie it to their content and their products. Here's a visual example:

It's just a framework to put your own style into and describe the details around your products. In subsequent communication, you can discuss in more detail how you envision the partnership, what budget will be needed, and describe exactly and clearly how many and what publications need to be produced.

6. Start preparing your influencer marketing campaign

You already know what the goals are, so this step should not be too difficult. Discuss with the influencer what content you're going for in the campaign and who will produce it.

Remember, this person will be representing your business, so make sure they know the guidelines you follow in your communication - such as slogans, soundbites, preferred words, etc.

7. Analyse the results

After the end of each campaign comes the most important step - analysis of the results. Pay attention to metrics like social engagement , post reach, brand recognition, traffic, conversions, ROI, and follower count. That way, you can make a decision whether to repeat these types of campaigns or change something that isn't working well.

Influencer marketing is an effective strategy for increasing conversions, new customers, brand recognition and other important metrics for growing your business. The positive thing about it is that things happen in a natural (at least on the surface) way and consumers easily trust it - if you've chosen the right person, of course.

If you need help with your influencer marketing strategy, don't hesitate to turn to us, the digital wizards at ADvantage!