Influencer Marketing: Can an Outsider Really Help Build My Brand?

The big hurdle many businesses face as they work to build their brand is reaching their target audience. This is where influencer marketing comes into play, exposing messaging to key demographics. It’s one of the fastest tactics for increasing visibility for your brand — and one of the most cost-effective too.

The process of influencer marketing involves reaching out to leaders in one’s industry to implore their expertise. This may mean reposting influencer content or offering to write guest posts for their sites. According to a research study conducted by Chief Marketer, 69% of marketers view influencer marketing as effective. As an increasing amount of customers use ad blockers while surfing the web, it’s important to find alternative avenues to reach audiences.

Build Trust and Credibility

Influencers have already built their credibility in the industry. Establishing a relationship with these leaders in your field will help you gain the trust of consumers. Cultivating relationships with influencers will increase sales of your product or service. However, you can’t just reach out to anyone with an online presence. Specific influencers will have access to certain demographics, while others find themselves shut out of those groups.

Accessing an Influencer’s Authority

There are several different ways you can channel an influencer’s authority:

• Repost influencer content and embed anchor text in your own articles linking to their site
• Request that the influencer shares your content
• Publish original content as a guest post on the influencer’s site
• Have an influencer write a review of your products or services

Finding the Right Influencers

When you’re locating the influencers in your market you want to pinpoint those with extensive knowledge of your industry. Take a look at the influencer’s audience and consider whether their following would be interested in what you have to offer. Look at the level of engagement between the industry leader and consumers to see if they’re a reliable source for consistent content; this will help you decide whether an individual will contribute to the success of your brand.

Increase Brand Visibility

Influencer marketing can expose your brand to new audiences and give your business a more influential voice. Your focus should be to create valuable quality content that influencers will want to share with their followers. You can track whether it successfully helps you accomplish your objectives via the number of shares, likes, and comments. Google Analytics will also allow you to see which sites led others to your page; this will give you an idea of whether or not to continue to pursue relationships with particular influencers.

Improve Content Quality

As you develop content to post on your site, you’ll be able to fill your content calendar with an influencer’s work. It will heighten the level of expertise on your site. This will help you boost engagement as your target demographic views you as a valuable source of information. Choose an influencer whose content mirrors the same scope of subjects that you tackle. One tool you can use to find those addressing your areas of focus is BuzzSumo. You can search for specific topics and keywords to view individuals who will have the greatest impact on your brand.

Expand Your Reach

As you connect with leaders in your field, your content will be present before those already interested in your niche. As you build your brand, you will initially be limited when it comes to reaching a wider audience.Reach out to leaders in your field through social media; ask them to write content for your brand or compose a review. Influencer marketing can produce a significant return on investment as you appeal directly to those interested in your industry. This is good news as the cost of influencer marketing is low.

Improve Your SEO

Influencer marketing is a great way to help those struggling to improve their search engine optimization ranking. The best way to get your site recognized by influencers is to construct a content-driven influencer campaign. Provide video or text with content on a specific topic to influencers. Get your site to appear as the resource of information rather than a sponsor to lend your business more credibility.

Choose a domain name that communicates what your brand represents. You want those who are led to your site to easily remember it so they can recall it for the future. As you gain more exposure with the help of influencers, your site will appear higher up on major search engines.

Engage with New Audiences

Stiff competition makes it important to set yourself apart from the pack; one way to do this is to foster relationships with consumers. Ask influencers to help in your outreach efforts by promoting your brand among email subscribers, blog readers, and social media followers. Monitor social media using tools such as Hootsuite, which notifies you when your brand is mentioned. Contribute to conversations centered on your brand and answer consumer questions. Your level of engagement is an indicator of how much you’re invested in your product or service.

If you’re seeking to build your brand, influencer marketing offers a cost-effective way to expand your reach quickly. It will build up your credibility in the eyes of your target audience. Businesses seeking to build up their brand’s reputation can’t afford to not invest their efforts into forming relationships with influencers. They can increase your brand’s visibility helping you acquire more customers.

Photo Credit: felipe rivera