If you are in the business of digital marketing and branding, or digital advertising, there are chances that you have come across the term – “Influencer Marketing” or Influencers, or Micro-Influencers. No! They are not superspreaders of Influenza. But, they are indeed superspreaders of information about a particular product or a service or a brand.
To define them in simple words, they are individuals with tremendous social media ‘fan’ following and are considered to be experts within their niche.
It is believed that influencer marketing works wonders because of quite a few things – firstly, it reinforces trust with the brand because of the followers of that particular ‘Influencer’ have. When an influencer recommends a product/service of a brand; that becomes a social proof for its customers. Okay now! Lots of jargon being tossed around? Let’s catch ‘em all, one by one!
Social Proof
This is not about proving your existence on social media. Social Proof was a term coined by Robert Cialdini in his book – Influence, published in 1984. He initially termed this phenomenon as informational social influence.
When people imitate the actions of others so as to initiate a particular behavior in a given situation, that’s what Social Proof is all about.
We have TikTok stars and Insta-celebs today who earn so much in a month that a government employee would, in a year. Well, the value of these influencers has indeed shot up to the stars. But, why is that?
Insta-Value
According to a report by Influencer Marketing Hub, 67% of brands use Instagram for influencer marketing. While Instagram is still leading the influencer marketing bandwagon, the percentage plummeted from 80% in 2020. There are so many influencers in the market that even they have to market their influence! But, how many types of influencers exist exactly?
Influencer Types
Understanding the types of influencers is more or less like finding a needle in the haystack. It’s a cliché, but technology has made magnets stronger. So, here’s a categorical list of these influencer types.
- Mega-influencers – Those with more than a million followers
- Macro-influencers – Those with 500,000 to 1 million followers
- Mid-tier Influencers – Those with 50,000 to 500,000 followers
- Micro-influencers – Those with 10,000 to 50,000 followers
- Nano-influencers – Those with 1,000 to 10,000 followers
There’s no limit when it comes to using these influencers to enhance the brand value. But, there’s still a multitude of limits when it comes to the characters that are being used. We would talk in length (without character limits) about character limits in our subsequent article.
At 3 Dots Design Pvt. Ltd., we believe that influencer marketing has the power to change the game for any brand if used the right way. With every influencer holding a niche in specific industries, even a nano-influencer could create an impact that a mega-influencer would, with the right budget and targeting. That’s the beauty of the advertising game and we (advertising professionals) are the Jerry Maguire’s of it.