Different Types of Influencers and Finding the Right One

Owing to the huge success of influencer marketing, it has now become a part of the marketing strategy of most of the big brands out there. Since the money they make is so much more than they’re investing in this channel of digital marketing, no wonder it is being included in their marketing strategies.

But the most important thing that needs to be kept in mind is choosing the right influencer(s). Contrary to popular belief, this is not an easy task. However, we have decoded it for you.

Who are Influencers?

Influencers are people who have amassed a following for themselves on social media. They are usually looked up to as idols or experts of their niche by their followers. Their rising popularity is due to the quality content they churn out consistently as well as the bond they nurture with their followers.

What sets them apart from traditional celebrities is that influencers share pieces – whatever they’re comfortable with – of their personal lives with the people.

When it comes to digital marketing, influencers can contribute actively to any strategy by giving a fresh perspective on things because of their knowledge about their niche and followers.

Further, your product or service automatically becomes more credible coming from them. This in turn will reflect positively on your brand and help you in gaining the trust of the audience.

Different Types of Influencers

Influencers can be divided into various categories. Some of these are:

Bloggers and Vloggers

Bloggers are one of the types of Influencers who maintain blogs and use their social media platforms to update their readers about upcoming blogs and promote their content. Popular bloggers are considered to be experts in their fields and usually, their audience eagerly waits for their next blog.

Vloggers do the same thing but the only difference is that their content is in video format and they use platforms such as YouTube to showcase it. This content can be of varying length, and the topics could be anything, from daily life snippets to travel vlogs.

Reality TV Stars

Thanks to reality TV shows such as Bigg Boss, certain stars who are not even known to a majority of the public before the show become household names overnight. Therefore, collaborating with contestants from the latest seasons of such reality shows can also be very beneficial for any brand or business.

Social Media Sensations

There are many out there who have built a strong rapport with their followers just by showing glimpses of their personal lives. They have been able to create a name for themselves just by being themselves.

These types of Influencers are social media sensations and even though they aren’t considered to be excerpts, they do influence people’s purchase decisions. This is because of the bond they share with their followers.

Journalists

These are people who have dynamic personalities whose opinions matter to their followers a lot. Over the past few years, they have taken to platforms such as Twitter and Instagram to voice their views.

Working with journalists can do wonders for the reach and reputation of a brand, provided the choice of journalist aligns with your niche.

Micro-Influencers

With a follower count anywhere between 10k – 50k, micro-influencers are trusted by brands because of the close connection they share with their audience. According to a survey, 88% of consumers tend to buy products or services recommended by type of Influencers.

Nano-Influencers

Their follower count is between 1k – 10k. What sets them apart is their super focused content creation, to cater to their audience and the fact that their engagement rate is the highest among all other influencer types. They are perfect for small businesses because of their cost-effectiveness and quality content. Learn more about how to become an influencer.

Mega-influencers

With a massive follower count which starts from 1 million, mega-influencers have high visibility on social media platforms because they’re very active and engage with their audience a lot. These types of Influencers are expensive but the level of reach they have is worth it.

How to Find the Right Influencer?

Follow the steps given below to know how to find the right influencer(s) for your brand:

Know Your Target Audience

To find the right influencer you must know your target audience. The audience is an intrinsic part of influencer marketing and therefore, you need to make sure that you know yours before making any decision about influencers. This is a step that many brands don’t give importance to. Refrain from making this mistake. Get to know your target audience as well as you can.

Set Your Goals

Don’t just select every influencer who is working in your field but choose the right ones. To help you make the right choices, having clarity of your goals is very important.  Your selection will be based on the results you are aiming for.

The goals can be building awareness, lead generation, customer loyalty, audience building, sales, and so on. Therefore, determine your primary goals before choosing the influencers so that you can make decisions accordingly.

Determine which Influencer Campaign You’ll Run

There are various types of influencer campaigns. You need to make sure that the campaign type you choose will help in establishing a connection with the types of influencers you want to work with.

Some of the Different Types of Influencer Campaigns Are:

• Sponsored content: Asking influencers to publish your content or create new content using your products or services
• Discount codes: Enabling influencers to share discount codes on your products to their followers
• Brand ambassadors: Collaborating with an influencer to regularly promote your brand’s products in exchange for discounts or some other perks

Conduct Thorough Research About the Influencers

This research needs to be based on several factors:

Look for Influencers in your Niche

To get to your target market faster, you need to work with influencers who are pretty well established in your niche. To do this, you can set up a Google alert that will notify you about industry-related terms so that you can gather who is creating consistent and quality content in your field.

Find Those Who Work With Your Competitors

Create a list of all the influencers who are already working for your competitors. Since they are already interested in promoting brands like yours, they won’t have an issue working with you. Further, they are better than the influencers who have never mentioned any brand of your niche. So to find the right influencers for you it is better to find those who work with your competitors.

Ensure that the Influencers Share your Audience

When choosing your influencers, don’t focus on whether they belong to your industry or not. If they have the same audience as yours, collaborate with them because your primary goal is to spread your word to your target audience. In fact, it might work out even better because you’ll be getting through to a wider audience as your industries will complement each other.

Understand the Reach of the Influencer

The authority or reach of your influencer is also very important when making a decision about which influencer to choose. Some factors which will help you in ranking them are:

• Follower count
• Engagement rate
• Quality of the content

Engage with Influencers

Upon ranking your top choices, you need to start working on how to engage with them and extend the invitation of working with your brand. An easy way is to just start conversing with them.

Like their posts, retweet their tweets and other such things to build a rapport with them on which you can build. After you have their attention, explain your vision to them. Make them understand why exactly you are choosing them for this task and make them feel valued and respected.

Don’t make them feel like they’re just a means to an end. Make them comfortable and be genuine so that they are also equally invested in your products which will reflect in the work that they do for you.

Conclusion

Businesses are all about making good and viable connections.Influencers are an important part of these connections since, in our times, their value is only increasing. So understanding these different types of influencers is important. Not only is it vital to choose the right candidates but it is equally necessary that you build good and sustainable working relationships with them.