Influencer marketing is like a revamped version of celebrity endorsements in many ways. You reach out to popular individuals and partner with them to advertise your brand on social media. 

While influencer advertising is not an entirely new concept, it still confuses many business owners and social media marketers. There are plenty of initial doubts and queries to deal with: What to publish, who to collaborate with, and how to manage social media content. 

Delving into content marketing can be hectic and to make the journey a bit easier for you, we’ve compiled this introductory guide. Keep reading to learn how to do influencer marketing and strategies to focus on. 

What is Influencer Marketing? 

Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing where a brand collaborates with a popular individual to promote its products or services. Usually, influencers are considered to be subject matter experts in a certain niche and are trusted by their followers to make good recommendations. 

In other words, Influencer marketing is a strategic approach to captivating a specific market segment with the help of well-known and trusted people.

Benefits of Influencer Marketing 

Did you know that 86% of B2B brands consider influencer marketing successful?

According to Ursula Ringham, Head of Global Influencer Marketing, SAP: “If a B2B brand does not already have an influencer marketing program, it is a missed opportunity.”

Here are a few benefits of influencer marketing to note:

Influencers can help build brand awareness

Not seeing impressive sales figures? If so, you’re probably missing the power of an engaged audience and social media hype. Partnering with influencers with massive reach can help you infiltrate the market, spread the word about your brand, and establish social proof.

You can leverage the power of long-term relationships

Bryan Kramer once said, “There’s no more B2B or B2C. It’s H2H: Human to Human.” 

Safe to say, connecting with people is more important than blatant promotion. And what better way to appeal to your audiences’ relatability than by partnering with their trusted influencers? Long-term collaborations will also help build credibility in the eyes of an average consumer. 

Give your social media accounts a much-needed boost 

More followers will get you more reach, which ultimately is going to impact your brand’s website traffic and sales positively. Working with influencers will get you seen in the digital landscape and boost the following count on your socials. 

Let’s have a look at Bonus Benefits: 

• Influencer marketing can be a smart way to beat ad blockers! 
• It will inspire the ‘halo effect’ and create an overall positive impression. 

How to Create Social Media Influencer Marketing Strategy? 

Like any other social media strategy, influencer advertising is all about identifying your goals and devising a plan to meet them. As such, the first step to focus on is finding the right influencers in your niche. Once you have a list of potential profiles ready, you can move to the next steps. 

Here are 4 social media influencer marketing strategies you should know: 

Find and connect with influencers 

You need to find influencers – we have already established that! But how can you do so? 

Firstly, you must know of a few names who are dominating the social sphere in your industry. If not, go to any social media channel and type the primary keyword that best defines your brand. You’ll be able to easily spot top contributors and content creators. 

Additionally, you can also use tools like: 

• Influencer Analytics: This tool by Semrush lets you find relevant individuals for influencer advertising simply by entering keywords or channels. You can also see metrics for a specific influencer. 
  
• BuzzSumo: Here you can find influencers based on widely shared content and top sharers for different social media channels. 

When it comes to connecting with influencers, you can reach out to them directly or contact their managers. For celebrities, you might need to proceed via an agency instead.

The cost of working with influencers, according to a study by Influencer Marketing Hub, is: 

Type of Influencer	Number of Followers	Instagram	TikTok	YouTube
Nano	10,000 or less	$10-100	$5-25	$20-200
Micro	10,000-50,000	$100-500	$25-125	$200-1,000
Mid-Tier	50,000-500,000	$500-5,000	$125-1,250	$1,000-10,000
Macro	500,000-1 million	$5,000-10,000	$1,250-2,500	$10,000-20,000
Mega	1 million or more	$10,000+	$2,500+	$20,000+

Source- Coursera

Decide your key messaging 

Once you’re aware of the target audience, their buyer personas, and influencers in your niche, it is time to find out the campaign’s key messaging. 

Ask questions like: Are you planning to improve brand awareness amongst new and existing audiences or promote a new product launch? Do you want to drive direct sales or bring a new feature to light? 

You can run different types of influencer marketing campaigns like guest posting, sponsored content, takeovers, affiliates, contests, etc. Find out what your competitors have been doing in the past and what is likely to yield positive results. 

Come up with a proper management plan 

Remember, you can’t treat the influencers the same as your employees. As such, you need to have a proper onboarding process and a management plan to ensure smooth workflow. 

Based on the resources available, you can decide whether you want to contact them yourself, hire an agency, or use an influencer marketing platform. 

Side by side, ensure that you are maintaining open communication and letting them know your expectations beforehand. Doing so will reduce the to and fro between your team and the influencers’. 

Bonus Tip: Let them have creative control and avoid micromanaging at every step to get the best results possible. 

Revise your strategy regularly 

Now that your influencer marketing campaign is up and running, the next step is to track its performance and make changes accordingly. 

Before proceeding further, it is crucial to know more about social media metrics and which particular KPIs are best suited for your strategy. For more information, head over to Social Media Metrics: 5 Social media metrics you need to track in 2024. 

Tracking data will help you know what works best for your brand in terms of influencer advertising and what doesn’t! Based on that, you can further revise the strategy and work accordingly. 

To get real-time insights for your advertising campaigns, using an analytics tool like Vaizle is your best bet. The Social Media Competitor Analysis Tool helps you track metrics like fan growth, engagement rate, top-performing hashtags, and posts for your account and compare them with your competitors. 

Vaizle now offers exclusive access to all paid features for $1 only. Sign up for the 7-day trial and explore our range of tools — including social media, ad, and competitive SM analysis. Also, try our newly launched Ads to Google Sheet connectors to make your marketing journey insightful. Cancel or change plans anytime.