5 Influencer Marketing Trends That Will Lead You To Success

    Influencer Marketing: A nonpromotional approach to marketing in which brands focus their efforts on opinion leaders, as opposed to direct target market touchpoint. According to forbes.com, Influencer marketing has skyrocketed over the past couple of years. It can help you reach a broader audience, but a trusted influencer creates credibility to your brand and makes it easier to build trust among your followers. Here are some tips to improve your influencer marketing strategy:

1. Greater influence will be more important than a big check.

What is more important is a great influence, not a great check. A big influence is a greater thing to offer to a person. They have more things to take away from influencers that will benefit them in the long run regardless of the outcome. An influencer is is only as valuable as the influence he or she has. So if you build an internal influence along with the influence you have gained from other influencers, you have something strong to bring to the table. 

2. Micro-influencers will be the new influencers.

Important niche and trade sites tend to attract and engage a larger audience. The same idea is also applied to influencer marketing, who have an 82% approval rating, which proves that you don't need huge-mega influencers to advocate for your brand. Companies focus and rely on the most influential people in their areas, which isn't always the best option. The best influencer marketing strategies can come from anyone, specifically one who hasn't let their ego get in the way. 

3. Earned influencer marketing will outpace paid efforts.

Often, influencer marketing is categorized as "paid marketing", which is where they pay for their marketing services. But, with the increase of contribution from online publications who are concerned about their work more than their pay, paid marketing has decreased. This area will increase because of influencer marketing because there are way more options than there were ten years ago. Now, there are thousands of channels of distribution that will increase influencer marketing 

4. Paid influencer marketing will become more authentic.

Getting paid to talk about how great a product is won't last forever. But just because influencers will need to explicitly disclose their paid relationships doesn’t mean they can’t also truly enjoy the product, service, or brand they endorse. It's vital to find influencers who actually have an interest to a specific product or brand. Stay away from those who will do anything for a certain amount of money.


5. Influencer relationship management teams will give you the edge

Influencers are beginning to become as important, if not more important than your actual customers, so its best to treat them with similar care. More companies use influencer relationship management teams to focus on outreach and relationship-building with influencers. So if you’re still half-assing your approach to influencer marketing, don’t expect to see incredible results. Carefully manage your influencer relationships to compete with other companies. 

Influencer marketing will only increase from this point in marketing. It's important to stay ahead of the curve and prepare for the next major marketing trend.

-Jackson