Back in the day, contextual advertising turned out to be much more efficient than print one: whether billboards and articles in magazines or handing out flyers. The world changes and advertising methods change together with it. People spend more and more time on social media and are used to not noticing advertising on the news feed. How to reach out to them?
It’s simple: find a popular person, who has thousands (or even millions of readers), and place advertising on his/her page.
People trust feedback on the Internet in 70% of cases and almost in 90% of cases – their friends and acquaintances who recommend them something. If you choose to place your advertising on a blogger’s page, you can hit your target audience for sure, because the majority of influencers have their own followers on social networks already, who share their interests and trust their recommendations.
Large companies engage big stars to this end, for example, Huawei invited the Hollywood stars Scarlett Johansson and Henry Cavill as brand ambassadors.
As a result, the brand has become more recognized, and it affected the sales positively. However, to engage a brand ambassador may be very expensive — one publication with a celebrity may cost from $700 to $20 000. But what to do if a company cannot afford such the budget?
You can continue placing traditional advertising, but it’s also possible to analyze your audience and find influencers – people who have not many followers (usually up to 10 000) but much influence and authority among their readers.
A post published by an influencer may turn out to be not only cheaper but also may bring better results than one published by a celebrity. If you sell golf clubs, more potential customers from your city will see an advertising post on a local female golfer’s page; and on a model’s page advertising will not only look irrelevant but also will not reach those it is for (not speaking of that it will be way more expensive):
How to choose an influencer?
Analyze the profile of the influencer with such tools as Mojo. When choosing, pay attention not to the number of followers, but to the activity on the blogger’s page. If posts have approximately from 2% to 7% likes and comments compared to the whole blogger’s audience, you can consider him or her for promoting your business.
Markerly leader Sarah Ware’s experience clearly illustrates the advantages of engaging a large number of influencers opposed to placing advertising on celebrities’ pages. The company placed the advertising phyto tea on the Kardashian and Jenner sisters’ pages, and then – on about 40 influencers’ pages. The experiment resulted in that posts of the influencers with smaller audience turned out to be more efficient than the advertising on the celebrities’ pages. Look for posts with your unique hashtags – and you will find an influencer with a sufficient number of followers. Look through your followers: there should be several influencers among them. And do not forget to pay attention to people they follow: the fewer the number of followed accounts is – the more likely he/she has a small audience.
And finally – the most obvious advice: Google it. Create a search request based on your niche and city keywords, for example, “Golfers, Moscow”.
In short
For ones engaging a brand ambassador or a celebrity is a matter of prestige or principles. Nevertheless, figures speak for themselves and facts show that more and more brands choose influencers which already have the loyal audience that pays attention to their recommendations and trusts them.
At all events, you always can choose, that’s why weigh up all pros and cons before launching the next advertising campaign.
