Influencer marketing – the latest weapon in a brands arsenal. But what really is an influencer? How do Micro and Macro influencers differ? Influencer content is powerful on it’s own but what are brands missing? Read our blog to find out…
The role of the influencer is yet to be defined…people say it’s someone with 20,000 followers, others, someone who is passionate about a certain lifestyle, or could it just be a knowledgeable individual brands utilise to promote their products? … There is no set definition.
But one thing’s for sure. They’re powerful. Very powerful for brands who want to create an authentic message and start a dyadic, personal relationship with their customers.
Self exposure
Brands can’t self-expose like real influencers can. Consumers are all too aware of a brands motive – sales and conversion. So, when it comes to advertising, consumers perceive a disconnect between what a brand says and what it does. This leaves consumers suspicious – is this actually a good product? Or are they just trying to sell me things?
Enter the influencer… Using influencers, brands can advertise to customers through a pre-established relationship that already exists between them and followers. This relationship is built on trust and goodwill. It’s evolved over time and so it’s authentic and increasingly real.
Therefore, with a unique identity, influencers have perceived independence from the brands they promote. And so… their recommendations are more trustworthy, reliable and genuine compared to the brand line. And that’s the type of recommendations consumers want brands to promote.
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Percent of customers trust a business more after it is recommended by an influencer
Percent of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertisement
The Micro-Influencer
Trends in influencer marketing are changing. Today, 36% of brands now look towards influencers with smaller followership (less than 10,000) across social media channels to promote their content rather than traditional macro-influencers and popular celebrities.
So why is this the case? Isn’t this counterproductive to brands trying to amplify their message?
Well – The high life of Macro influencers and celebrities, with their millions of followers, private jets and extravagant lifestyle seems increasingly unattainable to the average consumer. Their product promotions on Instagram or videos on YouTube or TikTok can be construed as arrogant to a brands customer- it flaunts a lifestyle that consumers know is unachievable and so they become despondent to their message.
However, ‘micro influencers’ with their smaller followership and more grounded lifestyle, are perceived as ‘more like you and me.’ Their possessions are seen as increasingly affordable to the average person and so their recommendations are more attainable. What’s more, with fewer followers’ micro-influencers can really create that dyadic relationship central to the influencer-follower dynamic. This means their content is more intimate, more engaging, and yes, more impactful.
Micro-Influencers boast up to a 60% increased engagement rate compared to Macro-Influencers.
Ok…so influencers can engage…but can they sell and convert?
When consumers empathise with content from influencers they can often be inspired to purchase. But there are a few things that must happen first:
Integrate influencer content into eCommerce journeys for to validate purchase decisions
It’s often the case that all the great content a brands influencer curates can get lost within millions of hashtags and lost in the social media abys. This means some of your most influential social proof & validation content can be missed by the shoppers who need it most.
Given 85% of shoppers research a product before buying, this runs the risk of them stumbling across your competitors during their research. By integrating this content into ecommerce journeys it automatically provides consumers with the social proof & validation necessary for confident purchases rather than abandoning the journey to search for it themselves elsewhere.
Deliver personalized influencer content to every shopper
When we talk about integrating influencer content into ecommerce journeys we don’t mean static images which are seen by every single shopper at the same stage of the buying journey. We are talking about dynamic influencer content which updates to reflect every shopper.
Males and females subscribe to different types of influencer categories. Women prefer beauty (56%), entertainers (48%) and fashion (48%). Men more commonly follow gamers (54%), technology influencers (46%) and finally entertainers (44%)
What’s more, is that different types of consumers prefer content across different channels:
- % of men who prefer YouTube 64%
- % of women who prefer Instagram 70%
Prove the ROI of your influencer content
Understanding what content drives value is vital but it is not always easy never mind understanding what influencer content actually generates sales. In fact, tracking the ROI of influencer campaigns can be a real headache for marketers. 52% say it’s the biggest challenge they face when running campaigns and even when they perform some analysis it’s often engagement and impressions based rather than sales and conversion:
Influencing buying decisions with influencer content
Knexus delivers personalized influencer content in real-time through dynamic widgets which update to show the relevant influencer, content based on each shopper’s unique profile.
How Knexus makes this possible:
1. Automatically surfaces, index’s & tag’s influencer content: Knexus uses content intelligence to identify all content that’s available to your brand. This can be your brand’s own content living in your CMS, blog, social channels, or influencer & user-generated content. Classifying influencer content to make it structured, indexed and – ultimately – useful is a mammoth manual task. Knexus uses AI to understand the content & automatically tag & index it to ensure it’s intelligently delivered to the right shopper.
2. Unleashes influencer content from social media & integrates it into eCommerce journeys: Knexus uses machine learning to build intelligence around each shopper & customer through the use of transactional & behavioural data. With a single view of all content & an in-depth understanding of each shopper & customer, Knexus uses these insights to pick the most relevant influencer, UGC or brand content to deliver to the shopper at the key moment of their buying journey.
3. Matches influencer content to relevant product recommendations: At the same time as a shopper is consuming an influencer post or video, Knexus automatically displays the related product alongside – making your influencer content shoppable & fostering discovery for a seamless transition to customized products.
4. Understands what influencer content generates sales:Knexus understands what influencer, UGC & brand content actually drives value in terms of sales & conversions. Knexus’ unique content reporting allows brands to understand how each content asset is performing throughout individual customer journeys across the website, CRM campaigns, mobile apps or digital advertising campaigns. Don’t stop at engagement metrics, analyze content based on sales impact – allowing for better-informed content investments.
What’s more, is that the Knexus platform works across multiple channels and content (influencer, UGC & brand content) delivering personalized & shoppable content to the right shopper at the key moment of the buying journey – creating confident purchases. Book a demo.