All About Influencer Marketing On Instagram: The Benefits And How To Get Started

If you use Instagram or any other social media platform, then you might have seen users with massive followings promoting and advertising the benefits of a certain product or brand. You’ll see these kinds of posts from individuals helping brands sell more purchasable things that you can think of under the sun. Chances are, if you opened Instagram right now, you won’t be able to get past ten posts without seeing someone you are following promoting a product or brand. This is what we call influencer marketing, and the semi-celebrities who perform this type of marketing are known as influencers.

Influencers are popular social media users who have established a loyal audience of followers and who have large amounts of post engagements. Many of them are considered experts or lifestyle gurus, and even celebrities in their field or niche, whether it is beauty, fitness, tech and more. Influencers also happen to have the power to extend their trustworthiness and credibility to the brands that they are endorsing.

It has been reported that 92% of people who have tried influencer marketing on Instagram have reportedly seen improvements in their sales and customer engagements. More than any platform for advertising, Instagram influencers have the potential to cause the deepest impact on the purchasing habits of your consumers.

If you are a business who wants to promote your products and services online, influencer marketing is one of the best ways to get your brand noticed, if not the best in today’s social media run world. If you’re still unsure of whether influencer marketing is the right strategy for you and your brand, then this article is here to help you make an informed decision.

With this article, we’ll give you more information about Instagram influencers, why they are great for your business, and how to reach them.

Benefits of influencer marketing

Instagram influencer marketing is one of the most popular and effective forms of marketing today. We’ve listed only some of the benefits of Influencer marketing that will help you in deciding whether this popular marketing strategy is the right strategy for you.

1. Build trust

Today’s consumers form their trust in brands through user reviews. Consumers today are prudent enough to do their own online research before buying a product by seeing what experts and influencers have to say about it first. Influencers are considered trusted experts in their niche, and they make it their job to come up with winning testimonials for their followers and your brand. Having a trusted expert promote your product will boost your credibility and people’s trust in your services.

2. Influencer ads are ads people want to see

Believe it or not, many people aren’t fond of pop-up ads on YouTube or the retargeting ads they see on social media of the products they were viewing on Amazon just a few minutes ago. In fact, as technology advances and the ad targeting becomes more accurate, it feels as though brands are following us around the internet and are creeping up on us.

Social media influencers, on the other hand, are seen are less invasive and less pushy forms of advertising. To many users, they don’t look like advertising at all, even if they are endorsing your products. That’s because influencers know how to talk to and engage their audience in a very personal and meaningful way.

3. Accurately target your niche

If you can find Instagram influencers whose online identity aligns with your brand then that means that your target market exists and is proliferating in their following list, making their following list a great place for your brand to tap into.

Instagram influencers effectively gather people who are interested in one niche and lifestyle into a single community, with them as the ultimate guru or spokesperson for the lifestyle and products that they are promoting. This makes Instagram influencer marketing a great way for you to gain new customers!

4. Improve brand awareness

Influencers can help you expand your reach to new audiences and improve brand awareness. Remember that when you align your brand to an Instagram influencer whose niche and interests align with your product, then your brand becomes visible to their audience who also happen to be your target market.

When you partner with an Instagram influencer, they will recommend your products and your brand, making you more visible and familiar to their loyal followers. This not only increases your reach but also improves brand awareness on social media. Your target market will know more about you, what you have to offer, and why your brand and products are great, thanks to the social media influencer you have build a working relationship with.

5. Provides value to your customers

Many of today’s consumers search for and listen to influencer reviews to help them make a purchasing decision. This makes Instagram influencers a great source for relaying the value of your product or brand to your target audience.

Influencers are considered experts in their niche and are today’s go-to source for product information and reviews. It is an influencer’s job to provide valuable insight about your product by relaying how your brand is the solution to a problem that your target audience might have, and provide them with educational information on how your brand can improve the quality of their lives.

6. It’s cheap

That’s right, influencer marketing is cheap and it is effective. Many people might find the price of paying $150 for a post promoting a product a bit too much, but it’s actually cheaper and more worth it than you think because influencer advertising generates as much as 11 times more than banner ads in terms of ROI. A study on Instagram influencer marketing has found that for every $1 that you spend on your influencer, you get $6.50 in return.

What about ads based marketing?

Banner blindness exists. It is very much a thing and it is extremely prevalent. Banner blindness is what we call the widespread phenomenon of users consciously or even subconsciously ignoring the ads on websites that they visit. People just find banner ads intrusive and not worth paying attention to, which has contributed to the rise and use of ad blocker plugins to stop online ads from being displayed on browsers.

While banner ads do still have their place in online marketing, social media influencers are now at the forefront of brand advertising on the internet. This is because, unlike banner ads, people absolutely admire the kinds of content they see these Instagram stars post, and that’s why they have such huge followings. People follow them because they want to know more about their lifestyle and see what products and services they find valuable.

Finding the Right Influencer for your Industry

Now that you are convinced that you have to try influencer marketing yourself, it’s time for you to find the right influencer to promote your brand. Make sure that while you search to create a list of potential influencers that you have more than one option to choose from!

Here are the things you need to consider first when looking for influencers:

1. Your target audience

We always have to start with what your brand represents, who you are, what you do, and who you do it for. Know your audience and what solutions you are providing that make their lives easier and why they might need and want to own your products. You have to clearly identify who you are trying to influence and sell to before you can begin looking for an influencer to market your products.

2. Your goals

Before we proceed in your search for an influencer, it’s important that you establish your marketing goals and objectives. Remember that the objective isn’t about finding the influencer with as many followers as possible, but in finding an influencer whose niche aligns with yours, and who has lots of follower engagements. The influencer you should ultimately choose should also be a person who knows how to produce superb content and knows how to effectively endorse a product.

The Best Ways to Find your Influencer

1. Search on Instagram

The natural place for you to start when looking for an Instagram Influencer is on the Instagram app itself. Below you will find options on what you can do on the app to help you find your ideal Instagram influencer.

2. Have a look at your followers

Many brands are actually finding their influencers by looking at who is following them. Have a look at your account and try to look for the followers who seem particularly jazzed or excited about your brand’s existence. Next, take a look at their followers to see if they have a high following themselves. Anything from 10,000 followers is great. They might just become very helpful in your Instagram advertising campaign.

3. Search for Hashtags

If you’re done looking at your followers and everyone there appears to be a no-go, don’t despair, Instagram has other features that can help you, namely hashtags. Hashtags can help you find influencers who may be interested in your niche and the products your brand offers.

Use Instagram’s search option to search for hashtags relevant to your brand and look through the posts and people. Try to note the ones that appeal to you and your brand.

4. Influencer marketing networks and tools

Influencer networks can be a great place for you to search for and find influencers appropriate for your brand and niche category. Many influencers are listed in networks and they are eager for collaborations on Instagram. There are many free tools to help you find influencers on the web and many apps available for you to browse in your search for an influencer.

These influencer networks can categorize your search and help you find the most trending topics, photos, and videos related to your niche on the web and to find the top influencers behind these posts. A few that you can try are:

The web is teeming with a few of these online influencer networks for you to choose and find influencers from.

5. Analyze the Instagram influencers you find

Be on the lookout for fake influencers. Yes, there are fake accounts on Instagram where people buy their followers by the thousands. There are apps like SocialBlade that can help you analyze the legitimacy of an Instagram account by tracking the rate that they lose and gain followers. If you catch an influencer gaining 10,000 followers in one day alone, then chances are these follows were bought.

Another way to detect whether an influencer is buying followers is to view their post engagements. If they are racking up 100,000 followers and their posts aren’t getting liked or commented on as much as you would expect, then chances are, their followers are either not real or inactive.

If you find an influencer who has been buying fake followers and uses bots to create engagements, then you would want to avoid them because what you need are authentic influencers with an authentic following.

The Approach

Now that you have a list of potential influencers at hand it’s time to think about your approach and what you will need to do when you get in touch with them.

1. Have a marketing campaign in mind

Make sure before you approach any influencers that you have the outline of a campaign already in place for your potential influencer to use as a guide. There are a number of popular influencer methods for marketing, for instance: Sponsored posts, contests or giveaways, live video reviews, event promotions, and much more.

2. Get in Touch

Now that you have finally found your influencers and have a campaign in mind, it’s time to get into contact with them. Influencers usually leave some kind of email or contact information on their Instagram bio for people to make business-related inquiries and offers. If not, you can always send them a direct message through Instagram.

When you finally have their contact information, craft a formal message. This message should serve to introduce you and your company or brand. Remember to be as clear as possible from the get-go about your intentions and your offers.

Make sure to give the influencers of your choice as much information about you and your brand as possible, because just as there are fake influencers, influencers are also being offered fake endorsement opportunities. This message also serves as the opportunity for you to discuss the product that you wish to market and to discuss your budget.

If they don’t get back to you right away, no worries. Remember that influencers are being peppered by brand offers all the time and will take some time to get back to you. This is why you have to keep more than one option at hand.

Back to You

Now that you know the value of Influencer marketing on Instagram, and ways on how to search for the best influencers to represent your brand, it’s time for you to set forth into the world of influencer marketing.
Do you think that influence marketing can help you make more sales online? If you are still unsure that this is the best marketing strategy for your brand, feel free to start a conversation with Ecommerce Pro today. We love to hear from our readers and to discuss ideas and share solutions for your online store. Together we will help you build a better online marketing campaign.

Originally published at https://ecommercepro.com on November 24, 2019.