The use of social media influencers to promote awareness and reach of the brand in order to increase website traffic.

In today’s digital world, social media have become an increasingly important communications channel for building a connection between companies and the public. As social media has become a more integrated part of our lives, influencer marketing has significantly increased. Influencer marketing is a marketing strategy that uses the influence of key individuals or opinion leaders to drive consumers’ brand awareness and/or their purchasing decisions (Brown and Hayes, 2008; Scott, 2015). Freberg et al. (2011), described social media influencers as “a new type of independent third-party endorser who shape audience attitudes through blogs, tweets, and the use of other social media”. People are turning to their favourite Instagram models and YouTube stars for advice and inspiration on purchasing decisions. Since more people are joining social media networks every day, companies have begun to realise they can leverage these platforms for marketing.

Statistics

Statistics showed that 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations. This demonstrates the importance of social media influences for brands to connect with their audiences. As well as this, 40% of customers purchased something after seeing it on Twitter, YouTube or Instagram. Therefore, if consumers feel confident about the influencer’s recommendation, they are more likely to make a purchase and as a result brands are able to piggyback on the trust of these influencers. It is evident that major brands as a result of the increasing importance of social media, plan to increase the amount they spend on influencer marketing. Brands and marketers are beginning to realise the incredible result that influence marketing can produce. As a result, statistics prove that an increase of 67% of marketers are planning to increase their budgets in the next 12 months particularly on Instagram. An increase in the amount that marketers spend on influencer marketing is believed to significantly help boost brand awareness, reach new audiences and improve brand advocacy (Digital Marketing Institute, n.d.).

Categorising influencers and finding the right ones

There are a variety of different types of social influencers and they can be categorised in a number of ways. For instance, a way popular way of categorising influences is by their audience’s size.

Type	Audience size	Advantages	Disadvantages
Micro-influencers	Influencers with smaller audiences, usually under 100k followers on social media.	–       Cheaper to collaborate with –       You will reach a much more target audience.	–       Smaller audience so don’t reach as many people – as a result will use several influencers as part of the same campaign in order to reach a larger target audience.
Medium-sized influencers	Influencers who have about 100kto 1 million social followers.	–       Will reach a larger audience, making them an attractive option.	–       More expensive to work with and harder to get.
Macro-influencers	The most successful social influences around. They have massive audiences of over 1 million followers and therefore are celebrities in their own right.	–       Have huge audiences so therefore can reach millions of people.	–       The bigger you are on social media, the more people you attract who may not be necessarily your particular target audience. –       Can be difficult to collaborate with. –       Very expensive to work with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to Hall (2016), “social media influencers have usually already established themselves by specialising in specific areas. This means that consumers are more likely to accept or trust influencers’ opinions when those influencers collaborate with brands that correspond well to their personal areas of expertise”. Follower numbers however are not always the best way to choose an influencer. A more important factor is how influential they truly are. It is better to work with a social media influencer who has 10k followers and has real influence over followers who have 100k followers but has little influence (Smart Insights, 2019). Therefore, brands need to choose wisely through not only looking at their audience’s size but also by how influential they are. The way in which they will successfully find the perfect influencer who is going to therefore benefit the brand best is through thorough research and studying the influencer in depth before collaborating.  Nonetheless, some authors disagree with the efficiency of influencer marketing. Johansen and Guldvik (2017) conducted an online experiment where they compared participants’ reactions to influencer-created marketing ads with regular ads. It was made evident that influencer marketing was not more efficient than traditional methods, as it did not directly influence purchasing intentions.

However, it is evident through statistics and in general that influencer marketing is most defiantly a growing form of successful promotion for brands even though some may state otherwise. They contribute massively in brand awareness which is one of the most important factors for business success. Hence why I chose to propose this idea for Zara to improve its website traffic.

 

 

References

Bridges, E. Briesch, R.A. and Shu, S.B. (2009), “The impact of advertising of child adult and all family RTE cereal markets”, available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=98849E518030408B09F97EFC14B13229?doi=10.1.1.111.9627&rep=rep1&type=pdf(accessed 18 July 2016). [Google Scholar]

Brown, Duncan and Nick Hayes(2008), Influencer Marketing: Who Really Influences Your Customers?, Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann.[Crossref], , [Google Scholar]

Digital Marketing Institute. (n.d.). 20 Influencer Marketing Statistics that Will Surprise You. [online] Available at: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/en-gb/blog/20-influencer-marketing-statistics-that-will-surprise-you [Accessed 18 Feb. 2019].

Freberg, Karen, Kristin Graham, Karen McGaughey, and Laura A.Freberg (2011), “Who Are the Social Media Influencers? A Study of Public Perceptions of Personality,”Public Relations Review, 37 (1), 90–92.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®], , [Google Scholar]

Hall, John (2015), “Build Authentic Audience Experiences through Influencer Marketing,” Forbes, December 17,https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2015/12/17/build-authentic-audience-experiences-through-influencer-marketing/#589d25fa4ff2

Johansen, Ida Kristin, and Camilla Sveberg Guldvik (2017), “Influencer Marketing and Purchase Intentions: How Does Influencer Marketing Affect Purchase Intentions?,”master’s thesis, Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen. [Google Scholar]

Scott, David Meerman (2015), The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.[Crossref], , [Google Scholar]

Smart Insights. (2019). How to use social influencers to promote your retail business | Smart Insights. [online] Available at: https://www.smartinsights.com/online-pr/influencer-marketing/how-to-use-social-influencers-to-promote-your-retail-business/ [Accessed 28 Feb. 2019].