You’ve seen those beautiful people posting on Youtube, Instagram and many other social media platforms. Posting with a product and talking about how great it is followed by #ad. Well who are these people? And how can you use them to promote your own brand? Do you pay them or just give them free products? How many followers do they need to have them be worth your time? What platform is best to use for your product? Influencers use many different platforms to promote products such as: Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat, Facebook and blogs. You have many people and platforms to pick one but today I’m going to use Instagram as my example.
Lets define an Influencer: Influencers have specialized knowledge, authority or insight into a specific subject. Their pre-existing presence in a niche makes them a useful launching pad for brands in search of credibility. 85% of marketers engaged in influencer marketing in 2017 and 92% said their campaigns were effective.
Source: https://sproutsocial.com/glossary/influencer/
Influencers have a decent sized audience in which they can spread the word about your products. There are different types of influencers and they also come with different types of social media platforms to promote products. First, what types of influencers can you choose from in order to find the right person to promote your product?
Types of influencers:
- Celebrities: Artists, athletes, and pop culture stars.
- Industry experts and thought leaders
- Micro-influencers: Individuals with impact on social media
- Bloggers and content creators
I’m going to focus on how you can use Instagram to promote your products. First what is Instagram?
One could argue that Instagram is a social media network like no other. Instead of words, the platform is built almost entirely around sharing images and videos. This visual twist is why Instagram is the cultural powerhouse it is today — “Instagramming” is officially a verb now.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-instagram-how-to-use-guide
Instgrammers will take an image with your products and add a description of what it is with specific hash tags to get the product noticed by a large audience. It’s best to include a link that comes with a discount. It makes the followers feel like they are in a special club and they are getting a special treatment for being a follower. Honesty is important with followers, so including #ad lets them know they are being promoted to and their person is getting paid to show you this item.
Instagram also enables creators to go live from their account with which people can comment on their influencer’s lives in real time . The best approach is for the influencer to demo your product showing their followers how the product works and the end result of that product.
Instagram also has a feature called “stories”. They are clips that are strung together appearing for a short period of time. The followers can watch these bite-sized videos in order to learn about your product. A discount code with the “swipe up” feature is also an option and a good technique. Swiping up will use a link and send you to a website where you can read more about and have the ability to buy the product.
How do you pay the influencer? With them doing the work they should receive some compensation for their time in talking about your product. For this you have a few options for this part of the transaction with the influencer you “hired”.
Paid: You can pay for each post they make. On average its a $250 per post.
Free Products: You can give the product you’re selling to the influencer.
Affiliate Commissions: By providing a link for followers to click on, you can set it up with your influencer for that every click will amount to “x” amount of money.
Source: https://getcarro.com/blog/pay-instagram-inflAffiliate Commissions uencers-what-brands-need-to-know-in-2019/
As you can see Instagram is a powerful tool to promote your brand. With over one billion active users on the platform, finding the right influencer can get your brand noticed and by “hiring” the right person you will be able to represent your brand. It will take time and might be difficult, but when you do find the right influencer you’ll see how using them will increase your sales. Also remember to take care of your influencer and they will most definitely take care of you.
Eagle Social 
This was a great read. Instragam if used right can play a large part in a companies social media marketing. It can also play a huge part in when you are trying to build a brand. There are so many parts of instagram like you said and just utilizing and understanding it all can really take a brand or company’s marketing to the next level.
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