On social media, ‘following’ is considered one of the most essential factors. After all, it’s what dictates the number of people that your brand or business has reached.
But most important of all, it’s what enables your social media page to function, specifically when it comes to promotions, sales, engagement, and advertising. On that note, it’s paramount that you pay special attention to growing your followers organically.
Buying yourself thousands of fake followers won’t do your brand any favor anyways. While it may look good on metrics, the results won’t be as impressive.
If you’re a small brand that has yet to amass the necessary followers to reach a significant amount of consumers, then the best thing you can do is to partner with well-established individuals on social media. In short, link up with influencers.
This strategy is especially effective in gaining brand awareness for businesses that are just starting with digital marketing in the Philippines. After all, you don’t have to rely on your own follower count.
What are Influencers?
Influencers are people who’ve built a large following on social media, specifically through their knowledge of a specific topic or interest. They use this expertise to create authentic connections with their audience, which they complement with regular engagements.
It’s through this process of growing rapport and trust that they acquire the ability to heavily influence the purchasing choices of their followers.
Types of Influencers
Though social media influencers have just entered the marketing scene, the act of using influential figures to sway the buying decisions of the public or a target audience has been around for decades in the marketing world. To put it simply, celebrities were the first influencers.
However, as social networking became more popular other types of influencers became sought after. They can be categorized as the following:
- Celebrities
They’re mainly composed of actors, artists, athletes, and pop culture stars.
- Industry experts and thought leaders
Influencers from this group become popular through their expertise and knowledge of a specific topic, field, or industry.
- Individuals with impact on social media
This group is mainly composed of influencers who’ve gained popularity on social media networks. Think of YouTubers, TikTok creators, and Instagram celebrities.
- Bloggers and content creators
Similar to industry experts and thought leaders, bloggers and content creators gain prominence through their niche-oriented knowledge. However, the difference is that they’re more personalized, hyper-authentic, and are engagement-focused.
Things to Consider When Partnering with Influencers
- Your Needs and Wants
When choosing an influencer to partner with, it’s principal to be aware of what you want and what your brand needs. You can start by setting goals or objectives.
After that, it’ll become much easier to find an influencer to partner with since you’ve already established what you want to achieve.
- Relevance
Previously, we’ve already established the fact that influencers come from different categories. On that note, it’ll be critical for your business to choose a partner that will be able to add value to your brand.
What we recommend you do is pick an influencer who is in the same industry as your business.
- Budget
Setting a budget is important when it comes to influencer partnerships, especially if you’re a fairly small brand or business. By doing this, you’ll be able to narrow down your list of potential collaborators. And you won’t go overboard when it comes to spending.
- Background
Most important of all, you have to do a background check on your potential influencer partner. This way, you’ll be able to make sure that you’re partnering with someone who has a clean track record and prevent controversies or problems in the future.
Ways You Can Work with an Influencer
If you’ve finally found an influencer who you want to partner with to promote your brand, the next thing you should think about is how you’d like to work with them. There’s a lot of ways you can connect and here are some of them:
- Gifting
The simplest way to link up with influencers is through gifting them your products or services. By doing this, you’ll be able to gain exposure through an appreciation or thank you post, which will expose you to their followers.
This will work even better if the partner you choose is someone who’s a fan of the products or services that you provide.
- Sponsored Posts
Another simple way you can engage with influencers is through sponsored posts. Here, the influencer will take charge of creating the content for a post or a video, which will be using your product or service.
This can come in a lot of forms, specifically tutorial videos, product reviews, a how-to, and others.
- Giveaways
Meanwhile, if you’re looking to boost your metrics when it comes to engagements, what you can do is organize a giveaway with your influencer partner.
This creates a desire within your target audience, specifically for your products or services, which boosts recall and awareness about your brand.
- Blog Posts / Reviews
On the other hand, if you want to go the more traditional route, you can commission blog posts or product review articles. Although this is one of the more simple ways to expose your brand through the help of influencers, it’s also one of the most effective.
Not only will you be able to gain exposure, but you’ll also develop rapport with your target consumers via their trusted influencers.
Other Things to Consider
While influencer marketing is important in improving your brand’s awareness on social media, you still have to supplement it with other strategies to fully realize what you want.
One of the things you could do to further improve is to boost your ranking on Google’s search result page. You can do this by employing search engine optimization (SEO), which makes use of keywords and phrases that link back to your website or online store.
By implementing this, you’ll be able to appear at the top of Google’s search page and easily gain traction. Finding the right agency to partner with won’t be difficult since SEO services in the Philippines are in no shortage.
When it comes to managing your social media pages, you can also ask for help if you’re not that confident in handling it. Social media management agencies in the Philippines are abundant so finding a good partner to support you wouldn’t be difficult.
If you do this, you’ll be able to use your extra time to enhance other aspects of your business. And because you’ll be linking up with experts in the field of social media, you’ll get the results you want faster.
