If you’ve taken marketing courses or have attended marketing seminars, you should know the concept of reaching out to “centers of influence.” These centers can be a respected member of the community, a youth leader or a business owner. Connecting with these influencers cuts an otherwise long sales process by getting a sort of endorsement from those who already have a network of prospects. This concept is similar with reaching out to social media influencers to boost Search Engine Optimization campaigns.
How Social Media Influencers Affect The Entire SEO Campaign of a Brand
Why do social media influencers work?
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The golden era of classic advertising is over. Most people don’t want TV commercials. They skip 30-second ads on YouTube and they unfollow brands that bombard their news feeds with marketing slogans. This is one of the drivers of content marketing. If you want to boost your marketing efforts in the Philippines, you should know the psyche of the Filipino consumer. What type of material will catch his/her attention? What emotion should your content evoke to stir the Filipino consumer into action? An effective content marketing campaign produces original, relevant, and interesting materials that not only attracts attention but ultimately influences the target audience to act. This strategy is enhanced by an extra push from an influencer.
An influencer’s power in brand campaign
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An influencer is unique in a way that he/she is not made to be one. In most instances, his/her influence is accidental. Take for example a teenage girl with no professional training in cosmetics but has the combination of wit, charm and creativity. With 500,000 followers and a million views on her make-up tutorial videos, she can equal, or even exceed, the power of a paid model in endorsing a product. Why? She’s real and relatable, and consumers like to deal with real people.
Influencers are not just celebrities. It can be a better strategy to connect with one with a smaller but more dedicated following than a personality with millions of followers. You should be keen on the relationship between an influencer and his/her network. How do they interact? Can the influencer mobilize his/her followers? Or is the relationship too casual to be important?
Building relationships with social media influencers
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Entrepreneur and business advisor Murray Newlands, an influencer himself, advises brands to give influencers creative control. “Give creative license to the influencer so that he or she can introduce your brand authentically. If you want something specific, make a suggestion, but do not be surprised of the influencer says no.”
Know your niche market and the influencers in that niche. You and your target influencers must have similar values, the same audience, and related goals. Your influencer must genuinely love your brand or product because this is the only way he/she can promote you to your target audience.
Wielding the influencer sword successfully
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Brands are catching up with the strategy of partnering with social media influencers, thus you should explore ways on how to streamline your efforts. Make your brand stand out by launching memorable campaigns with your influencer. You can run a content sharing campaign or a contest. This is especially effective with vloggers who have a creative knack for engaging people. Giving your influencer a definite goal will produce better results than by simply having your brand mentioned once in a while.
Keeping your influencers happy
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For a brand to survive today’s cut-throat competition, it is essential to understand the relationship between social media and SEO. Google recently denounced a long-held belief that social media interactions such as likes and shares impact page ranking. Instead, it encourages brands to focus on the quality of their content.
Producing quality content requires research, skills, and talent. A brand should know what consumers want, in what form, and in a what amount. An influencer knows all of these simply because his/her power emanated from his/her mastery of delivering these elements. Your task is how to encourage an influencer to keep on promoting you.
Keep your influencers happy by making your relationship mutually beneficial. Aside from financial rewards, you can offer event invites where they can further expand their network and enhance their own brand.
Social media and brand campaigns are increasingly becoming intertwined as more people are joining social media platforms. A recent study suggests that there are roughly 2.3 billion active social media users in the world. The Philippines top the list of most Facebook users globally, and ranks among the top five countries with the highest visitors in YouTube, Twitter and Google+. Whether it’s content marketing or other forms of social media marketing, visibility on these platforms is important for brands in the Philippines. Explore the power of influencers in your brand campaigns. Know how to effectively connect, work, and maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with them. Remember: keeping them happy and content with your brand will trickle down to their dedicated followers.
See also: Zoomph, the Influencer Engagement Platform
