Whether you believe that social media has taken the lives of influencers from no-name individuals to celebrity status or that influencers have caused social media platforms to explore, together, social media and influencers are changing the marketing game. Businesses are smartly looking for and finding influencers to generate excitement around their brands which drives sales and clients.

An influencer is a person with the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others. Influencers use social media and other platforms or forums where they have a following to use their authority, relationship with their audience, and knowledge of products to engage those followers. They work with brands and the marketing departments of businesses to strategize and create ways to meet their goals. This is a concept known as influencer marketing. There are many ways that businesses and influencers can work together. Some of those ways are:

Connect

There is a multitude of tools for businesses and new influencers to connect and work together. Business marketing departments develop plans and then find influencers to make those plans come to life. Neither the business nor the influencers have to be big or have millions of followers nor do they have to work exclusively with one another.

Partner tracking companies make creating objectives and specifications for campaigns easy to align with the right influencer who will create organic, authentic posts and recommendations. They are beneficial to both the business and the influencer in creating a smooth business transaction.

These partnering companies make engagement more manageable and the business ideal for both the company and the influencer. They are reliable and accurate and help companies identify users, track and follow up on leads.

Collaborate

Collaboration is one of the most popular ways for businesses and influencers to work together to bring recognition to the company through a product review, promotion, or recommendation. Collaborating is considered a sponsored post, and influencers use several platforms to promote brands and businesses. They may mention that it is an ad for the product in the post or hashtags but viewers can normally find that information within the post.

Established influencers with proven track records have an easier time finding brands because of their past conversion rates. Also because their viewers trust their content as authentic and truthful leads to sales for the company’s product or services. Businesses and brands also look for influencers for collaboration campaigns. There are two essential steps that companies take to find influencers. Those steps are:

• Knowing their target audience and ensuring that the business’s target audience follows that particular influencer.
• Vetting the influencer to ensure they have the reach, engagement, authenticity, personality, desire, and niche to reach the intended audience.

Content

Today, many businesses have turned to blogs for informing and keeping readers up to date on everything happening in the company. They blog and share new product releases, company goals, and inside information about the company and its employees. Blogging increases a company’s visibility warms customers to your products and provides more ways for the company to come up during search engine optimization. Simply put, it is a beneficial communication channel to customers.

Having influencers act as guest bloggers on established business websites are a great marketing strategy. In the same way that influencers get contacted to post on social media platforms, businesses can use bloggers for guest appearances on their blogs. Having guest bloggers is a great way to spread your business beyond its regular readers, which converts to new readers and customers. Some other reasons to include guest bloggers are:

• Guests bloggers increase visibility to your website.
• Guests bloggers grow your social media following.
• Guests bloggers grow your brand awareness.
• Guest bloggers generate qualified leads.

An influencer is a person with the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others. They use social media platforms and other forums where they have a following to use their authority, relationship with their audience, and knowledge to engage and help generate sales. Influencers also work with businesses and brands’ marketing strategies and objectives to meet their goals.

Businesses and influencers can work together by using partners’ tools to connect, collaborating on brand or business campaigns, and having an influencer create content as a guest blogger on your company’s website.