Connecting with the Right Influencers: A Guide for Small Businesses
When you are running a small business or have set up a company recently, you would look for ways to control costs. You might try to ensure that you get a lot of things done at minimal costs. In such a situation, spending money to promote or market your business is not something you would be thinking about. However, thinking in that direction would help your business tremendously.
In a lot of ways, marketing activities prove to be more important for small businesses than bigger companies. The reason behind that is the fact that when a company has just been set up, it would need some push to garner visibility, make a name for itself, and create a sense of trust and confidence in consumers.
In today’s times, one of the most effective ways to promote a business, whether big or small, is investing in influencer marketing. Influencer marketing refers to the type of marketing in which companies or brands collaborate with influencers to promote their products or services. In the last few years, with the emergence of social media, one has seen influencer marketing becoming more and more relevant.
If you are a small business and planning to collaborate with influencers, here is one important thing you need to remember. Instead of collaborating with influencers randomly, it would be a good idea to figure out what kind of influencers can provide a boost to your brand or will be the right fit for your business.
Once you pick the right influencers and collaborate with them after putting together a proper plan in place, you can expect to see results soon enough. Apart from ensuring higher sales for your products and greater interest in your services, the right influencers will also make sure that they play an important role in strengthening your brand’s image.
Who Are The ‘Right Influencers’?
Once you realize the importance of having the right influencers on board, you will want to look for them. However, before you start your search, you might wonder what makes for a ‘right influencer’.
The right influencer is somebody who drives the growth of your business, helps in establishing the identity of your brand and enables it to have a solid positioning in the market. After working with an influencer for a while, you get a fair idea about whether they are right for you or not.
Here are some of the ways in which you can find the right influencers for your small business:
- Target Audience
Even if you are a newly established company, you should have complete clarity about who your target audience is. Before launching any kind of marketing campaign, it is imperative to know whom you are trying to reach out to. That will help you design the campaign and get in touch with influencers who cater to that audience or consumer base.
You can start by gathering an understanding of the persona of your target consumers and the demographics they belong to. Apart from finding out the areas they are based in, you also need to have an understanding of the age group they represent and the job titles they hold. Once you have all this information at your disposal, finding the right influencers will be very easy.
- Influencer Type
When you decide to invest in influencer marketing, you get the option to choose from a variety of influencers. The type of influencers you decide to collaborate with depends on several factors including the marketing budget you have, the scale at which you execute the marketing activities and the amount of time you have.
Before you try to figure out how to connect with micro influencers, you should know the types of influencers that are around. If somebody has more than 1 million followers on social media, they are referred to as a mega influencer. If an influencer’s follower count is in the range of 100,000 – 1 million, they are identified as macro influencers. A micro influencer has 10,000 – 100,000 followers and the ones who have less than 10,000 followers are called nano influencers.
Doing a Background Check on Influencers
Sometimes, brands get swayed away by the number of followers an influencer has or the kind of traction their posts get and make the decision to collaborate with them. While these factors are important, what is even more important is the kind of reputation and credibility the influencer has.
When you collaborate with an influencer who engaged in unethical practices or illegal methods in the past, it will reflect poorly on your brand. This is why it is extremely important to do a background check on the influencers you plan to collaborate with. You can take the help of different tools or methods to research them. Once you are completely satisfied and sure about their credibility, you can take things forward with them.
Building a Connection with Influencers
Companies, who have not invested in influencer marketing in the past, might not know how to get in touch with influencers. One of the simplest ways to reach out to influencers is by sending them a direct message on Instagram. However, it is important to remember that not every influencer checks the messages they get in their inbox.
These days, most reputed influencers are represented by talent management agencies. When you get in touch with these agencies, they will connect you to some of the talent they represent. Building a long-term association with influencers would be a good idea as it will help your brand in several ways. When an influencer is associated with a brand for a long time, it will have a positive impact on both them and the brand.
How To Get In Touch With Micro-Influencers
As stated earlier, a micro-influencer is somebody who has a follower count ranging from 10,000 to 100,000. These days, micro-influencers are in huge demand as brands have realized the kind of value they could add. Owing to their focused following, micro-influencers tend to have a very strong connection with their followers. If you are wondering how to connect with micro-influencers, you should know that they can be found on every social media platform.
Conclusion
When a small business collaborates with influencers over a period of time and does not see any prominent results, it simply means they did not choose the right influencers. When you choose influencers who are the right fit for your business, you can expect to see your brand getting stronger and your business growing well.
