Influencer: someone who has the power or authority to affect purchases and/or awareness of a brand or product to their followers/peers.
Many hear the word “influencer” and immediately jump to the Kardashians of the world, but that’s not what PeakActivity hears. We look to the more relatable influencers, the people our followers could connect with day to day. We tune into the local foodies, the hot car enthusiasts, the posh fashionista, etc. These online world changers are better known as “micro-influencers.”
Micro-influencers, who match your brand’s standards, bring six significant benefits to your business:
1. Higher Level of Trust
The influencer has a higher degree of credibility than the brand itself. Having already instilled confidence in their friends and followers, your audience is more likely to put their trust in someone from their community rather than a large brand. Think about the brands and products that you own. There’s a high chance that you purchased them because a celebrity or influencer endorsed them.
2. Expanded Audience
Having a relationship with a micro-influencer in your community expands your audience and reach by leveraging their followers.
3. Brand Awareness
Micro-influencers help amplify your brand’s messaging by way of using your product or reviewing the brand. This, ever so subtly, puts your brand in the mind of their followers, thus expanding your brand awareness.
4. Higher Search Engine Ranking
As your brand awareness grows, people in your community and beyond are likely to search your business, visit your website, and follow your pages. This ranks you higher in search engines, which increases your brand’s visibility.
5. Authentic Engagement and Traffic
Leveraging micro-influencers takes away the negative connotation that comes along with the little “sponsored” note when social media users get targeted by advertisements. Influencers appear authentically in a user’s feed, allowing for a more fluid interaction with every post.
6. Customer Loyalty and Retention
A carefully executed influencer marketing strategy not only generates leads for your business and drives conversions, but boosts brand loyalty, which all go a long way to generating high ROI.
We’ve seen tremendous growth from micro-influencer best practices.
When quarantine forced one restaurant partner to pivot to delivery, we engaged local micro-influencers to spread the word to their high-trust, high-engagement followers. The results were staggering and helped our client build a robust new business model.
This success was no anomaly. One business partner, a safety footwear company, harnessed influencers to grow their audience base, reaching 95% more users through one influencer and 88% more from another.
Another partner, a luxury jewelry company, saw a significant increase in traffic and impressions, with just one partner generating nearly 9,000 impressions, 100 comments, and 75 site visitors.
