[Trend] The strategy that's creating a buzz: influencer marketing

You've heard a lot about it: influencer marketing is a strategy that aims to capitalise on the popularity of web personalities to communicate about a brand and develop its brand equity or trendy image.

Most of the time, it gives your product or service "approved" and "recommended" status - the Holy Grail!

It also allows you to appeal to a younger, ultra-connected target audience that is less receptive to more traditional channels.

But what exactly is influencer marketing? Here's an explanation, with examples and trends!

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What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing: definition

Influencer marketing is a strategy used by companies to disseminate information and promote their products or services via influencers.

This is mainly e-influence, as influencers have a strong presence on the web, particularly on social networks.

These digital-age opinion leaders can be :

• experts in a particular field
• well-known personalities (e.g. bloggers or YouTubers),
• or even stars,

with a large number of subscribers, known as ' followers ' or fans.

Influencers represent new channels and opportunities, vectors of influence for reaching new, young, hyper-connected targets.

The influencer marketing strategy must, of course, be in line with the company's overall marketing strategy and the brand image it wishes to convey if it is to be consistent and effective.

What role do influencers play?

They run :

• blogs
• vlogs
• YouTube channels
• pages on social networks (Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and more recently Tik Tok),

Influencers have taken on the role of influencers and have become a brand's new ambassadors.

They have a greater impact than traditional media, and even the government calls on them to relay important messages and speak to the public, particularly young people, as in the case of the campaign for Universal National Service, supported by the youtuber Tibo InShape.

Influencers are often appreciated for their personality as well as their expertise, and their opinion counts for their fans, who identify with them.

Nevertheless, even though their recommendations may be disinterested and free of charge, they are increasingly being approached by brands to talk about a product or service in return for payment or a gift.a product or service in return for payment or a gift, inspiring growing mistrust as to the sincerity of their opinions.

This is why the most scrupulous influencers select content in line with their own image and editorial line, but now display the obligatory " sponsored content " label when working with brands, as a guarantee of transparency.

Macro, micro or nano-influence strategy?

It is also with this authenticity in mind that companies are increasingly interested in micro-influencer networks, to the detriment of macro-influencers.

A macro-influencer is a celebrity with a very large following but who is partly aware of his or her status as a muse, which gives his or her recommendations an advertising character, albeit more or less subtle.

Micro-influencers (fewer than 30,000 followers) seem more accessible and more credible, and are also less expensive. What's more, they inspire trust and enjoy greater commitment from their communities.

60% of the engagement of a campaign involving influencers is actually generated by "micro-influencers" (6.7 times more effective than star influencers)

Étude de Hello Society, agence de marketing d’influence sur Pinterest

The trend is even towards nano-influencers, with fewer than 10,000 followers (according to some marketers, it's less than 1,000), for their closeness to their audience.

Influencer marketing: examples and trends

Here are a few examples of successful influencer marketing campaigns.

They reflect new trends, including micro-influence and nano-influence:

• Example 1: Asos, a daring fashion e-tailer, chose to work with multiple micro-influencers with very different personalities, audiences and styles.
  The brand designed bespoke looks for them to share on an Instagram account created for the occasion, which also linked to their personal accounts.

• Example 2: Freepik, the image bank, called on the creativity of a number of influential bloggers to create visuals for its site. Their fans were able to discover the platform and download the works of their web stars.

• Example 3: Adopte un Mec, whose brand strategy is based, among other things, on a quirky, non-conformist image of online dating, has opted for humour by presenting a young man from reality TV as a product to be unwrapped and tested by a macro-influencer, who stages the whole thing in a video.a young man from a reality TV show as a product to be unwrapped and tested by a macro-influencer, who puts the whole thing on video.

• Example 4: Another trend that is as effective as ever is storytelling, or social storytelling in the case of influencer marketing, or microstorytelling.
  Influencers tell their story with the brand or their personal anecdotes, via stories on Instagram, as did Sophie Fontanel, a micro-influencer in the fashion world, who recounted her participation in the launch of a Longchamp boutique in Tokyo.

Why use influencer marketing?

The big influencers reach more people than the football World Cup final and have 10 times more prescribing power than traditional advertising.

Études Influence4You

So you see, by integrating influencer marketing into your media mix, you multiply your chances of :

• raise your profile
• increase your visibility on the Internet
• reach new target audiences,
• enhance your brand image,
• Inspire confidence, in the same way as consumer reviews,
• showcase your product or service through role-playing and testimonials from influential figures,
• run a low-cost viral communications campaign with a high ROI.

82% of professionals consider the leads generated by an influencer marketing campaign to be of higher quality, and 58% see an increase in their visibility as a result of this strategy.

Hubspot

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How do you set up an influencer marketing strategy?

In our article on setting up a digital marketing strategy, you'll find all the steps you need to take.

When it comes to influencer marketing strategy, you'll also need to choose :

• the influencer or influencers best suited to your audience,
• the message and communication channels to use,

and, of course, analysing the impact of your actions.

Whether you're an advertiser or a communications agency, we recommend that you go through an influencer agency or use an influencer marketing platform.

Influence4You, for example, is both an agency and an online platform that connects influencers (150,000 registered users and a database of 37,000,000 profiles) with brands.

You can access the influencers' full profiles (number of followers, age, specialisms, type of content, etc.) and launch your campaigns, including writing briefs, choosing social networks and remuneration, among other things!

☝️ An influencer's salary varies according to a number of factors, including the number of followers and the social network.

For example, according to a study by Blog du modérateur in 2020 :

nano-influencers can earn up to €120 per post, while accounts with more than 500,000 followers can be paid between €4,000 and €20,000 per post.

The trick is to choose the one that will speak to your community.

Have you already implemented an influencer marketing strategy? What's your feedback?