Leveraging social media influencers in your brand marketing strategies is building relationships with the people who can build relationships that will both benefit them and your brand. More than that, in choosing the right social media influencer for your brand, you must:

Get to know who your customers are – Leverage different strategies such as in-depth analyses to get to know your customers better. Figure out how they think, what activities they are into, etc. If you fully know who your customers are, it’ll be easier to craft a message they can relate to.

Roxy, a popular women’s clothing and lifestyle brand, searched for and involved their passionate customers in determining who a Roxy girl is to them through ‘slambook’ style collages filled with quotes and photographs. Through this, they were able to determine which influencers to tap on.

Choose an influencer you can partner with – Besides looking for someone who your customers can resonate with, look for someone you can have a longtime partnership with. You must also find someone you can offer something of value to capture his/her audience.

If you’re a swimwear brand, for example, you can look for influencers such as surfers, fashion bloggers, travelers, etc. Your product can fully suit and sustain their lifestyles. Likewise, they can offer you a more personal “marketing” of your brand and products.

Collaborate with those who have a huge amount of influence on your target market or audience – This guideline pretty much explains itself. Let’s say, you’re a cosmetic brand, collaborate with a beauty vlogger in her makeup tutorial video. After using your product in her tutorial, her audience will most likely rush out to buy your product after watching.

Have influencers for all sorts of social platforms – You’re lucky if you find someone who fits your brand well and has a strong influence in all social networks available. However, that type of influencer is rare and may be hard to find. So, you must have a mix of a variety of people who are strongly influential in their specific niche or social platform.

Consider micro-influencers too – The requirement for the number of followers depend on the niche you are targeting. If you’re aiming at a brand with an over-saturated niche, like fashion, you must look for an influencer with at least 10,000 followers.

However, if your target niche is still new or not that big, consider tapping on micro-influencers too. Micro-influencers, because of their smaller niche, can engage better with their audience.

With the right mix of influencers as your seeds, you can reap a bountiful social marketing harvest.

Influence Marketing Quotes to Get You Started

“People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message. A trusted referral is the holy grail of advertising.”- Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman, CEO, & Co-Founder of Facebook.

“Influencer marketing at its core is about developing real relationship to ultimately champion your influencers to market with you.”- Amanda Maksymiw, an award-winning marketer.

“There are exceptional people out there who are capable of starting epidemics. All you have to do is find them.”- Malcolm Gladwell (in his book The Tipping Point).

 “Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.”- Seth Godin, an American best-selling author, and entrepreneur. 

With the right set of social media influencers, your business can reap the many significant benefits of influencer marketing. Start finding influencers you can build relationships with today, and in the days to come, reap the harvest and conversions you’ve always been aiming for.

Also Read: How Social Media Influencers Can Improve Your Brand