Trends In Influencer Marketing That Small Businesses Should Consider

Across the world, brands are increasing their budgets for influencer marketing. Since most companies have seen positive results by investing in influencer marketing, they want to dive deeper into this space. Influencer marketing refers to the process of marketing wherein you collaborate with an influencer or get them on board to promote your products or services.

Influencer marketing proves to be extremely effective when you are aware of the trends governing it at the moment. If a particular influencer marketing trend is working well at the moment, many decide to go for it. If your goals and ideas align with an influencer marketing trend, exploiting it would not be a bad idea at all.

Once somebody brings your attention to a particular influencer marketing trend, you should analyze it thoroughly, check the various elements in it, and find out if exploiting it would prove to be beneficial for your business. Mostly such trends are suggested by digital marketing agencies. However, if you keep a close watch on social media, you shall get to know about the prevailing trends.

Here are some trends in influencer marketing that small businesses should consider:

Creating Long-Form Content

For a while, most brands and influencers believed that short-form content was the only type of content that people on the internet wanted to see. However, most of them have now realized how wrong they were. While short-form content continues to trend on social media, long-form content, too, gets a lot of viewership.

For small businesses, it would be an excellent idea to collaborate with influencers on long-form content. An entrepreneur, running a small business, could do an interview or be a part of a podcast run by a social media influencer. If the story behind their brand is interesting, people would want to listen to them. The brand could also make short films about their company and get influencers to promote them or feature in them.

Collaborating with LinkedInfluencers

For the longest time, companies focused on influencers who had a strong presence on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Instagram influencers, in particular, were in huge demand. Now, the trend is to collaborate with LinkedIn influencers. These are influencers who have a huge following on LinkedIn.

If you are a company that is looking to get new investors or partners on board, you have to build a strong image for yourself in the professional space. This is where LinkedIn influencers can help you. By writing posts or recommending your business on LinkedIn, they can create more awareness around it and vouch for your credibility.

Reaching Out to Nano-Influencers

There was a time when most brands were particular about collaborating with influencers who had a huge following. While celebrity influencers and mega influencers continue to be sought after, there is now a huge demand for nano-influencers as well. Nano-influencers are social media influencers who have followers ranging from 100 to 10,000.

If you are wondering how to find nano influencers, you should reach out to agencies that represent them. A nano-influencer might not have as many followers as a celebrity influencer. However, their followers tend to be loyal and take them very seriously. If you want to reach a focused set of consumers, collaborating with nano-influencers would be the right thing to do.

Empowering Employee Influencers

These days, you see influencers all around. Many influencers have full-time jobs and yet, remain active on social media and make it a point to engage with their followers. If you have people in your company with a strong social media presence, you could seek their help in promoting your products and services online.

It is quite easy to recognize an ‘employee influencer’. If one of your employees is very active on social media, has a decent following, and their posts track well, they are an employee influencer. Sometimes, some employees manage to make a name for themselves as influencers before stepping into the professional arena. Then, there are those whose influencing potential is discovered by the company and they are groomed to become employee influencers.

Product Integration

Many popular YouTubers create content on a variety of topics for the platform. While some YouTubers create videos on health and wellness, some inform their viewers about technological trends. If a YouTuber has a good following and is known to be credible, you should collaborate with them.

By getting a YouTuber to integrate your product or share some information about it through their videos, you can increase their reach significantly. For instance, if a YouTuber is about to make a video on hair fall symptoms, you can ask them to integrate your product, which facilitates hair fall control, in that video.

Organizing Site Visit

When you are running a small business, you should try to familiarize your consumers with it. Once they get an inside view of your business, they will find it easier to connect with the products and services you are offering. To make this happen, you should get influencers to visit your office, factories, and other places where work happens.

When an influencer visits your office or factory and introduces their followers to your working processes, they develop a direct connection with your brand. Apart from building a sense of trust and confidence in your offerings, they also feel more comfortable with the idea of getting associated with them as consumers.

Investing in Affiliate Marketing Programs

When a small business makes a list of things they want to do under the purview of influencer marketing, they cannot miss out on mentioning affiliate marketing programs. This is one influencer marketing trend that should remain relevant forever. Businesses of every size have benefitted by investing in this marketing practice.

When you opt for affiliate marketing, you ask influencers to include the links to some of your products on their content pieces and get their followers to click on them. Even if just one follower clicks on the link, visits the product page, and buys the product, the influencer will get a hefty commission on it. There is no uncertainty attached to this form of influencer marketing. An influencer gets a commission only if they manage to sell your product to their followers.