There is no doubt that a small business can gain a lot of benefits using the Instagram platform for their business marketing. However, the results and returns can be enhanced manifolds when they partner with an influencer.
Just as they do for major brands, these influencers will do the same for small businesses without blowing up the budget. The influencers will:
- Level-up the competition and your campaign
- Build better brand awareness and
- Reach to new and larger audiences.
Therefore, investing in influencer marketing will provide you with a higher return on your investment.
There are lots of such influencers on social media but the Instagram influencers are a notch higher in effects and efficiency as compared to others. This means that you, as a small business owner, must find the right influencer to partner with so that the person becomes your most valuable asset for your business growth using Instagram for your business marketing and advertising.
Once you have found the right influencers for your business you will need to follow specific steps like:
- Framing your campaign goals
- Setting the deadlines
- Track the performance for your campaigns
- Measuring the success rate of the influencers and, most importantly
- Manage your budget at the same time.
You will get a lot of ideas, tips, and advice about influencer marketing when you visit sites like blastup.com and others.
Types of influencers
It is your business goal and objectives that will determine the type of influencer you should work with. For example, if you intend to run workshops then you should go for those local influencers. Well, here are the few basic types of influencers you will find on Instagram.
- Celebrity influencers: They are difficult to find and not suitable for small businesses
- Local influencers: They will usually not have a social media following and if they have it will be a very small one.
- Networkers: This is the type of influencer to whom follower count does not matter as much as who they know. They are a good option for small businesses and solopreneurs to connect with different people, for example beauty influencers.
- Authority influencers: Their aim is to get people to listen to them when they talk or write books. They have good authority on a subject and are good for the solopreneurs or small businesses.
- Media: Ideal for really juicy content that can benefit the media. They are not useful for small businesses as pitches do not work for them.
- Micro-influencers: They have a small number of followers on social media of about 1000 to 10000 and good for small businesses.
- Macro-influencers: They have a large following of over 10,000 and are costly which is why they are suited for large organizations.
When you choose one for your business promotions make sure that you look for:
- Their followers whether they are the right audience for your business and
- Their engagement with the followers.
The best type of influencer to work with are the micro-influencers. They are low-cost and will provide a better chance as compared to macro or celebrity influencers.
Strategies of influencer marketing
You will need to follow a well-designed strategy to ensure success in Instagram marketing. Here they are:
Make sure that you think small but whatever you do is influential. If you use a celebrity influencer it could be well above your set budget and will not provide the results that you desire. If you think small and influential it will not only provide good results but you will be comfortable with it. For this, you will need to:
- Go online and look for a micro-influencer
- Use proper hashtags
- Select an influencer who has an engagement rate anywhere between 3 to 5% and
- Look for a perfect balance between reach and influence.
You will need to choose one who is influential but more importantly can make the audience react.
Next, you should court and engage the influencer you have chosen. Remember, this is all about money, both for you as well as the influencer. Therefore, you should always hire a quality influencer to get the best. Court the influencers through different stages through an interview, this is important for both the parties to bring the desired results from the game. This will help in:
- Asserting your presence
- Subscribing to the influencer’s content
- Sharing with your community
- Establishing a rapport
- Linking back to the content
- Commenting on posts
- Helping them to acknowledge your content.
To engage the influencers after courting those with the highest potential to reach your target audience, a small promotional gift may help a lot. Make sure that they engage more directly with your participation in brainstorming and co-creating content, product reviews, sponsorship and more.
Things to expect
There are a few things that most of the businesses want from the influencers commonly. These are:
- Brand awareness: You will want a better and higher reach of your content to increase brand awareness among your target audience. The influencers will help you to advertise your brand and product from a specific perspective and niche. This will help you to calculate the success of your campaigns based on definite analytics.
- Community engagement: This will help a great deal in growing awareness about your brand and product. This will also trigger responses from the online community. This can be best done through discount vouchers, running Instagram contests and creating more targeted campaigns.
- Drive more web traffic: When the influencer talks about your brand, company or your website and ask their followers to follow you, you will generate more organic traffic to your site. The more suitable the influencer is, the better will be this approach.
In short, all these will help you to generate more sales because the niche community of the influencer will be the most productive and reliable source to gain more loyal customers.
Summing it up
Therefore, you will need to set specific benchmarks when it comes to influencer marketing and getting more engagement on Instagram. Right from the selection of the right type of influencer for your specific business to the selection of social channels, everything should be perfect and well-planned.
Author’s Bio:
Pete Campbell is a social media manager and has immense knowledge about email marketing and Instagram promotion. He delights his clients by helping them buy real Instagram likes. He loves to travel, write and play baseball.
