What the growth of social influencers means for businesses!

Social influencers, or brand influencers, are important for a number of reasons, they usually have a huge online presence, a large number of followers and expertise in a specific field. Whilst social influencers have been around for a number of years, with the growth of social media platforms such as Youtube, Twitter, Instagram and the popularity of blogs, influencers have become the go to when it comes to promoting a company or brand.

There are countless blogs on the internet, ranging from topics such as technology and food, through to more niche topics such as beards and dogs. Whatever the interest there is probably a blog about it. Blogs are a great way to promote products and it’s becoming more common to see bloggers writing sponsored or paid content which features items they have been gifted for review. Using blogs can be beneficial when trying to appeal to specific audiences, for example a style blogger is likely to have readers who are interested in fashion, so a company featuring a pair of shoes they sell, on a style blog is a great way to target potential customers.

Youtube has very quickly become one of the most influential platforms on the internet, in recent years the popularity of video bloggers or ‘Vloggers’ has increased massively and now younger people are now finding Youtube content more engaging than traditional media such as TV. As it stands some of the most popular people on Youtube have millions of subscribers and have become incredibly powerful in terms of influencing others. Featuring a product in a popular ‘Vloggers’ video enables a company to reach out to multiple people in a dynamic and engaging way.

Using social influencers on platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Vine has also become popular in recent years, it’s hard now to not find at least one sponsored image or tweet when scrolling through our social media feeds. It is, however, a great and simple way of influencers promoting a product, as they are easily viewable and can be shared all across the internet which allows for thousands of views.

Be warned however, using social influencers isn’t always easy, there are many things to be careful of if a company is considering working with social influencers. It’s important that an influencer discloses that their post or video is sponsored or advertising. Whilst it might change how viewers look at the post, most people don’t mind sponsored posts if the influencer is completely transparent. It’s also important that an influencer has a good reputation, having a business associated with someone with a shady reputation can be detrimental to a business and affect a brands own reputation.