How social media celebrities can kick start your brand
How many followers does your business have on social media? As well as your company might be doing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it’s hard to compete with the grassroots success of social media celebrities. According to this TechCrunch article, 21 out of the top twenty-five most followed accounts on Instagram are celebrity profiles. Only four consumer brands made the list (kudos to Nike, Victoria’s Secret, National Geographic and the eponymous Instagram account).
It’s no secret why mega-stars like Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber are so popular online; they already have millions of devoted followers in real life. Brands such as Vogue, GNC, Cadillac and Fiji Water have seen huge success collaborating with celebrities to share their products, promote campaigns and raise awareness. But you don’t necessarily need to get in contact with an A-lister to plan a successful campaign. There are droves of mid-range social media influencers with 50,000-500,000 followers that can give you a big boost to your brand recognition.
Before we go into the details, let’s look at the costs and potential return on investment (ROI) from employing influencer marketing. This blog post indicates that for every dollar a business spends on social influencers, they can expect to see $6.50 in revenue. Compare that to ROI from traditional advertising channels (a whopping 82% of TV ad campaigns result in negative returns) and you can see why influencer marketing is one of the fastest growing trends in the business.
So where do you start? In the past few years, dozens of Influencer Marketing Agencies have cropped up, eager to be the liaison between your business and a social account with thousands of engaged followers. Agencies are a good way to connect with the right accounts, but with the middleman comes an increased price. Simply searching social media for popular local accounts relevant to your business can yield good results, assuming the curators of the accounts are willing to play ball.
If you represent a regional brand, going local also increases the chance that your clientele will get the message. Finding “local celebrities” and influencers might be difficult depending on where you live, but collaborating with the right folks can be a great way to enhance your existing campaigns or target your customers directly with product placements and shout outs. It can also lead to rapid, organic growth as accounts with tons of followers also get tons of retweets, shares, reposts, etc. So next time you’re looking at new advertising options, maybe skip the billboard and head for a more direct route to your customers: the social profiles that they already know and trust.