How to Use Social Media Influencer Marketing To Convert Your Target Audience into Sales

Do you know anyone who is not active on social media? These days everyone has an account on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, and much more. This includes every teenager, young adult, parents, and many times even grandparents. Marketers know that the best way to reach out to the target audience is through social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc.         

There are two ways marketers can use to promote their products online- through social media marketing or influencer marketing. Social media marketing takes time- you have to build a strong brand along with an audience gradually with the help of informative and interactive posts. Influencer marketing, on the other hand, is much easier and quicker- you have to find the right person that fits with the personality of the brand and you can get him to refer your products to his large number of followers. Sometimes, marketers face the difficulty of choosing the right influencer, here is where you can use an influencer marketing platform.

Though you can promote your products with the help of a celebrity, social media influencers usually get it done much more effectively.

Celebrities vs Social media influencers- What’s the difference?

When you ask anyone for examples of celebrities, you are sure to get a long list of names- Robert Pattinson, Rihanna, Jay Z, and so on. When you ask the same people for examples of people they admire online- each one will give a different answer with names many of us may not have heard of. This is because most influencers work in a specific niche, people who follow them look up to them as a friend. Their suggestions are taken seriously. 

This is where marketers find their sweet spot. Social media influencers are much better at influencing people to try the product rather than getting celebrities to endorse them.                                                                                                                                                                             

There have been cases where sponsored posts by top social media influencers have had better engagement as opposed to content sponsored by celebrities trying to get people to buy certain products.

While celebrities have a more generalized social media follower profile, many times it is the influencer who is more effective in popularizing a product as they have a more niche audience. In fact, it is estimated that non-celebrity influencers are 10 times more likely to influence a purchase than celebrities do.

How to use social media to convert leads?

There are 3 distinct ways to get leads from social media-

• Paid adverts
• Social Media marketing
• Social media influencer marketing

Paid advertising on Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms can burn a big hole in your pocket, there is no guarantee you will get the number of leads you expect from running a social media advertisement. Though getting leads from here is the quickest, it is also quite expensive especially if you are targeting a specific niche within the social media network.

Social media marketing is a continuous process. It will take you months and years to build an audience that is interested in your products. You have to post informative and interactive content that is shared across social media that helps you get genuine leads. However, this requires a lot of experience and hard work. This cannot be done overnight.

There is one way that marries the benefits of both while giving stellar returns. Social media influencer marketing helps you to ‘piggyback’ on those influencers whose followers match with your target audience and get you the publicity you expect. An influencer helps explain how the product solves a problem with a subtle touch that isn’t pushy as advertisements generally are. Here, all you need to do is to log into an influencer marketplace, choose an influencer that fits your brand’s identity, research the types of posts he makes and if everything is fine, hire him for the long or short term to promote your product and encourage him to increase sales. There are cases where marketers have got 10x returns they invested in social media influencer marketing.

Before we leave

Social media Influencer marketing is the future, this is a statement all marketers will vouch for. Nowadays even small businesses are looking to hire influencers to increase footfalls. It is much more effective to hire an influencer to explain the product and the reason why the product can solve problems rather than just pushing the product to prospective customers.