Influence marketing has become the new formula for creating dominant online sales and advertising campaign strategies. Where traditional marketing was primarily focused on persuasion, influence marketing is more often related to online influence and advocacy through cross promotion. The online influencers could be many things, such as a potential buyer of a marketed product line or a high profile celebrity that advocates a philosophy which aligns buyers within the market. Influencers can also be third party advocates like manufacturers and retailers, or anyone whose viewpoint adds value to the level of influence, such as industry experts, professionals, academics, and the media.
How to Identify Influencers Within Your Niche
An influencer in a wide definition, refers to the highly influential individuals or entities that are interacting with connected sections of a particular marketing demographic. Partnerships with important influencers has been a consistently successful variety of high impact marketing strategies. Major brand names have commonly used this kind of influence marketing, because endorsements from star athletes, famous celebrities, and popular media personalities sell products. The same type of influencers are factored into the page ranking data used for search engine optimization today. The ability to identify leaders within the marketplace is an essential key to influence marketing.
In the following presentation, Wishpond discusses the methodology for identifying influencers within your industry.
Optimizing Your Influence Marketing Campaigns
All marketing needs optimization to be most effective. The information age has changed the modern marketing landscape, possibly more than any era in history. Still technology is only a tool, as users of these tools we must formulate tactical and strategic ways to optimize them. In using influence marketing this means promoting everything with a system of best practices. This means knowing how to spot important market influencers, maintaining influencer relationships via transparency, creating valuable content to distribute, and finally monitoring the results from our endeavors. All these practices can be optimized to have the greatest marketing influence.
In the following presentation, by MtoM Consulting and TapInfluence, Christine Wilson and Holly Hamann demonstrate the importance of optimizing content distribution as well as the need for measuring performance.
Utilizing Influence Marketing With Consistency
Most businesses utilize some aspects of influence marketing in their advertising campaigns, but their results are sometimes hit and miss. The ability to influence is based on how people and content interrelate. So our ability to influence others into taking action is a variable. The more people we reach equals a greater potential influence, so content must be promoted by important influencers. The greatest influence equals reaching those people who will take action directly, so people must relate to the content on a personal level. Application of influence marketing will only reach maximum potential by understanding what methods work consistently.
In the following presentation Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media) and Jason Keath (Social Fresh) discuss three effective influencer strategies:
Influence Marketing is Your Competitive Edge
Using influence marketing can give anyone a competitive edge, but those who apply all the best practices to their marketing strategies can achieve even more. Understanding influence marketing can create a superior advantage, especially when used in combination with modern technologies, demographic data and the right influencer partnerships. The results can cast a sphere of public influence, so that winning becomes a valid option. Individuals who have mastered influence marketing often become known for their powerful abilities to have impact on the business landscape. Such powers of influence are gained by using the best marketing methods effectively.
Mark Fidelman (CEO of†RaynForest) demonstrates in the following SlideShare presentation the results of influence marketing campaigns and their impact on the businesses.
Support Your Influencers with Content Marketing
When it comes down to it, people want truthfulness from branding. Otherwise even the best marketing strategies will fail. Honesty in the marketplace is an absolute necessity, because influencers are aware of their impact. Anyone using influence marketing must understand the need for authenticity in their content. This is the foundation for creating strong influencer relationships that people can relate to well. Advocacy needs to be established via branding, but the influencer relationships must also be meaningful people. Because it’s the people that are buying the products, no matter what our influence is upon the market itself.
David Spark (Spark Media) shared the following beautiful presentation about influencer relations through content.
Conclusion
Influence marketing is a philosophically different approach to traditional marketing methods. It relies on the understanding that everyone influences the marketplace, but also nobody influences it supremely. The high profile influencer reaches a larger audience by advocating a certain message, but individuals have the most direct influence on the market as buyers. Influence is relative, because it can impact the market negatively or positively, so users of influence marketing should strive for honesty in the marketplace. Demonstrating their influence by giving people products and services they really need. This results in everyone having a winning influence.
If you haven’t already, please connect with Ron Sela on Twitter @RonSela or stop by his website for more great content on Influence Marketing.
