What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is a form of advertising in which people with a large reach, also called opinion leaders, are brought into the promotion of a brand, a product or a service in order to raise its perceived value and its credibility.

The goal is content that pays off for both sides. The company raises its visibility, and the influencer receives products to test and can serve their audience with high-quality content. Because buyers put weight on the opinion of people who are independent of the company, many companies use influencer marketing to carry their brand message.

Who is an influencer?

Influencers are, for example, social media users with a high number of followers, bloggers, journalists, politicians, celebrities or subject-matter experts.

One important metric for choosing an influencer is the engagement rate, meaning the share of the audience that reacts to a post. It is often comparatively high for people with a comparatively small following (roughly 10,000 to 50,000 followers), because their opinion is perceived as more authentic and more credible.

Influencers usually position themselves around specific topics such as food, travel or fitness.

The three types of influencers

1. Brand lovers: they know the brand and have had positive experiences with it, so the bond to the brand is strong.
2. Brand critics: they know the brand as well, but they have had negative experiences and take a critical view of the company. Their opinion has a negative effect on the buying decisions of others.
3. Brand experts: they act as advisors to others. They have the expertise to judge the brand neutrally.

Benefits of influencer marketing

For the company, influencer marketing offers a few benefits over classic branded content.

The influencer usually handles the production of the content, so you only have to provide the product or the service and the influencer then reviews it and shares their experience. That is one reason why the authenticity of an influencer is high: the content does not come from the company and therefore often reads as more credible and more honest. Brands can also reach very specific target audiences this way. Young people in particular spend more and more time on social media, which makes it harder and harder to reach them with classic advertising.

Terms that connect to this one are collected in the SEO glossary.