How to Leverage Influencers for Your Brand Growth

Posted by Andries Van Tonder on November 16, 2023 - 5:23am Edited 11/16 at 5:23am

How to Leverage Influencers for Your Brand Growth

A key component for brand growth is influence, learn how to leverage Influencers for brand growth starting with your audience.

An influencer is a person who is capable of affecting other people’s purchasing decisions because of the power and knowledge that they have as well as the relationship they have with their followers.

The rise in the utilization of influencers is attributed to the increased use of social media. For you to make use of the “influencer authority”, your business should have social media accounts on the platforms that you wish to use. This approach works best when you also have a sizable following on social media. You should know that having an influencer endorse your brand is like putting the icing on the cake.

You need to build your brand to enjoy the benefits of this marketing strategy. But how can you leverage influencers for brand growth?

Here’s How to leverage influencers for brand growth:

A:Familize with your audience.

You can find numerous influencers with many followers to guide on Instagram marketing or popularize your brand on other platforms such as Facebook, and Twitter, but if you do not know who your audience is, this is a futile exercise. Understanding who your audience is helps you know the kind of influencer that you can choose to work with. The best influencer is the one that can reach your target audience and deliver the message that you want to put across. Additionally, you need to define the goal of your influencer campaign so that you know who needs to get the message that you are putting across and how to deliver that message.

B:Identify the proper approunch to your strategy

Apart from making use of the audience that your influencers have, you can work to build your followers. Another critical approach in influencer strategy is for both of you to post one another as a guest on your social platforms. Such a move will improve your ranking on the search engine because potential customers will be clicking on the external links to find out how the two of you are related.

Additionally, you can create a video of you interviewing your influencer and share it on your Markethive account, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter as well as a live event on zoom. The same video can also be converted into a transcript and shared on your blog. Your chosen influencer can also do the same so that you also uplift their brand. Such a mutual relationship will have you conquering the market and drawing a new audience to both your brands.

1:Build a Network of Influencers to Grow Your Brand

Partnering with a few influencers can be a great way to promote your product launch, drive conversions, or boost engagement.

But a few influencers probably won't be enough to really grow small businesses in a long-lasting way. For that, you’re going to need an entire community of influencers.

By building an influencer network to promote your brand, you can reach a much larger targeted audience. You won’t be limited to a few groups of social media followers.

Instead, you can create brand awareness with various audience groups through influencer marketing.

This translates to better brand visibility, which is crucial to grow your brand. The best part about building a network of influencers is that you can achieve the desired results, even if you work with influencers with a smaller reach.

2:Create an Experience Around Your Brand

If you want to grow your brand through influencer marketing, you need to focus on more than just promoting your products or services.

Sure, you can get influencers to showcase your products in their content, or create reviews or how-to content involving your products.

And that can help increase sales.

But the secret to growing a brand is taking your influencer marketing campaigns one step further. Create an experience around your brand, and invite influencers to participate in and share the experience.

The goal of influencer marketing is to make your brand come to life through those experiences.

The influencers will share their experiences with their fans. Their fans will then associate your brand with a positive experience. And that's a huge part of influencer marketing.

3:Collaborate with Influencers to Create Original Products

Influencers can help you promote your existing products. But if you want to grow your brand, you can take your partnership further by involving them in product development.

Collaborate with influencers to create original products that will appeal to both your target audience and the influencer’s followers on social media.

When you associate your brand with a top influencer, it can establish your brand as trustworthy and prominent. Another benefit of influencer marketing.

4:Maximize Your Visibility to Grow Your Brand

To effectively market your brand, you need to be as visible as possible. That means you need to use as many social networks and social media platforms as possible to execute your influencer marketing campaigns.

That being said, you should avoid any social media channels that your target audience doesn’t frequent. LinkedIn, for example, may not be ideal if your influencer marketing is about building relationships with a teenage crowd.

And if you want to grow your brand, you shouldn’t miss out on using Instagram in your influencer marketing.

According to a Bloglovin' study, influencers found Instagram to be the most effective platform for engaging their audience. It is followed by Facebook and then Twitter.

If possible, get your influencers to create content for multiple platforms including blogs and YouTube if they have sufficient followings there.

This will ensure that your audience can see you almost everywhere, which can be crucial for growing your brand and managing influencer marketing effectively.

5:Collaborate with Influencers to Support a Cause

You’re probably familiar with cause marketing and how effective it can be for boosting brand perception and customer loyalty.

According to Cone Communications, 80% of consumers would be willing to buy from an unknown brand if it’s strongly committed to fulfilling its corporate social responsibility.

Combined with influencer marketing, a cause marketing campaign can be the perfect solution to grow your brand. Influencers can help you promote a cause that will resonate with your audience.

Promoting the message through trusted, influential individuals rather than solely as a brand can be more impactful.

Pick a cause that resonates with you, and that will likely resonate with your target audience. And then choose influencers whose values align with that cause.

6:Empower Influencers to Create Unique and Engaging Content

Influencers earn their influential status for one main reason – they know how to engage their audience. They know what their followers want, and how to best give it to them.

When it comes to creating content to promote your brand, influencers will know exactly how to do it in a way that will resonate with their followers.

This way, you can grow your brand using the influencer’s unique voice in your influencer marketing efforts.

If you try to control everything the influencer has to say about your brand, it’s going to lose its authenticity. And their audience may not respond very well to the content because they won’t find it interesting enough.

Plus, restrictive content marketing guidelines can cause influencers to refuse a second collaboration with brands, according to a Julius study.

7:Offer Influencers Sneak Peeks or Exclusive Previews to Build Hype

As mentioned earlier, influencers know how to engage their audience using content. So they will also know how to excite their followers, and build hype around a new product, even if it’s from a completely unknown brand.

If influencers build up enough hype about your product or service, it can help you become an established name in the industry.

8:Run Giveaway Contests to Increase Engagement and Visibility

Who doesn’t love a chance to win something for free? Giveaway contests are an excellent way for brands to engage their fans.

To grow your brand, work with influencers to promote a giveaway contest to increase engagement and visibility.

By combining this tactic with influencer marketing, you can extend your reach further to a new audience.

The influencer’s followers will learn about your brand, and may feel compelled to participate to win free samples, free products, or gifts.

And if your contest rules require contestants to create their own content, it could further reach more people. During this process, your brand can gain visibility and engage a huge audience.

9:Get Social Media Influencers to Promote a Unique Hashtag

Hashtags can be a great way to drive conversations around your brand, products, events, etc. And when your branded hashtag gets more visibility, it can enhance the visibility of your brand as well.

A great way to grow a brand is to get social media influencers to promote a unique, branded hashtag. You can also ask social media influencers to encourage their followers to share content using the same hashtag.

The goal is to drive high levels of engagement for the hashtag, and encourage more user-generated content about your brand to help you achieve widespread visibility.

Social media influencers can promote the hashtag by using it themselves in a sponsored post or product placement post.

They can also encourage fans to use it while they promote a giveaway contest, or for a chance to be featured on your website, or social media profiles.

This is a lot like the previous tactic, but in this case, the purpose is to use the contests to promote the use of a branded hashtag.

Even if the hashtag isn’t associated with a giveaway contest, you can still promote it by getting your community of influencers to use it in posts where they feature your products.

Seeing several of their favorite social media influencers using the same hashtag can help encourage others to share their own photos using the hashtag.

10:Podcast Host Endorsements

Host endorsements on podcasts are a great form of influencer marketing. The most recent audience studies show that at least one in three Americans listened to a podcast in the month prior. Marketers and advertisers are taking notice of the host’s (influencer’s) unique ability to not only provide reach, but also connection and economic results. It’s an “opt-in” channel where show hosts have listeners’ undivided attention and trust

11:Turning Employees Into Influencers

A highly original form of influencer marketing is taking someone that works for you and making that person an influencer. We have clients that sell beauty products. Instead of paying someone on the outside, they’ve showcased their own people using the products. As they acquire a following, the company has an in-house influencer already on payroll. Better still, this is a repeatable step

12:The Rise Of TikTok Influencers

TikTok is the wild west of influencer marketing and a fertile ground for brands to test and learn with branded TikTok videos. Compared to other platforms, the number of brands activating TikTok campaigns is relatively low, so your brand may be the first in your category to become established on the platform. Now is a great time to take advantage of the lighthearted content native to the platform.

13:Influencer Marketing On Instagram

Influencer marketing on Instagram is what I see as the most undervalued, high-return investment a business or brand can make. Pairing with the right influencer for your brand can not only generate sales and new customers, but also exponentially grow your business. An Instagram influencer’s loyal community of followers will try any product or service the influencer pushes as long as it aligns.