Marketing is taking new forms every day. I remember, not so long ago, no one knew about influencer marketing or let�s just say, influencers were considered to be our celebrities only. With the penetration of social media, our influencers have hugely changed. There are more interactions on social platforms now, then ever before. This year�s data says that we have 34,342,400 internet users in the country.� Everyone has a voice and everything is being talked about. But not everyone is an influencer.
Word of mouth has always been considered a valuable device of adverting in Pakistan. Campaigns, especially on-ground activations, rely heavily on �generating word of mouth�. That�s the conventional way of influencer marketing. Today, even after the internet, not much has changed in terms of consumer behavior. Celebrities do have their charm but the word of an influencer has more power than ever.
But not everything is as simple. In the race to create brand awareness, product awareness, low budget marketing etc., many of the brands end up using bloggers. Unfortunately, most of the blogger are not the experts of anything. They would blog about whoever invites them to an event or send them a hamper to review it. I don�t blame them. They do it to get a notch up in the line of bloggers becoming influencers and at times, aren�t even paid.
How to identify an influencer?�
I reckon you know you want to skip this, because to most of the people the answer is in a magical list that can connect you to the influencers and bloggers, generally acquired by any online blog like Parhlo or advertising agencies. Unfortunately, your answer is that list. Yes, there is such a data available but a wise marketer would know two things:
- If that influencer says yes to every other popular brand, that there my friend is a blogger.
- An influencer has a large audience and they will entertain only one or two industries. Their word will not be a mere review of the product or a brand.
These are the two key factors to identify an influencer.
Number of shares.�Yes, if an influencer is voicing an opinion on the internet, it will get shares like crazy. So look for that shares on their post.
Bonus tip: Influencers do not go around posting the same post on other pages. They don�t need to. But if you see a person copy pasting the same thing on several other pages, that�s just a blogger.
Amount of conversation.�So influencer is not like a guide. Influencer is a counselor. People ask for meaningful advice. If it�s just opinion vs opinion/agreements, that�s not an influencer. The charm of an influencer is that you can see people cross questioning their opinion and a real influencer will respond to them with logic not emotions.
Location, location, location!
Yes, there is no point in approaching the wrong influencer. Identify the area of which your influencer should be the dweller of. There is no point in hiring a tea lover when your product is coffee. (Yes, that has actually happened in Pakistan). So, sit tight, do a little research on the influencer list and locate the relevant influencers.
If you don�t do that, this will happen:
- You would be talking to the wrong audience, resulting them to be confused about your brand.
- The influencer will go back talking about the same thing they always stood for. So the campaign will die very shortly.
Point being, there is always a difference of creating noise about something and actually convincing people to pick your product off the shelves. Even if you have a tiny budget, the efficient way would be to go with one influencer rather than inviting 30 bloggers over a tea. Lastly and most importantly, do a little research! Never confuse an influencer to be a blogger or a blogger to be an influencer.