The predictions are that influencer marketing in 2019 is set to continue its rise in popularity. We lost our love of traditional ‘push’ advertising a long time ago, overtly personalised ads are not hitting the mark and more of us than ever before are viewing our media on the small screen. The bottom line is that, although we still love to shop, we prefer to take our buying recommendations from people we feel we know something about. This is great news if you are a successful blogger or have a great social media following, whatever your niche, there will be someone out there who would benefit from asking you to try out and review their product.

How does influencer marketing work?

The premise of influencer marketing is simple. A brand looks for online personalities whose following matches their target demographic and offers those personalities goods (45%) or money (62%) to review and provide links to their product or service. The online personality tries the product (or sometimes doesn’t) and writes (or sometimes copies) a review on their blog or social media feeds. This review is then read by potential buyers who, trusting their favourite online personalities, go ahead and make a purchase.

Why does influencer marketing work?

We live in a world of saturated online marketplaces and, as consumers who often no longer examine goods pre-purchase, it can be difficult to decide which of our many choices we want to buy. One of the things that can help us to make our buying decisions is trusted recommendations. If we can’t get these from our friends, we turn online to people whose lifestyles we admire or whose opinions we value.

Should I trust influencer marketing?

Now you understand influencer marketing you can make more informed purchase decisions. It is fairly easy to work out, from their writing and images, whether or not an influencer has really tested a product (for a start it shouldn’t be copied directly from the company website). If you have been following this influencer for a while and trust what they say in other fields, for example, advice or comment, then you are well-placed to judge whether or not you trust them to help you decide where to spend your money.

For more information on becoming a great marketing influencer… check out next week’s blog post.

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