Human beings tend to get easily influenced by any specific thing that can bring change in their lifestyle. It is the reason behind the emergence of influencer marketing. Today, this particular trend has already become significant because of social media. Now it is everywhere, and the eCommerce industry is taking immense advantage of this trend to sell its products compellingly. Influencers offer an immense opportunity to the brands they require to shine-on on all the prominent online channels.
Brands usually use the expertise and strategies of influencers to sell their products to a broader customer base. The emergence of social media and social commerce has provided an advantage to the influencers to make themselves essential for eCommerce brands in terms of executing promotions and brand awareness. An influencer basically promotes your products and tries to influence the customers to buy them. This practice can increase your overall sales and revenue. In this blog, you will get to know a piece of detailed information about influencer marketing and the latest trends in 2022.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Before moving any further, knowing what influencer marketing means is essential. Influencer marketing enables you to reach out to customers you can not attain through traditional advertising. As per a recent survey, more than 75% of customers make a purchase based on an influencer’s recommendations. Currently, brands are investing a hefty amount of money in influencers instead of traditional marketing. Thus, getting along with influencer marketing is essential to become competitive and generate impeccable revenue. Believe it or not, influencer marketing helps build trust among the customers for your brand and can drive effective and impressive results. It can be a great way to reach your business objectives and even reduce expenses for other advertisements. Let’s get down and find out the latest trends and types of influencer marketing.
Types of Influencer Marketing
1. Mega Influencers
Among every type of influencer, mega influencers have the highest reach, with more than a million followers. They seem to be quite active on social media platforms, whether it is Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. Mega influencers carry a celebrity status due to an enormous number of followers on their social media pages and accounts. Such influencers can generate millions of engagement quickly, making them alluring for eCommerce brands. There are so many trending eCommerce brands in the market who are leveraging influencer marketing.
However, everyone can not afford mega influencers because they are highly expensive. Still, brands are spending a lot on mega influencers to make their market presence and provide immense exposure to their products on social media. Kusha Kapila, Mithila Palikar, Gaurav Taneja, and Komal Pandey are some names who are considered mega influencers in India.
2. Macro-Influencers
Macro-influencers are one step below mega influencers and acquire followers between 1 million to 5 million on social media platforms. However, these types of influencers have a more significant number of followers. Still, they can only engage a particular number of customers via their presence on the internet through professional blogging or vlogging. Generally, television actors, celebrities, political leaders, and singers fall into the category of macro influencers.
They use their image and reputation to attain an enormous number of followers on social media, and brands can expect a huge price tag from them. However, macro influencers can help you to promote your brand among millions of customers. Still, you may not get an enticing engagement rate from them because they do not get engaged with their followers on a daily basis as mega influencers do.
3. Mid-Tier Influencers
Influencers that have not more than 500k followers are known as mid-tier influencers. They may not have celebrity status, yet they have a powerful grip over their followers and are trusted by their followers. If, as an eCommerce brand, you want to reach out to a broader range of customers and acquire more engagement, you should consider mid-tier influencers. Now you must be wondering how it is possible; that these influencers are prone to create more engaging content than any maga or macro influencer. They have a friendly relationship with their followers and present themselves as they actually are. They always try to establish a transparent relationship between them and their followers. Kabita Singh, Karan Dua, Rohit Dawersar, and Sahil Khan are some mid-tier influencers who have astonishing engagement with their followers.
4. Micro-Influencer
Micro-influencers have a range of followers between 10-100k. Although, this number doesn’t define their popularity because they have a solid and intimate relationship with their followers. Such influencers tend to be leaders in their fields such as beauty, fashion, fitness, marketing, etc. They have their reach among the ordinary people of society. Thus, it can become more accessible for eCommerce brands to reach out to customers from small cities as well. A survey says that more than 65% of customers are likely to buy products recommended by a micro-influencer.
However, as an eCommerce brand, if you want to make the most of influencer marketing, you need to take care of several eCommerce aspects: the quality of your product, presentation of your product, and availability of your products. To ensure the availability and presentation, you can take the help of brand-centric eCommerce software such as etraKY BS. It can notify you about your stock and helps in enhancing your product listing quality.
5. Nano Influencer
Influencers who don’t acquire more than 10k followers are known as nano influencers. If you are in the initial phase of establishing your eCommerce brand, you can take the help of nano influencers because it will be a cost-effective option for you. Nano influencers have a strong connection with customers from their local communities. As an influencer, they ensure that their followers share their products with their family and friends. They are more likely to create authentic content for their followers.
Latest Trends of Influencer Marketing
- Influencers do not only want to be on any specific social media, but they are more likely to appear on multiple platforms. They have loyal followers who follow them wherever they appear. Successful influencers have a robust customer base and do not rely on any individual platform. They are creators and not just YouTubers or Instagrammers.
- Influencers are more into emphasizing the video and audio content instead of influencing through an image or text. Due to the improved bandwidth service, the internet is in everyone’s hands, 5G networks are thriving around the globe, and customers have access to see more video and audio content. Creative influencers can now influence their followers via innovative video and audio content on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and even on Twitter.
- Live shopping has become one of the latest influencer marketing trends, and it will snowball in the coming years. Influencers sell any specific product on their Instagram and Facebook pages during the live shopping session. As an eCommerce brand, you can attain the advantage of this latest trend by associating with a top-notch influencer.
- This year, nano and micro-influencers will get more love because they can easily influence their followers through authenticity. They are more prone to increase engagement even with a less number of followers on social media platforms. Brands are associating more with such influencers because they prove cost-effective yet helpful.
- Influencers can become more specific in terms of promoting products or services on their social media pages. For instance, if an influencer is a dietician, they may focus more on promoting products related to a healthy lifestyle, such as protein powder, health supplements, organic foods, and sugar-free or gluten-free foods. It can be challenging for influencers also as they need to make sure that for what they are more passionate about.
Conclusion
Thus, you might have gotten an idea about influencer marketing and its latest trends. Influencer marketing is no more a new baby in the marketing industry; most of us are now aware of it. As an eCommerce brand, you can also associate with any influencer as per the type and nature of your product. It can help you generate efficient leads, increase your customer base, gradually increase your sales, and add more value to your business. Instead of investing a hefty amount in other advertising tactics, it is better to take the help of influencer marketing. However, any influencer can only help you when your listing and stocks are up to date. A stock availability software can be a watchdog of your stocks and never let you get into the Oos(out-of-stock) situation. In this regard, etraKY BS can help you effectively.
