What is an Influencer, why do you need it, and how to find it

The word influencer is in fashion. And it is not for less, since this figure is revolutionizing the traditional marketing schemes.

This digital profile has become the new celebrity of the 21st century that moves entire communities and attracts brands. His capacity for credibility convinces him to such an extent that everything he says, thinks, or does immediately will be adopted by many people.

The new trend in digital marketing is the search and contact with influencers to make collaboration agreements. A golden opportunity if we take into account that right now the influencers are the ones who set the guidelines on the Internet of what to do or what to use.

If you are thinking of exploring new strategies, you may be interested in knowing what an influencer is and what you can do to become an advocate for your brand. Keep reading and we will tell you!

What is an Influencer

An influencer is a person who can mobilize opinions and create reactions due to the credibility they have on a specific topic. They are opinion leaders and media figures within an area or sector. They do not necessarily have to be famous people, but “experts” who know the new trends and who have managed to make themselves heard thanks to blogs and social networks.

That influence is what makes them ideal prescribers for brands.

The influencer tells his community what is in fashion, what shows to watch, what products to buy … Everything he says goes to mass. As you can see, it is what we traditionally know as an opinion leader, but on the Internet.

How to be an influencer, types, and how much they earn

You need it: why is the Influencer important?

Currently, blogs and social networks have a high power of influence on the consumer and there are many bloggers, Instagrammers, or YouTubers who have become benchmarks within their sector.

Brands have detected this trend and more and more are looking for influencers to make collaboration agreements. The recommendations made by these figures help improve the positioning of the brand (as long as it makes sense within the digital media strategy).

Here are the main reasons why you need to have an influencer in your digital marketing strategies:

His word has a lot of impacts.
The community that follows him will associate you with his positive reputation.
Their followers can become your potential clients.
They can reach your community through various platforms.
Your followers take your opinion into account before making purchase decisions.

Influence in the RRSS

The influencer is digital. The actions of your strategy are based on the impact of your brand on networks such as Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube.

This is clear, but we must not forget that the influencer is not only on the internet. The content it generates is done thanks to attending events, brand presentations, and daily networking.

An influencer on Instagram, how to gain impact?

The Instagram network is the main one for an influencer focused on RRSS because there are their clients, users who have integrated the network in their day today.

The idea that influencers become a reference just by posting content is wrong. If you stop to analyze the Instagram of the top influencers you will see that there is a consistency and a strategy of both content and aesthetics. It is precisely this previous work that leads a person to become a reference. Naturalness is a maxim to succeed and generate that influence, but we cannot fool ourselves, this spontaneity responds to a communication plan.

How to be an influencer on YouTube

YouTube has been the launchpad for this new business model based on reviews and constant influence. Is it obsolete? Maybe yes or maybe this network needs increasingly unique and original content. You need creative professionals who listen to their audience and, in addition to providing entertaining content, do so with a purpose.

Do not worry there is still a lot of potential on YouTube, video is now the most successful strategy in any online business model.

The challenge is exciting, so if you want to be in front of a camera and create a personal brand, check out How to be YouTuber: 10 golden rules for success.

Tools and platforms to find influencers

Before finding and contacting an influencer you should bear in mind that not all of them are going to fit in with your brand or with the marketing strategy you want to execute. Therefore, you must identify those who, by the sector to which they belong, by their opinions or by their tastes, fit your objectives.

The research task is very important since the success of your campaigns will depend, above all, on the promotion made by your brand influencer and the relationship you establish with him.

As we have mentioned, influencers have a relevant presence on social networks and blogs, but it is not always easy to find them, especially if our sector is very specific. To make your work easier, we propose

5 tools to find influencers and make sure they are quality contacts :

# 1 Klout

It is a Social Media tool that rates the social profile according to its influence with a number from 1 to 100. In addition, Klout provides you with a list of influencers according to the theme; so that you will be able to know who are the ones who can help your content have a greater reach.

# 2 Peerindex

It is similar to Klout, although it offers more analytical data. The application shows who the influencers are in a certain area on Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, and Quora, based on a ranking from 1 to 100. Peerindex helps you know which content is the most important to your followers, it tracks your audience and identifies the influencers who follow your profile. Although the tool has an important part of payment, the search for influencers is free.

# 3 Circloscope

It is a tool to discover the influencers on the Google+ profile and optimize the account. You can install the application in your browser and you only need to enter the data from your Google+ account.

# 4 Twtrland

It is a tool to find influencers on Twitter that allows you to divide profiles into more than 40,000 categories to properly filter your searches. There is an “influencers” tab where you can perform an advanced search based on your sector and location.

# 5 Trolldor

If you find an influencer on Twitter but you are not sure if they are trustworthy, you can use Trolldor, a free online tool that will help you check if the account you suspect is a troll.

How to choose an Influencer

Once you have located the influencers that interest you, what you must do for your marketing strategy to be successful is to be clear about the objectives you want to achieve. From there, we advise you to do good research to identify if your brand may interest them and inform you about what they publish and what they like. So you can design a strategy so that they can get to know your brand in depth.

Influencer Marketing: Create Successful Campaigns

Now comes one of the most delicate tasks, contacting them. Most brands contact an influencer via email, but it is also common to contact through Twitter, their own blog, or even Facebook. At the time of contact, good advice is to provide a brief explanation about your interest in him or her and relevant information about your brand.

The most important thing is to know in advance if the proposal you want to make fits well with his personal brand. Obviously, you must do it with a personalized treatment and listening to their opinions so that communication is fluid.

As for the deals you can make with the influencer, you have several options. To guide you, you can think of the example of the fashion industry, where brands usually invite certain influencers to a catwalk or presentation of a new collection and then write a chronicle on their blog.

It is also common to offer them products for free so that they become familiar with the brand and can act better as ambassadors. In general, influencers are also receptive to obtaining benefits that will allow them to improve the quality of their content, such as collaboration and information.

Once the collaboration is closed, it is important that you measure the result of the actions to know if the strategy works: a number of mentions of the brand in social media, analysis of the content of these mentions, user reactions (comments, “likes” and retweets), web positioning of the brand or traffic on the corporate website…

Whether you want to be an influencer or you want to work campaigns with them.

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