One of the biggest trends of marketing these days with the upcoming generations are influencers. Influencers are trusted figures within a niche community and retain a loyal following.(Young Entrepreneur Council, 2018) Sometimes influencers can be celebrities like Kim Kardashian, who thrive on social media with between thousands to billions of followers.
I am a culprit of following a few influencers on social media. I am very much into the fitness industry so I follow a few people who have a very large following base on their fitness accounts and often times they are advertising supplement brands they use. I have bought supplements from companies that they use in their videos or pictures because in my head, if it works for them it can work for me too.
These marketing strategies are a huge hit with companies all over the world. Influencers use their social media accounts to help companies spread brand awareness to their countless followers thus helping the company make more money. Influencers will promote a brand’s product with catchy, often funny videos or pictures that grabs the attention of a certain market. With the use of their social media as a brand’s tool, these followers often buy the products that are being advertised to keep up with the “trends” that the influencer is showing. Influencers aren’t cheap though. Influencers get paid big bucks, thousands at a time even for a short six second video on the app Vine.
This style of marketing really benefits companies because they can use these influencers as a way to spread brand awareness to their company which helps bring in more customers which means more money and more success. Its a win-win situation because consumers want to be interested in a product and have a reason to buy it. These influencers aid in adding popularity to a companies products by using them in their videos or pictures which makes their audience become a customer immediately, thinking they need to have it because this popular person on social media has it. that being said, the company may lose their face to the influencer because the consumer is really only seeing this product because of the person they follow on social media. So this could cause a bit of a wall between the consumer and the actual company.
References:
Whitaker, B. (2016, October 23). The Influencers. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-kim-kardashian-logan-paul-social-media-influencers/
Young Entrepreneur Council. (2018, July 30). Understanding Influencer Marketing And Why It Is So Effective. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2018/07/30/understanding-influencer-marketing-and-why-it-is-so-effective/#48ee7cd971a9












