How Influencers Disrupted Traditional Marketing

There was a time when only the rich and powerful brands could hire advertising agencies that would publicize their brands or products amongst audiences.

These brands had to spent millions of dollars and had to hire huge teams to achieve these goals. However, gone are the days when only the rich could afford better means to advertise their products.

Technology has created better means of cheap advertising through social media platforms and these means have so far proven to be a lot more reliable.

What are these new marketing strategies you ask?

Well, it is the use of influencers to promote their products.

Influencers are people who have a large fan following on social media and other internet platforms: they can go from being completely normal or celebrities to ‘YouTubers’.

Influencer vs Traditional Marketing

Influencer marketing has turned the world of traditional marketing upside down. Marketing teams would no longer spend hours on which ad agency to hire: now they discuss the possibility of hiring influencers instead.

The reason why influencer marketing has seen such tremendous growth of attention is because the consumers are mainly millennials and they only trust the people they follow.

Influencer marketing is the smartest way of marketing in modern times: it could also be posed as ‘smart marketing.’

Traditional Marketing may win the argument by stating that it has larger consumer coverage but it would cost brands millions and millions of dollars, not to mention most of the ad revenue would be sucked out through ad blocking.

Traditional Marketing in the modern and fast world of social media and other technological platforms has proved to be inadequate and exceedingly expensive.

The emergence of influencer marketing and its rapid growth has undoubtedly disrupted Traditional Marketing.

Celebrity or low-key influencers

Here I would like to point out that even though influencer Marketing is an effective way to bring your product to the consumer’s attention but you still need to strategically decide which influencer would suit your product the best.

Trust me; this is the make or break of your product’s promotional success.

Celebrities no doubt have a mass fan following with millions of followers however they can often be lackluster and cost too much to hire.

Another thing I would like to bring to your attention is that influencers are swept away with better contracts quite easily.

So before you go for a celebrity: think twice. Even though they have fans following them by the masses, celebrities tend to be less interactive with them and then in turn makes it hard for consumers to actually trust their word.

You might want to go for other influencers who are slightly low-key but are very interactive have millions of followers who trust them and these influencers would also collaborate with the brand to think of better marketing techniques.

These influencers can be famous YouTube personalities, famous Bloggers and social media personalities. The reason why I would suggest such influencers is because:

• They are cheaper: These influencers are far more cheaper than famous celebrities and would work with much cooperation. If you think your influencer does not have enough followers, then you can higher other influencers as well and this would help you get more coverage.
• They are more interactive: These influencers tend to interact with their fans and followers more since they are Internet personalities and most of their living depends on how their relationships are with their fans.
• They coordinate better: Unlike celebrities, low-key influencers are usually not lackluster and coordinate with their brands better in order to come up with new and better content that would make the consumer trust them. I would like to throw in the example of the Kardashians here, they are considered to be the most influential people in the world however they themselves have made great advertising blunders, the clear example is Scott Disick’s Instagram post which was meant to advertise and promote a protein shake. The blunder he made was he put up the entire e-mail they sent as a caption which immediately earned the consumer’s distrust seeing the lack of enthusiasm and belief in the influencer’s post.

When it comes to Influencers brands need to be very thoughtful and strategic into hiring them.

Internet personalities such as Lily Singh A.K.A Superwoman and Michelle Phan would have a better sense of relatability with their fans as compared to celebrities since they interact with their fans on a daily basis also they have somehow gained the trust of their fans.

Although there are rules and laws imposed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on the influencer a key ingredient in marketing success, is the belief an influencer has on a particular product or brand.

It is of the utmost importance that the product your influencer promotes he/she must be believe in it and that product suits their personality to make the consumer trust the product.

An example of Influencers not trusting the brand they are advertising is the recent lawsuit against the infamous Fyre Festival, where famous celebrities such as Kendall Jenner promoted the event and were paid in millions of dollars.

However the lack of belief in the brand made the celebrities not show up at the festival which turned into a great disaster for the consumers who already paid for the event.

Traditional Market disrupted:

As I have mentioned before and as a lot of marketing strategists would mention after me Traditional Marketing has indeed been disrupted with the current tech era.

Technology has indeed democratized marketing strategies, before the year 2004 it was only well known celebrities that would end up having marketing contracts and become brand ambassadors.

But as the world of social media is ever expanding even regular people with a huge fan following could advertise huge brands.

Social Media platforms, YouTube and blogs have taken over the world with great influence and have won many followers in the process.

These consumers mainly being millennial have great trust in these Internet personalities they follow rather than these huge advertising agencies with which they can’t relate with and can identify their marketing strategies as a ruse.

Influencer Marketing undoubtedly in the very near future would be the most successful and the smartest form of marketing with its ability to relate with the consumer and low budget costs that would aid into generating more revenue.