Influencer Marketing: A Myth Busting

Influencer Marketing: A Myth Busting

Marketing experts have questioned the merits of embracing influencer marketing According to these stories, marketers who embrace this newfangled fad are gambling with their brand’s reputation by relinquishing total creative control to amateurs, all for results that can’t even be measured. If you’re nodding your head in agreement right now, you have fallen prey to some of the common misconceptions about influencer marketing. It’s time for some myth busting and seeing influencer marketing for what it really is.

Influencer Marketing Myth 1: Why Embrace Something New

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you have been working for a while, chances are you might have figured out what works best for your brand. You may not feel the need to add something new to your mix. What would be the point?

Even if your current strategy is working, including influencer marketing in your marketing mix pays off. Sure, you could stick to your brand’s social media channels, on the theory that you can address your audience just as well without an influencer. However, when an influencer showcases your product on their social media account, their fans can’t get enough of it. But the same product doesn’t generate as much hype when promoted on the brand’s channel. Influencers garner more engagement on their channels because their fans actively engage with them.

Influencer Marketing Myth 2: Influencer are amateur at marketing and unprofessional

Influencer marketing requires brands to relinquish control of their advertising content to influencers. This influencer is usually not an expert at media and marketing. But the widespread influencer marketing myth that spending your budget on a non-professional doesn’t pay off needs to be dispelled.

The crux of the matter is influencers have spent their time testing and retesting what content works best for their particular audience. They know what their audience wants better than brands ever could even though they are not professionals. It’s only logical for brands to make use of this knowledge by hiring influencers to produce content for them.

Influencer Marketing Myth 3: You cannot avoid fakes

Influencers rank among the most trusted sources when it comes to product recommendations. The success of influencer marketing is mainly based on authenticity. However, given the booming black market for fake followers, marketers have to do their due diligence. A common misconception says that there’s no way of detecting fakes, but that influencer marketing myth can easily be debunked.

Influencer marketing platforms can easily help you trace the fake followers and bot-driven engagements that can ruin the effectiveness of your influencer marketing campaigns. Based on target audience metrics such as follower quality, follower growth and like-follower-ratio, these platforms can determine whether an influencer’s followers are valuable or fake, inactive or unsuitable. And if you suspect something fishy, you should always ask.

Conclusion

While influencer marketing as a field continues to mature, misconceptions about the industry persist. It’s time to bust these influencer marketing myths so that brands can develop expertise and leverage the social media presence of influencers to grow their business.