What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is the collaboration of a social media influencer and a brand to promote brands, services and products. Influencer marketing is one of the most popular online marketing techniques driven by social media and other means. This technique of marketing helps brand– voice by popular voices from people among the consumers.

All the brands we see, we see a face attached to it. An athlete promoting an energy brand, an actress promoting a beauty brand, an actor promoting a muscle supplement brand, and a mother promoting baby products. The promotion that sells, and makes the consumer trust the brand more, the name, and the service more is Influencer marketing. 

Influencers promote brands through their trustworthy and notable presence. The sphere of influence starts from there. Just like Virat Kohli is promoting Puma, Sushmita Sen is promoting Wrogn—the apparel brand by Virat Kohli. With the recent campaign of Wrogn, ‘Love is respect’. Sushmita X Wrogn. 

Before that, Wrogn collaborated with the movie Deadpool & Wolverine. These moves give the brands more visibility and make a home in the minds and the market. 

The sphere of influence- different influencers have different audiences. And when these influencers affect the buying preferences and habits of their audience. It helps the brand grow with that engagement. 

The spheres depend on the type of influencers. Based on audience size and social media presence the influencers in influencer marketing are divided into the following types-

1. Nano Influencers (more or less than 10,000 followers)

2. Micro-Influencers (10,000 to 50,000 followers)

3. Medium influencers(50,000 to 1,00,000 followers)

4. Macro influencers(more than 5,00,000 followers)

5. Mega Influencers(have over 1 million followers) 

All of these influencers have their own influence and effects based on the kind of audience they have, they trust their audience shows in them, and the kind of engagement they get on their posts and actions. 

To know these influencers and their campaigns let’s dive deeper into the brand’s recent marketing campaigns.

Nano Influencers 

• With the rise in people’s interest in sports and recent sports achievements of athletes, they tend to be the new most followed nano influencers in India. 

Mia by Tanishq collaborated with Sheetal Archery. The collab with tag line’Proud believer of the star in you’

Tanishq is a well-known brand, but how does this collaboration help the brand? 

Nano influencers mostly don’t have a major fan following but are the reason or seasonal stars who grab all the media attention and every action associated with them, adding credibility. The eyes of an audition shine bright and the brand's name strikes hard when they see a person from them, there and making a place on the other shore. 

Adidas collaborated with Sumit Antil after bagging gold in the Paralympics. 

Sumit Antil X Adidas

What must be the strategy?

Brands like Adidas and Puma are known for their comfy athleisure. The collab with sportsperson as big as Virat Kohli and as highly looked on after an Olympic gold like Sumit Antil. In the dense market of sponsors and collaboration, any action with seasonal sensations like Sumit Antil blows the fire in the dense collaboration market. The strategy of joining hands right after the medal surely brightened a light and sank the brand name in between the talks of Sumit Antil. 

Micro-Influencers

Brands like Naykaa, Mamaearth and Zomato. People from different financial groups use the brands and grab audiences online, as well as word-of-mouth marketing collabs with micro-influencers.

Zomato organises events across the cities and collaborates with influencers like Mallika Dua, Gagan Arora, Danish Sait and many more, from making Vine videos on YouTube to inviting people to be a bloggers with Zomato.

Mamaearth collaborated with micro-influencers to create videos on YouTube to increase brand awareness and engagement. 

Nykaa collaborates with micro-influencers like Shreya Jain and Kiwi Tondon under Nykaa’s affiliate program (NAP). 

The influencers from Delhi have a fair share of followers who contribute to the promotions through their reviews and referrals. 

 But how do brands hire these influencers?

The influencers whose audience is seeking the tips and advice they tell about makeup are the best to input the brand name in between them to advertise and advice at once. The brand reaches them via Instagram or mail for barter or a commercial collab.  Whatsoever, it works!

 Medium Influencers 

Beauty and cosmetics brands like Mamaearth, Sugar Cosmetics, and apparel online shopping sites like Myntra, Flipkart, Nike Amazon, and many others join hands with influencers who are close to or have reached the million audience milestone. 

Flipkart's collaboration with Malvika Raaj Bagga and basicallymenz for their lifestyle and clothing products marked the beginning of influencer marketing for Flipkart. Malvika announced the collaboration through her social media. 

FlipkartxMalvika

Nike and Sejal Kumar’s collab on the name NIKE joyride.  

 Sejal is a YouTuber and has been featured in a few web series. 

She has over 2.5 million followers and has been creating content since 2014. 

NIKExSejal Kumar 

Macro Influencers 

Social media influencers who have a significant online and offline presence and a credible face in the eyes of millions are macro influencers. They are from Aashna Hegde, Burkha Singh, Komal Pandey, Sanjeev Kapoor and many more. The list is so long and so are the lists of their collabs, 

Some striking and impeccable ones are-

1. Tata SampannxSanjeev Kapoor 

1. XiaomexBurkha Singh

1. LorealxAashna Hegde 

1. Samsung Zflip6xKarron S Dhinggra 

1. MangoxJuhi Godambe

Mega Influencers

The actors, sportsmen, designers and other celebrities, influencing a large audience are the mega influencers. Their views, suggestions and reviews are considered credible by the masses and people are likely to make purchases. Their collab is not just a brand and influencer collab but they themselves are a brand, 

For example- 

PUMAxvirat is one of the collaborations continuing for a few years now. 

Some more remarkable brand collabs are-

1. VimalxAjay Devgan

1. MaybellinexSuhana Khan

1. MyntraxKaran Johar 

1. BikajixAmitabh Bachchan 

1. Make my tripxAlia Bhatt

FAQs

1. What are influencers?

People who can influence their audience or the consumer class.

1. What is influencer marketing? 

Influencer marketing is the collaboration of a social media influencer and a brand to promote brands, services and products.

1. Can anyone become an influencer?

Brands like Myntra provide affiliate programmes that you can apply and become an influencer for the brand. Consulting and reviews websites provide monetary prizes for posting an honest reviews. 

1. Do brands pay the influencers?

Brands do pay the influencers based on their audience count and credibility. The pay differs on the size of brand, campaign type and brand value of the influencer. 

1. Do people trust on micro influencers?

Micro influencers are tend to be more trustful than other categories as they are solely connected to their audience and people believe on their reviews and that they have said it on use. It makes people even switch their used products. 

1. Which influencer category grabs the most attention?

Mega influencers for every reason as they are well known and loved by masses. Above these points a brand collab between a mega influencer and brand shows the market value, profit and paying capability of the brand. It becomes a news and table discussion topics. 

1. What is the future scope of influencer marketing?

With changing trends people do trust a 60 second reel to take people’s advices on brands and even bigger topics like environment problems and sustainability. Influencers are going to influence people in the near future an the scope is bright. 

1. Should we trust and influencer?

Influencers and their promotions are far different than an ad. Some honest influencers do give right feedbacks and good comparisons. To not waste your money on new products to see them fail and go for an honest reviews can be considered a mindful decision.