It’s really simple. An influencer is a person with influence. What does such a person has influence on, you might think. Well, that is simple. YOU.
Every day we use our phones hundreds of times. You might have profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc. It’s where you connect with your friends, watch funny videos of cats running around and maybe you even read news about what is going on in the world.
But the phone and the social media in particular is also where the brands are. And they need to promote their products. And since you’re not watching TV or reading the newspaper anymore, they are obliged to use social media.
One of the ways to reachyou as a consumer is by going throughyour friends and others you follow on social media. For example, you probably followmany people on Instagram that you don’t really know in real life, but you follow them because they have interesting lives. And when they use a productand make posts about it, the chance that you want totry the sameproduct increases dramatically. That is how they influenceyou. He or she is now an influencer.
Two types of influencers
Influencers can be classified in various groups. Ex. you can separate them in groups of their interests –like someones are interested in clothing, some with sports and fitness and some again are interested in arts. But you can start dividing the influencers in sizes
Macro-influencers
You probably already knowthis group. These are the oneswe all follow. They may be famous sport stars, models or maybe youtubers, and you just want to have a glance “behind the scenes” in their glamorous life. So does everyone else and that is why he or she has ten or hundred thousand followers.
If companies want to brand themselves or their product through these influencers, they have to pay a bigger or smaller amount of money for the reach. That means if the influencer advertises for the product, all the followers see it. Meaning that the company behind reaches wide for a small budget.
Micro-influencers
A smaller group on Instagram is the microinfluencers. You might know them too, but that is because they are your friends or network. They have a smaller amount of followers, like 1000 or 5000. But their credibility is much bigger. They do not live of their “branding”, but are regular people going to job every day and just randomly also have an Instagram-account.If a company choose to brand their product through these, they need more influencers, but for the same money and with a lot more credibility.
If you are a company, it can be beneficial for you to read this article about how to find influencers on social media.