This blog illustrates the meaning of influencer marketing, its significance, how it adds value to your product, and the categories of influencers.

2. Benefits And Types Of Influencer Marketing

3. Table of contents:
1. What is influencer marketing?
2. The upside of influencer marketing
3. Three ranks of the influencer marketing army
4. Check Note
5. Verdict

4. What Is Influencer Marketing?
We are all familiar with the word "influencer" as much as we are
familiar with the word "coffee." Today, we will explore the meaning
behind the term "Influencer Marketing." First, we need to understand
the ideology behind an influencer in Influencer Marketing. Yes, there is
a difference. Just like there is a difference between customer service
and customer experience (CX).
"Call it buying an audience before they buy your product, call it
influencer marketing, call it what you like. At the end of the day as
marketers we're all just trying to create conversations that will
ultimately increase our popularity in the online world - because we
know that if we're the most popular, consumers will come to us." –
Kristy Sharman

6. The Upside Of Influencer Marketing
An influencer in this subject is a medium, through which a brand
connects with the audience. Think of an influencer as the Rainbow
bridge of Asgard. It isn't as fast but it will get you your audience if you
do it right. (Only the worthy shall claim!)
Influencers dominate a platform. They have a voice that doesn't go
unheard. They are on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Vine, Twitch, and
basically everywhere where there is a platform for original content.
SSSniperWolf, PewDiePie, Mr. Beast, Unbox Therapy, Ninja, Tfue, h3h3
Productions, King Bach are all influencers!
• Let us explore what the privileges of Influencer Marketing are:

7. 1. Need Not Start From Scratch
Influencers have a fan base who follow them, consider their opinions,
look up to them and are most likely to take action if it comes from
them. You need an influencer to guide their audience into availing your
service or purchase your product.
If you were to be an influencer for your own brand, it would require
you a ton of dedication, time, and effort to get to the point where you
have your own audience to influence. Still, the other influencers would
be way ahead of you with a much greater audience than before.
If you get an influencer to promote your product, you don't have to
start from scratch.

8. 2. The Human Factor
People know that a brand is trying to persuade them into buying their
service. So, why would they buy your product and not your
competitor's? They would buy from you if you give your product a
human touch and get influencers to talk about your brand. Influencer
marketing is much like word-of-the-mouth marketing. The
differentiating factor being that this new generation marketing happens
on social media and the scale is large.
People always consider other people's opinion rather than believe what
a brand is saying about itself. An influencer promoting your product
reassures them.

9. Still, some might argue that an influencer is getting paid to promote a
brand. If they are YouTubers, the company is sponsoring their video
and they are bound to promote their sponsors. Now, this is where
organic influencer marketing comes into play.
Organic influencer marketing is you winning the trust of the influencer
with your product quality. Once you get the influencer to become a fan
of your services or offering, they would promote your brand like crazy
without even getting paid for the same! Even their fans would know
the difference between a paid endorsement and a genuine promotion.

10. 3. Value Addition
You might be familiar with the saying – "Facts tell, stories sell." Once
you have a product, it is worth something. You add value to it with a
story. The story might be of its origin or the inception of the brand.
The most influencing stories come from influencers themselves. An
influencer's verdict or opinion matters a lot. Their stories with your
product will add twice or thrice the value to your product.
I have classified influencers in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord-of-the-Rings-style
categories based on their weight and impact over the audience. These
personas are an important aspect of Influencer Marketing.

11. Three Ranks Of The Influential Marketing
Army

12. The Elves
The Elves have the biggest audience base and they can influence their
audience on a massive scale. They have a ridiculously amazing number
of followers and their audience takes action just on a little hint by their
icon. These influencers are the biggest in the industry. For example,
PewDiePie and his Bro Army - the so-called "nine-year-old" army has a
mammoth 84 million subscribers.

13. The Orcs
The Orcs are the second biggest influencers in the industry. They don't
have as many followers compared to the Elves but they could still
manage to create a significant impact that could enhance your sales.

14. The Dwarves
The Dwarves are the smallest in number but that doesn't mean that
they don't have an influence. The Dwarves have a small army or
"followers" in this case, which can make a difference for your brand by
increasing at least a portion of your sales.

15. Check Note
One of the most important details you need to remember is to pick out
an influencer whose audience is your potential target market. You
simply can't ask an influencer whose followers are kids under the age
of 10, to endorse a razor or shaving cream. It's just futile.
Suppose, your influencer is a gamer/YouTuber/streamer, and you are in
the PC equipment business like headphones, mouse & keyboard,
monitors, etc. Then the audience following the influencer is most likely
to buy from you when your brand is endorsed by their champion.

16. The Verdict
Influencer marketing is one of the most crucial methods to boost your
sales and create brand awareness. The audience tends to believe the
influencer rather than the brand itself. Fanatics take action as soon as
their idols mention something. They are happy to mimic them.
So, you need to pick out the right influencer and impress them with
your product quality to procure organic influencer marketing. On the
other hand, you can just hire them to endorse your brand the old-
fashioned way.

17. THANK YOU