SmartCompany<\/em> influencer marketing is \u201creally rooted in credibility and recommendations\u201d.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea is that as social media grows and people are more and more connected to one another, they have the ability for their voices to be heard more than in the past,\u201d Crutchley says.<\/p>\n
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\u201cBrands are also really affected by the genuine experiences people are having with products and with brands.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Crutchley describes the rise of social networking as creating a need for brands \u201cto be part of the conversation\u201d and influencer marketing gives businesses access to the conversations that were not able to access through traditional forms of marketing.<\/p>\n
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But Crutchley says influencer marketing isn\u2019t just about finding the Instagram or Facebook users with the most followers, it is about finding the influential people in the market the business is operating in.<\/p>\n
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The tailored nature of influencer marketing is one of the benefits for smaller businesses, Crutchley says.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey don\u2019t have the luxury of wastage,\u201d Crutchley says of SMEs.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt works really well for small businesses because it is very scalable,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s comparatively cost-effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
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However, Crutchley says there are several pitfalls to avoid when using influencer marketing.<\/p>\n
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\u201cCommunication is number one,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
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\u201cCredibility is the core element of word-of-mouth and so its important the influencer doesn\u2019t feel like they are just a number on a list.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Crutchley says it is also important to find an influencer whose audience will be open to the message and the brand being marketed and to make sure the communication between the influencer and their audience is aligned with the brand being advertised.<\/p>\n
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Finally, Crutchley recommends setting up the correct procedures for any payment between the advertiser and the influencer.<\/p>\n
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\u201cA lot of the work we do is contracted and the payments are made in a business framework,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
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This article was oritinally published on SmartCompany<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian businesses are increasingly spending their marketing budget on creating branded content to engage social media users with large and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,13,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32058"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}