Why Do Influencer Marketing Matter For Brand Success?
Influencer marketing can be described as a form of promotion that involves endorsement from influential people on social media platforms. Combined with the popularity of social media networks and the increased credibility of actions undertaken by influential personalities, influencer marketing has experienced exponential growth.
Marketers are aware that influencers have the power to influence people’s perceptions and make important purchase decisions. In this article, we will explore how influencer marketing can make a big difference in consumer reviews. So let’s have a look over it:
● Build trust and credibility
Influencers have an audience whose buying decisions are influenced by the words and recommendations from these influencers. This is because people in a given group are more likely to trust the opinions of their influencers, resulting in positive attitudes toward the endorsed product/service.
● Amplify Brand Awareness
As has been discussed, influencing marketing and advertising is more effective than conventional marketing since it can create hype and thus, can improve brand awareness and recognition. This leads to the consumers being encouraged to post comments such as positive and negative reviews due to the increased exposure they get to the brand’s products/services.
● Shaping perceptions
Influencers can influence consumers’ perceptions uniquely. Since individuals trust recommendations from their favorite influencers, these opinion leaders can color consumers’ perceptions and subsequent reviews regarding a product or service that they use.
Some of the best influencer marketing strategies and methods with their influence on online reviews
● Beauty Bloggers and Micro-Influencers
A prime example of businesses that have successfully employed the use of micro-influencers recently was Glossier, a beauty brand that tapped into micro-influencers to generate organic content and positive word of mouth. Through endorsements of relatable personalities, strategy is proven to have influenced consumer attitude positively hence increasing their brand attachment.
It is also significant to note that influencer marketing and consumer reviews are interconnected, as each has an impact on the other. That is the reason why influencer marketing possesses a specific potential to alter consumer perceptions or increase brands’ visibility and therefore their impact on consumer reviews.
How Influencer marketing can increase the number of reviews?
When influencers recommend a product or a service, the audience actively engages with other reviews and shares their own experiences. Influencers share credible stories, which become engaging to their audience, forcing the latter to participate in a product’s evaluation and purchase.
Influencers’ followers are asked for more reviews or they are provided with the right reviews from the same audiences. This does not only assists social proof but also provides material content contributed by the users for marketing purposes.
How to get favorable reviews using endorsements.
1. Collaborate with relevant influencers:
This means that one has to work with influencers, who not only hold or represent similar values as the brand but also the brand’s target market. Therefore, the chances of getting positive reviews from people who engage the selected influencer boxes having shared interests with the brand are high. Thus, the essence of successful influencer marketing lies in its credibility and relevance.
2. Provide a positive brand experience:
Customers should have a memorable experience each time they come across a brand. If the influencers themselves have used the brand, and these were good experiences they will tell their followers about it. This can be done through such strategies as creating customer satisfaction through individualization, and provision of quality services, and goods.
3. Encourage honest feedback:
Brands should ensure that the influencers share their first-hand insights on their experiences with the products. This can be done either with the help of questionnaires or feedback forms or just through questioning and discussion. Thus, brands considering influencers’ opinions, show their desire to evolve and increase trust.
4. Offer Discounts For Reviews:
Brands need to persuade influencers to review and this can be done by offering them a discount code for or perhaps free products. This can encourage influencers to post good experiences to other customers and their followers about the brand.
The relationship goes hand-in-hand with the process of building trust to increase brand awareness based on the use of reviews and marketing by influencers.
Overall, the enhancement of trust is deemed as the key factor in the context of the development of brands with the help of reviews and influencer marketing. People trust recommendations from other people; that is why any marketing strategy, especially reviews and endorsements, must be built on trust.
Building Trust Through Openness and Honesty
The first one is trust which should therefore be built through the practice of openness and honesty. This can be achieved by: This can be achieved by:
1. Encouraging Genuine & Unbiased Reviews
Brands must not alter or twist reviews in any way be it by removing negative comments or even editing the comment section. Instead, they ought to foster free and independent feedback from customers and other social media users even with unfavorable remarks. This seems to show that it values one aspect of online presence, namely that of honesty.
2. Engaging With Reviews
It is also important for brands to respond to the reviews including the positive and the negative ones. Engaging in responding to reviews demonstrates that the brand is keen on consumers’ opinions and can address some of the complaints. Such an engagement level also assists in achieving an overwhelming level of trust and loyalty toward customers and influential customers.
3. Represent User-generated Content
This is very effective for brands to let customers speak the truth about the product or service they are offering in the market. This is useful for establishing credibility since it offers people’s real-life experiences and opinions from other customers and key opinion leaders.