By Sahil Chopra
From shopping for clothes to ordering food; from teaming up for a game to collaborating for work, the world is adapting to the new way of doing things online. All the same, brands across the globe are leaning on the now almost customary practice of online marketing to reach out to their consumers.
However, online marketing is vast, and understanding its what, why, how might be a different journey altogether for various brands. While we are coping up with the new normal, social media marketing and influencer marketing, have been at the core of driving business for brands, especially in the year 2020.
Strategy, content and creativity drive your social media presence
Marketers spend most of their time figuring out the answers to the two most critical questions: first, what will work on social media platforms, and second, what will not. And the responses to which vary from brand to brand, from business to business and from consumers to consumers.
According to a research done by Statista, almost half of the world’s population is on social media, with 3.6 billion social media users, and the figures are only rising.
Consumers, today are well-informed and are aware of their needs and wants more than ever. Conventional methods of advertising are costly and may get a brand’s views but are not enough to drive the consumer to the cart page. Social media marketing, on the other hand, is a type of marketing that allows you to experiment without a cost, and brands have been aggressively leveraging social media platforms to spread business awareness, get traffic, all the while selling their products and services.
During the pandemic, social media platforms have kept business connected with their consumers through online interaction and contributed towards building brand recall by balancing strategy, content and creativity, the three core elements required to make a good brand image online.
We need to remember, deeper connections are only built when you communicate well, on the right platform.
The new face of your brand is Influencer Marketing
Giving a brand a face and voice is not a new concept. Remember celebrity endorsements? Akin to celebrity endorsements, influencer marketing, too, ropes in influential people across different spheres and creates word-of-mouth around a product or service to persuade customers to buy.
Influencers are backed by credibility and a good number of people following them, and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that they have a community of their own. A community that idolises them and would readily purchase a product they recommend. Earlier, YouTube and TikTok had been the two key players encouraging and engaging the masses globally. Now with new platforms like ‘Reels’ cropping up, it is becoming easier and flexible for brands to pin their faith on influencers for their promotion.
Given this sudden shift, more and more brands have become open to increasing their influencer marketing budgets for enhanced product or service marketing. According to a survey by Mediakix, 17% of companies are to spend over half of their total marketing budget on influencer marketing.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t end here. The challenge begins at searching for the right influencers for your brand. For example: A shoe manufacturing brand that has recently launched a new product which is targeted towards the segment of people who like to stay fit. And for a fitness product, a sports professional or an athlete should be the ideal choice to be the face of the brand.
It goes without saying that influencer marketing can work wonders for your campaign. Hence, finding the right one whose personality aligns with your brand’s image and shares the same value is the first step towards a successful influencer marketing campaign.
Amidst the pandemic, when even thinking about conventional methods of marketing sounds somewhat outlandish, given the lockdown and the need to abide by the preventive measures, social media marketing and influencer marketing have undoubtedly become every marketer’s best bet.
