Brands and Influencers📢: Zooming into a New Era of Influencer Marketing

Over the last sev­en years, influ­encer mar­ket­ing has grown into a multi­bil­lion-dol­lar indus­try, with large and small brands com­ing to view the prac­tice as a less clum­sy way to sell their products. For brands, we can all agree that it’s increas­ing­ly chal­leng­ing to get your brand noticed. Find­ing your online tribe and gen­er­at­ing trust can feel like an impos­si­ble mis­sion. This is where Influ­encer Mar­ket­ing comes in. It is an effec­tive way to grow your brand aware­ness. Influ­encer Mar­ket­ing enables them to build a tribe of brand advo­cates, estab­lish trust, increas­es brand aware­ness, and helps your SEO by gen­er­at­ing back­links to your website.

Unstoppable Growth

In the ear­ly days, brands used to send an influ­encer free prod­uct or offered to pay them a com­mis­sion for their consideration. But as more and more brands came to see the prac­tice as an invalu­able mar­ket­ing tool, the pow­er bal­ance turned over, and influ­encers began to com­mand sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er fees for each post, men­tion, or prod­uct review. Today, you can see influ­encers are all over social media plat­forms like Insta­gram, YouTube, Twitch, Tik­Tok, Snapchat, and Tumblr.  Spon­sored con­tent has become so uni­ver­sal that some plat­forms, like Insta­gram, now have built-in tools to help influ­encers pro­mote their paid part­ner­ships in Sto­ries or feed posts. On YouTube and Insta­gram, prod­uct review deals are now stan­dard. They are the use of affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing links and spon­sored coupon codes.  Blog­gers charge $100 to $2,500+ per post with ampli­fi­ca­tion on social chan­nels (re-post­ing the con­tent across oth­er social platforms). Pop­u­lar YouTu­ber Sanders Kennedy said that a brand once offered him a cou­ple of thou­sand dol­lars to put a bev­er­age on his desk while film­ing a video. YouTube is way more expen­sive. A video from a YouTu­ber with 2 mil­lion sub­scribers will cost at least $30,000. Influ­encers charge up to $5,000 to $20,000 more to post a neg­a­tive review of a company’s competitor. The old days when TV com­mer­cials used to be the most effec­tive mar­ket­ing tool are gone. These days, we face a new mar­ket­ing era, where influ­encers are com­mand­ing a new mar­ket­ing strategy.  For brands, Col­lab­o­rat­ing with an influ­encer who has a fan base of loy­al fol­low­ers rel­e­vant to a prod­uct has proven suc­cess­ful results. More and more world brands turn to influ­encers to pro­mote and shout out their products. And the answer to that high-demand field is that fol­low­ers treat their influ­encers like close friends.  When a famous influ­encer starts using some prod­uct or talk­ing about one, thou­sands of fol­low­ers are ready to try the prod­uct them­selves. That is why we’ve decid­ed to intro­duce 10 Toron­to-based influ­encers to fol­low in 2020, for you to check out their pro­files and have a look at their Insta­gram splash!

Building A Brand From Scratch

Some influ­encers have tak­en col­lab­o­ra­tion to an absolute­ly new lev­el. Instead of only work­ing with brands, they have become their brand. They are launch­ing make­up, cloth­ing brands, busi­ness books, pod­casts, videos, and more. The list is long, but we have men­tioned here just two that real­ly inspired us with their sto­ries that would catch big dream­ers’ eyes!

- Jennifer Lopez

Actor, singer, film & tele­vi­sion pro­duc­er, fash­ion design­er, best­selling author, and entre­pre­neur, in short, she is a pack­age with all the tal­ents avail­able in this world. Jen­nifer Lopez has recent­ly launched her JLo Beau­ty brand. JLo Beau­ty launched six skin-care prod­ucts — includ­ing a cleanser, mois­tur­iz­er, face mask, eye cream and serum. She has more than 200 mil­lion fol­low­ers on Insta­gram and Face­book. She is very much active on her social media handles.

- Bobby Umar

Bob­by Umar is a pro­lif­ic busi­ness coach, pres­i­dent of Raeal­lan, and founder of Dis­cov­er Your Per­son­al Brand… Umar is a four-time TEDx speak­er and has more than 450,000 social media fol­low­ers. He has been named the sec­ond-best busi­ness coach to fol­low on Twit­ter and the fourth-best lead­er­ship influencer. Umar is the author of three books, includ­ing a num­ber one best­seller. He hosts a week­ly tweet chat called “The Pow­er of Con­nec­tion” that has reached over 65 mil­lion impres­sions week­ly. His social media influ­ence has gath­ered over a bil­lion impres­sions. As a speak­er, Umar is known for his help­ful­ness, authen­tic­i­ty, and down-to-earth approach.

Wrapping Up

It’s worth say­ing that influ­encer mar­ket­ing cam­paigns are now flour­ish­ing. And no one knows what kind of new strate­gies the dig­i­tal world has pre­pared for us. If you are a new­bie influ­encer or want­ed to be, go ahead, and do your research to get into that future splash. For brands, you need to find your excep­tion­al style in this mar­ket­ing cam­paign. Always think like your cus­tomer, and always remem­ber, there’s no guar­an­tee that the same idea will work for your brand as well.  Still, the essen­tials are work­ing for you are here; find the influ­encers, look out for your brand­ing speak­er who is sure to impress. Book one whose back­ground aligns with your needs and learn how to make your sto­ry shine. Think your adver­tis­ing cam­paign through, make it unique and enjoy the results!