Impact of Social Media Influencers on Brands
Now a days presence on Social Media is no more an exclusive strategy for brands. All brands are poised to have a social media address as well in addition to other communication strategies enlisted.
The next big question for the brand manager/ Owner is that How are you planning to make your brand sociable?.
Let us first try to understand the purpose of being on Social Media. We always have an assumption that a person is considered socially acceptable if he/she apparently lives in a society and have friendly relations with the netizens of the society. A person can be counted as a Social rockstar if he/she influences and manage to grab the attention of his netizens. Then this rockstar lead and influences all the residents. Similarly, Social Media management and marketing follows the same concept as like the real residents of the society. The more, the person is followed and aspired, more is the chance for the person to propagate his/her agenda.
In a way, a product becomes a brand when it hails to be associated with relevant brands in the social media that can influence its followers. Imagine a situation when a known face or brand in the social media endorses your product. Then your product experiences a social acceptance and people started following your product. A word of mouth marketing follow suit and the brand tend to become viral thus increasing sales.
Social Media platform have eventually empowered common man to posses a celebrity status and influence consumer buying behaviour. Basic requirement to be an influencer is as follows,
1. Anyone having an account or profile on various social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Blogger, Snapchat, Pinterest, Foursquare, StumbleUpon etc can become a real time influencer.
2. The influencer shall mention all standardised information about his/her credibility across the channel.
3. Communication across channels shall be thoroughly planned and published with visually appealing contents like image, GIFs, Videos etc.
4. All contents for communication shall revolve around a specific interest or segment where the influencer intends to influence.
5. The influencer shall demonstrate ultimate level of information and knowledge on the topic he/she intend people to follow.
Capital One, bank holding company specializing in credit cards, home loans, auto loans, banking and savings products headquartered in McLean, Virginia did a social media influencers campaign "What's in your wallet?" on Instagram and Facebook. The user generated content was targeted towards influencing and engaging customers for their credit card. Capital One hired three popular Instagrammers—Zach Rose, Kimberly Genevieve and Paul Octavious who are photographers by profession. The photographers then snapped pictures of the interesting things they keep in their wallets such as love letters, photographs and tickets."Many people carry around a wallet that has something sentimental in it other than what's functional,". A total of nine pictures were turned into Instagram ads; the images were also posted to the brand's and the photographers' accounts. The images boosted Capital One's ad recall 16 percent, particularly among Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. With people ages 45 and older, ad recall increased 25 percent, Capital One's brand favorability shot up 3 percent for people between 21 and 24 years old.
