Full Screen

Influencers

More Free Lessons in

Social Media Marketing View All →

Get cutting-edge digital marketing skills, know-how and strategy

This micro lesson is from one of our globally recognized digital marketing courses.

Start a FREE Course Preview Start a FREE Course Preview
Global Authority

The Global Authority

12 years delivering excellence

Members

245,000+ Members

Join a global community

Certification

Associate Certification

Globally recognised

Membership

Membership Included

Toolkits, content & more

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Why are influencers important?

Seth Godin says “It doesn’t scale because we tell the world, it scales because if we treat five people so well they will tell other people... And they will tell five, and those become twenty and that’s when it scales.”

When thinking about your influencers and advocates, it’s really beneficial to make sure you’re treating your customers in a robust way to delight them. Because, in essence, what that creates is advocacy, which then extends on and on and on, creating a scalable rule for your organization.

Techniques for engaging influencers

You can use a number of techniques to engage influencers:

  • Give influencers creative control: Let them be a part of the organization process that you have to be able to let them create their own type of versions of the content you’re creating.
  • Engage with influencers who love your offering: If you engage with them, they will love you more.
  • Create a mutually beneficial relationship: You also need to understand what exactly is in it for them. A mutually-beneficial relationship is critically important from an influencer perspective. Remember, this is always a two-way street, and we need to be very mindful to make sure that we understand what’s in it for them and play to that. There’s nothing wrong in having a mutually-beneficial relationship.
  • Look for an influencer with a dedicated audience: A lot of these influencers will have their own very big fan bases. And once they tell one person, or once they tweet one tweet, it could actually go to hundreds of thousands of people. So choose those people carefully, and reach out to them and embrace them.
  • Use influencers as reporters for your brand: Make sure that you’re giving them news first. There’s nothing wrong with trying to basically drip-feed information out into the ether through your influencers. They will be your strongest advocates. Give them priority.
  • Sponsor influencer-run competitions: Make sure that you actually are part of their word and giving value back to them.
  • Respect influencers’ judgment: Respect their judgment when they give you feedback. It’s a great way of being able to understand what your core consumers may be thinking ahead of time
  • Do not confine your search for influencers to celebrities: In fact, very often the key influencers are ones that are not so well known by the mainstream public, but actually, in a niche area are extraordinarily well known. So seek those individuals out!
  • Have actionable goals for influencer campaigns: Make sure you’re targeting them in the right way and have key KPIs that you’re leading up to, to make sure that you track how well you are responding to your influencers.
Back to Top
Richie Mehta

Ritchie Mehta has had an eight-year corporate career with a number of leading organizations such as HSBC, RBS, and Direct Line Group. He then went on setting up a number of businesses.

Data protection regulations affect almost all aspects of digital marketing. Therefore, DMI has produced a short course on GDPR for all of our students. If you wish to learn more about GDPR, you can do so here:

DMI Short Course: GDPR

The following pieces of content from the Digital Marketing Institute's Membership Library have been chosen to offer additional material that you might find interesting or insightful.

You can find more information and content like this on the Digital Marketing Institute's Membership Library

You will not be assessed on this content in your final exam.

ABOUT THIS DIGITAL MARKETING MODULE

Digital Communications
Richie Mehta
Skills Expert

This module begins by covering the benefits and challenges associated with digital communications and the importance of researching and selecting the most appropriate digital channels to reach and engage with your target audience. It covers the tools and digital PR activities you can use to extend your reach on social media, content management, the factors to consider when creating a budget for a digital campaign, resourcing a digital team, and the importance of aligning digital metrics with customer service metrics to review the performance of a digital campaign.