Influencers and Social Media.

    Today, how brands choose to market to their consumers has changed. For many brands, the use of word-of-mouth marketing may help continue to keep their business afloat, but many have found that a different form of marketing has helped them continue to gain profit and the possibility of a new target audience. Influencer marketing can now be added to the long list of marketing strategies that brands can use to market to their consumers. If a brand has something that is fresh and new, they can look to social media platforms like Instagram to see the who's who, their large follower count, and what type of content they post. If a brand likes the influencer and notices that the content they post typically gets a lot of traction from their followers, the brand may pay them a decent amount of money to promote their products on their social media platform. 

(Original use of the image).

    One of the things that I have noticed about this type of marketing is that brands like Nike, Starbucks, or Target tend to use influencers who may have already made a name for themselves on social media. For instance, the CBS article, The Influencers, showed King Bach talking about how he has become well-known, or famous if you must, with the use of social media. Before King Bach used Instagram to gain more of a following, he used Vine heavily and that is where he grew his fanbase. If you are familiar with Vine, then you too may remember scrolling down your timeline watching endless short videos until 3:00am in the morning. King Bach has over 37 million followers and with a following like that, if a brand were to ask him to create a 30-second video that talks about or displays their product, I am sure that many of his followers would purchase said product. Another thing that I noticed about this type of marketing is that the influencers who are chosen represent the standard of beauty. Meaning, many of the women are thin or slim built with beautiful faces. The men are oftentimes tall and handsome, and may even have a decent body. In the article, Gary Vaynerchuk, who runs a digital advertising company stated that if you want to be like Logan Paul or Kim Kardashian, you can develop a following by pretty, funny, or even good enough to brands like Nik or Starbucks want to pay you to promote their brands on social media platforms.

     One of the strategies that influencers are employing to engage with a brand's consumers is by creating content that resonates with the consumers. For instance, if an influencer is a known make-up guru on YouTube, brands like Fenty Beauty by Rihanna or NARS, you are going to send that influencer your make-up products. The influencer would then create content that incorporates the brand's product. The influencer may show themselves putting on lipstick or doing a hand swatch of their new foundation. If a consumer follows said influencer and is interested in those brands, that influencers content is going to make them check out the brand's website for those specific products. Thus, this creates a revolving door for the brand and the influencer. Another strategy I noticed is that brands tend to work with influencers that have already built a strong following for themselves on social media. For instance, Dunkin Donuts is a well-known donut company that many people enjoy here in the Midwest, but they decided to work with Logan Paul, an influencer with millions of people following him and his funny content. Dunkin Donuts did not have to work with Logan Paul because the brand already has a huge following, but the brand knew that Logan Paul has a huge following as well and because they knew that, they knew that many of his followers would be interested in their products given the funny content he created with Dunkin Donuts product in it.

    Influencers play a major role in marketing, especially social media marketing. It is obvious that influencers need some sort of brand to work with them in order to market their product, but influencers play a big role in making sure that the brand's product reaches their followers. For starters, influencers are the ones creating the content. Creating content takes time. From shooting a video to taking a picture, both things require the influencer to stop and think about what it is they want to do or say. Next, they have to come up with a caption that makes sense. Creating a caption for people who use Instagram to post pictures may be easy for them, but if you are an influencer who is promoting a brand you have to make sure your caption gravitates towards the consumer. The caption must make them want to interact with the brand they are promoting. 

     The use of influencers can have a major impact on the relationship between the brand and the consumer. If a brand decides to work with an influencer who is well-known and likable by many people, the brand may see an increase in product sales or traffic to its website. For instance, Tabatha Brown is a well-known influencer on Instagram. Her videos range from cooking videos to motivational videos. Outside of her great content, she is well known because of her down south personality that reminds you of your aunt. She recently posted a tweet from a vegan company that makes plant-based protein shakes. Plant-based protein shakes are hard to come about, but I believe that this company saw increased website traffic because they decided to work with Tabatha Brown, a well-known vegan influencer who has a warm personality that everyone enjoys. Influencers like Tabatha Brown and Logan Paul have an impact that could either persuade a consumer to like a company or hate them because of the massive amount of following and influence they have on social media.