10 Different Types of Influencer Marketing
To market to one’s target audience directly, brands have many digital platforms at their disposal. There are limitations, however, to the audience of followers a brand can organically create by itself on social media.
Influencer marketing is a way to carry your brand’s message further, reaching people you may not have otherwise been able to. The different types of influencer marketing may help you engage with your target consumers.
Here are ten different types of influencer marketing:
Type #1: Micro-Influencer Marketing
There are four main types of influencers:
- Celebrity influencers with followers above 1 million are expensive.
- Macro influencers with follower counts between 100,000 and 1 million are excellent.
- Micro-influencers have followers between 10,000 and 100,000.
- Nano-influencers have follower counts from 1,000 to 10,000.
The two last types of influencers offer the chance to go after very targeted demographics, i.e. geographically, age, race, gender, ideology, etc. Micro-influencers and nano-influencers often have better engagement and are more cost-efficient.
Type #2: Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is when you invite an influencer to write a blog published on your website or when you write a blog published on an influencer’s website. An influencer can then promote their ‘latest blog’ on social media, and you get clicks from those followers.
There is no better influencer campaign in the blogging category than guest blogging, although it doesn’t provide the same return as video.
Type #3: Live Shopping Influencers
Live shopping has a long list of unique influencers who help sell products through live streaming. An influencer does this with tutorials, demonstrations, pro tips, advice, sometimes blending in contests or quizzes, or simply does a very direct “hang out with me and let’s shop!”
A live shopping app capitalizes on live stream video and video marketing benefits. It uses a sense of urgency alongside an influencer to drive strong immediate sales for a brand.
Type #3: Affiliate Marketing
An affiliate marketing influencer marketing campaign means you pay the influencer commission as a percentage of the sales they bring into your business. This can be done in several ways, notably with the influencer’s discount code to their followers.
Affiliate marketing minimizes the upfront investment from you. It puts your influencer to work to sell your products or services. This type of influencer marketing hopefully results in both parties making money.
Type #4: Product Review
This is a very common influencer marketing strategy on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. A product review is very video-friendly and often nabs strong conversions. A product review may also involve an unboxing and a product demonstration.
In their video, an influencer tests a product and reviews it. Some influencers have built their entire business model off reviewing products, especially in the tech space.
Type #5: Sponsored Content
Sponsored content is an influencer signing off on your brand or a specific product or service. For sponsored content to work, it relies on a brand choosing its influencer wisely. It should be someone that aligns with you. From their perspective, you should be a brand that aligns with the influencer’s personality, style, and voice.
When you’re marketing to the wrong audience by picking the wrong influencer, you’re not going to get the clicks you want.
Type #6: Product Collaborations
There are many ways to do product collaborations. Still, they’re particularly common in beauty and fashion, where an influencer creates their line of clothing, accessories, or product under the brand’s name.
Any brand can do a product collaboration, though, and there are many ways to do so, i.e. buy ‘x’ from this brand and receive a phone call from the influencer, a short video call, a signed photo, or some sort of exposure similar to this.
Type #8: Competitions And Giveaways
Who doesn’t love free stuff? There are lots of ways to structure a competition or giveaway. An influencer can have a competition based on liking a post, using a hashtag, having a photo competition, encouraging tagging up to a set amount, signing up for an email subscriber list, or submitting entries or stories in some way.
From there, the influencer picks a winner, and the winner receives your product or service at no cost. It gets you exposure and spreads goodwill.
Type #9: Long-Term Ambassadors
A long-term ambassador is an influencer you choose to partner with for an extended period, often months and sometimes even years. You may use the influencer as a spokesperson, a very direct ambassadorship. What most brands do is cultivate a long-term relationship where influencers will mention their products or services with some regularity.
Repetition works. More frequent promotion through an influencer channel strengthens the authenticity and consumer confidence in a brand.
Type #10: Platform-Specific Influencers
Sometimes a brand may want to build attention on a specific platform, and there are platform-specific influencers on every social media site that can be used for that. Platform-specific influencers also include podcasters and live shopping channels.
Though not applicable to every brand, there is a lot of potential in audio formats via podcasting and live shopping to build an audience and sell a product. Influencers can have a massive role to play in that.