Ashray Sachdeva, Head Marketing - Glynk

Having 11 years of experience in a range of roles and sectors, Ashray has developed the stature of the growth marketing, media strategy & planning, digital media, entrepreneurship and partnerships industry

Even though influencer marketing has been used as an approach for the last 100 years to promote a brand/product, it has become an extremely powerful and widely used concept ever since the birth of social media. While the good old ways of signing up celebrities for endorsing a product/brand do exist, it has carved a new path for anyone on the internet who has a good number of followers or fans to shape the trends and opinions of a consumer. Traditional advertising campaigns ROI cannot be measured as there is no way to know whether a consumer has purchased the product or even started following a brand because of a particular approach. While influencer marketing can be expensive, brands can measure the impact in terms of the number of people who engaged with a particular piece of content by adding the right tracking tools.

Influencer marketing is basically a hybrid of content and traditional marketing techniques. As the world shifts more and more towards living in the digital world, it has become one of the easiest and fastest routes for agencies or brands to experiment when it comes to influencing a consumer. In today’s world, a marketing campaign without involving influencers is unthinkable, as it has become an integral part of every brand-related communication.
An influencer can be anyone, unlike a celebrity - it could be your next-door neighbor or someone you know

personally who has amassed a huge follower base in the internet world. Influencers can be travel bloggers on Instagram, an interior designer on Pinterest or a comedian on YouTube. These are people who chose to follow an alternative career path and become experts in their respective fields by sharing their real-life experiences with the entire world.

For this reason, finding the right influencer whose creative vision aligns with your own is the toughest as they have to be able to resonate with your target audience. While searching for the right influencer, you need to make sure to check out what your potential influencers are posting. How often are they sharing sponsored content? If they’re already sharing enough content which is paid, their engagement rate may not hold up over time. Look for plenty of organic, non-paid content to keep followers interested, enthusiastic, and engaged. To get maximum results the brand has to give creative freedom to the influencer for them to showcase their content creation skills after all they are the experts who have managed to create a niche yet relevant following which aligns with your brand on social media.

In today's world, a marketing campaign without involving influencers is unthinkable, as it has become an integral part of every brand-related communication

Influencers can really get high engagement rates whenever it does not feel like they are promoting a product for the money but rather weaving a story which stands true to their personality. A piece of content will usually showcase an influencer going about the daily chores and not have the product be at the center of this communication which enables the brand to reach its target audiences and showcase the product in the real world.

For example, when an influencer uses makeup products or even a new cell phone which has been launched, they ensure that the communication around it is very personal to them in every aspect. They create content which is line with their own personal brand rather than following a fixed advertising template provided by the brand.

Influencer marketing is really about the audiences trusting the influencers’ opinions and recommendations. How do we know if the influencer is trusted? Engagement. That means plenty of shares, comments, shares and likes across social media platforms.

As long as influencers do not divert away from creating content which becomes completely about the product/brand and ensures there is a personal element in their content creation, Influencer marketing is here to stay and will continue making an impact in the consumers daily life.