How Social Media Influencers are Changing The Modern Marketing Landscape
Modern marketing is in a transformative phase. It comes from the bigger brands leaving behind their archaic marketing practices and making space for modern influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is a social media trend that is used in order to entice potential customers towards a brand through storytelling.
Brands who successfully use influencer marketing to reach their target demographic will use an influencer who is already engaging with their target audience.
Influencer marketing has, therefore, become a much more targeted marketing strategy.
Is Influencer Marketing a New Thing?
In short, no. Influencer marketing goes back as far as the 1950’s and 60’s ‘Mad Men’ era where large companies would introduce characters in order to bring positive feelings towards a brand and to charm customers into purchasing their products or services.
However, by the time the 1980s came, the consumer response to fictional characters associated with brands diminished and bigger brands began to find new ways to entice their customers. Television and radio was widely available and customers became charmed once again by the concept of Celebrity Endorsement Marketing on their radios and TV screens.
Celebrity endorsement puts celebrities in the position of opinion leaders, enforcing the message of a brand. Celebrities grab the attention of the public naturally, and this new development would take marketing towards a new direction entirely. The business world would quickly realise and appreciate the power of using real people to generate interest in a brand.
This model was the most popular way for brands to gain rapport and public loyalty– until social media changed the course of marketing as once was known.
How Has Social Media Impacted the Consumer?
Social media transformed the concept of ‘the customer’ into a real life human being with thoughts, values, and opinions. Consumer-oriented marketing strategies then developed a sophisticated layer that would take value-centric marketing into account. It gave people a platform to voice their thoughts, values, and opinions and made way for influencers to use their platform to transform the world of marketing.
While many brands will still opt to choose celebrities with status to market their products, many influencers are simply average people who have grown a large social media following and are often represented by companies such as unrulyagency.com. They are popular due to their ability to create engaging, entertaining, and informative content which allows companies to target consumers with similar values to those held by the influencer themselves. In turn, these followers will feel compelled to purchase a product that is endorsed by somebody they have grown to trust.
How Have Influencers Transformed Modern Marketing?
Since social media’s rise in popularity, modern marketing has changed its direction dramatically. Brands have worked to create campaigns that are strategic by conditioning customers to generate positive feelings towards their brand due to the appeal related to their values.
Brands are beginning to understand the new developments in marketing as consumers are beginning to lose trust in the adverts they see on their TVs and on the internet on a daily basis. Nearly ⅓ of consumers block advertisements as they are no longer interested. Consumers want to hear stories, and one of the most powerful ways to tell the story of a brand is through the eyes of a social media influencer.