A New Form of Marketing
Influencer marketing is a new form of marketing that has developed in recent years with the rise in social media. It involves endorsements and product placement from influencers; people that guide and inspire the actions of others. There are influencers for every kind of brand. It is a strategy that many businesses use to promote their products and services by partnering with famous social media users who have huge followings. These people will then post themselves with or using the product of the brand they work with for either payment or access to free gifts. Large brands partner with influencers that have an engaged audience in order to build credibility and drive sales.
For example, famous model Kendall Jenner, is an ambassador for Alo Yoga and a Moon sponsor and frequently posts pictures showing off their products. Up and coming brands which use Instagram as their main platform send free products to influencers only asking for an Instagram story or post in return.
Since the pandemic, the relationship between social media platforms and businesses has changed dramatically. Instagram now gives access to buy products directly from the app and influencers are able to share combined posts with the brands that they partner with. When people were stuck in quarantine with nothing to do, many turned to creating small businesses and publicly displaying their creations on social media. From that came influencers who started off by streaming their everyday lives on Instagram and other social media platforms. Those who started to gain followers started to post more and more pictures and videos. Small businesses realized that these people had followers who liked their content and liked watching what they did on a daily basis and thought that if they were using or wearing their products for free it would be a mutually beneficial deal.
I think that influencer marketing is only becoming more and more prevalent in today's world. Anyone with access to a phone has the ability to be an influencer. With social media apps making the influencer world so easy to join I believe that traditional marketing ways will start to die out and become less important as the focus is now on the who a company chooses to have represent them rather than finding the best ways to publicize the product.
