Oprah Winfrey is an influencer. When she had her own TV talk show, she had a segment on authors/books. If she featured or recommended a book, every book retailer in the country knew that they would run out of copies.
This is powerful influencing — a recommendation from someone of national, indeed, international renown. And, of course, this is an extreme example of influencer marketing.
You, as a small business owner, will probably not achieve this kind of recommendation yet, but influencer marketing is still within your reach, and it is probably the most powerful type of marketing to use with Millennials.
Millennial Responses to Marketing
“Millennials do not believe the ads they see or read,” says Aaron Leupp CEO of Promo Affiliates, an influencer marketing agency. “They don’t even believe review sites, because, in many instances, reviewers are being paid by businesses to write those reviews. They do, however, trust their friends, their family members, fellow travelers on social media, and some well-known figures in specific niches. That’s why influencer marketing is shooting through the roof.”
Anyone who intends to use influencer marketing, which is essential to grab a market share of millennial business, had better understand how it works.
Two Types of Online Influencers
As a business owner, you need to tap into two types of influencers.
You probably have brand ambassadors out there that you do not even know. These are individuals who have experienced your product or service, who have been very happy with that experience, and who are recommending you to their communities on social media.
Millennials especially use social media to give and get recommendations, and they are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat regularly. Your goal is to find these ambassadors, continue to nurture them, and to develop new brand ambassadors on a regular basis so that your brand is spread, just like ripples in a pond.
These are well-known and trusted individuals whose opinions matter to their followers. They are not hard to find, but they are hard to “court” as influencers of your brand.
They operate through websites and social media platforms, and developing relationships with them so that they become influencers for you takes lots of time and steadfastness.
Strategies for Using/Accumulating Brand Ambassadors
It’s called “social proof.” It’s the manner in which Millennials communicate with one another about brands – good or bad. When a millennial has had a good experience with you, you want that experience spread through their social media platforms.
Your first step in using brand ambassadors is to find them.
For this, you will need social monitoring tools. The good ones will alert you whenever your brand is mentioned on social media, and you can then access that comment and respond accordingly. A few of the current best ones are Brandwatch.com, Mention.com, and Hootsuite.com.
If the comments are favorable, you need do nothing more than give a thank you shout out and express your glee that they have found their experience with your brand a good one.
If the comment involves a complaint or issue, then your job is to address it immediately, resolve it to the customer’s satisfaction, and do it publicly, right there, on the social media feed. This earns you lots of “brownie points” and shows that you are a responsive company willing to do what it takes to make things right for your customers.
Remember, too, that there is nothing wrong in asking your customer to share their good experiences with your brand on their social media platforms. If they can do it with a click, they will be happy to do so. Make sure you have streamlined that process for them to do so.
This type of influencer marketing is free, except for your time.
Strategies for Gaining Support from Niche Influencers
While these are not as important generally as brand ambassadors are, they are nevertheless. lt is also much more difficult to gain this type of influencer mentions/recommendations, but that does not mean you should not have a strategy.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.