23. What is Influencer Marketing?

I am pretty sure most of you know about the watch brand 'Daniel Wellington' or at least seen one on Instagram. And I am pretty sure you must have thought that it looks like an expensive luxury watch brand. Well, the truth is that it isn't. It's just a cheap watch that is sold expensively and the company makes $200 million a year by doing so. Confused? Well, that's the power of influencer marketing.

All Daniel Wellington did as a part of their marketing strategy is get Instagram influencers to promote their watches on their profiles and shared a part of the profits made for every sale through them. And on their roster of celebrities/influencers, they have the likes of Kylie Jenner (225m followers) to local artists and celebrities with a few thousands of followers. And by using these Instagram influencers they created a market for their product, something which was not seen before in this manner.

So, who exactly is an Influencer? And what is Influencer marketing? Well in reality anybody including you and me can be an influencer. But here influencers are like celebrities who have a certain amount of following on social media platforms (mainly Instagram). The more the number of followers you have, the bigger the influencer you are.

And what exactly are they influencing you may ask? Well, they influence the purchasing decisions of their followers. The world of social media works in a way where we follow a certain person because we adore them, their work and their life. And when it comes to celebrities, also their lifestyle. We aspire to be like them, to live like them and use things they use. And this very emotion is what drives the whole influencer marketing concept.

Brands approach the said celebrities whose followers they think match their target audience and they offer them money and free products. In return, the said celebrity uses the product, posts pictures using the said product and talk about what they like about the products from the brand. Now the followers of these celebrities, because they want to lead a life like them, think that they should also use this same product since their favourite celebrity used it.

In the past few years with the tremendous rise of social media, many influencers have come up and many brands have opted for influencer marketing as one of their key strategies to promote their product. Influencers range from actors, musicians, artists, digital content creators to even sportspersons. Anyone and everyone with their own social media profile and a more than decent amount of followers is now an influencer and brands collaborate with them more often than not.

This might have looked like a joke around 5-7 years ago but today there are many kids growing up wanting to become a social media influencer and this is the true power of influencer marketing.