You’ve probably heard the term influencer marketing thrown around more and more often as it’s become increasingly popular with big brands and their marketing strategies. But what is it and how do we leverage it within our own marketing mixes?

Influencer marketing involves leveraging well known social influencers to deliver a message to key stakeholders. It typically goes hand-in-hand with social media marketing, whereby influencers promote or endorse a brand’s message and or content through personal social channels.

Influencers are usually either individuals who work in their area of expertise or are extremely passionate about it and communicate about it on their own accord. As such social influencers are seen as an authentic and a trusted source when it comes to recommendations.

That’s why social influencer marketing is such a powerful way to engage with stakeholders and customers. It delivers brand messages through authentic content and storytelling in a way that is often not possible through traditional marketing campaigns.

Here’s how to you can activate the power of social influencers for your brand:

Build a solid influencer marketing campaign strategy

Determine a budget, timeframe and platform that works best for your industry.

Think about your demographic, messaging and what element, product or service you are looking to promote.

It’s also important to articulate clear objectives of the campaign, what content you would like to produce, the results you would like to achieve as well as how you will measure them.

Find influencers who fit or your brand

Identify the communities and professional networks where your key target markets are active and find out who are the key influencers on these platforms.

Be sure to select an influencer that fits with your brand values and personality – your message and content is far more likely to be successful if it fits in with the organic content the influencer produces.

An influencer’s success relies heavily on their authenticity, so they will be happier to work with a brand that will allow them to produce content that fits their style.

Work with your influencers throughout the campaign

Think about your engagement with your influencer as a partnership – provide them with the content, information and background to understand your product, service and brand story.

That way they can share your message with confidence and in a way that feels authentic to them and their audiences.

Be available to answer questions throughout the campaign so they can keep their audiences informed and engaged.