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Using Influencer Marketing as Part of Your Digital PR Strategy 

Written by Alexa Cobbold on . Posted in DIGITAL PR.

As a digital PR team working within an SEO agency, our primary goal for most of our clients is to help improve their backlink profile to support overall SEO ambitions of improving rankings and organic traffic. We therefore typically focus our efforts on earning high-quality links from relevant media sites using a variety of tactics like what we did for Burton Roofing.  

Experts at Google have openly said that social media posts don’t directly impact rankings. As such, it’s unusual for social activity to be part of a digital PR strategy. But to us, this seems a bit crazy. As all good digital PRs know, the work we do isn’t just good for rankings, it also serves broader benefits too such as driving increased awareness, improving perception and engaging audiences, just like social. What’s more, online popularity IS said to influence visibility over time, and social media can help to drive a popularity boost. 

With this in mind, we have recently introduced Influencer Marketing; a brand-new bolt-on service for our retained clients. This new service complements what we already do for SEO while also supporting broader brand goals and upping online popularity. Read on to find out what it’s all about. 

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer Marketing is the collaboration between brands and influencers via the means of social media channels to help market a product or service a brand is specifically looking to highlight. 

Social media influencers make up the world of influencer marketing. These people impact the perceptions or habits of their audience via content shared across their channels and they are more prevalent than ever, particularly across Instagram and TikTok.​  

Working with influencers who have a connection with your brand’s target audience(s) can be extremely effective in increasing brand awareness, driving product and service awareness, and even helping to encourage traffic to the site and sales.​ The key is that they produce content that feels natural ‘in feed’, rather than something they’re pushing out purely for the monetary incentive. This tends to stick out like a sore thumb.  

Essentially, the inclusion of your product or service on an influencer’s feed must be a good fit for you, them and their following. This tactic shouldn’t be seen as a way to promote a brand that doesn’t feel right as part of the channel feed. 

Isn’t Influencer Marketing for big brands with big budgets?

In short, no.  

Influencer marketing works for brands of all shapes and sizes. 

Of course, there are the likes of the Kardashian-Jenner clan and Zoella who both fall under the tier of mega-influencer and whose incredibly high follower counts are reflected in the cost of working with them. But influencer marketing doesn’t always have to focus on the big-timers. Audience sizes can be broken down into various groups to reflect how varied this is: 

  • Nano: 1,000–10,000 followers. 
  • Micro: 10,000–100,000 followers. 
  • Mid-tier: 100,000–500,000 followers. 
  • Macro: 500,000–1 million followers. 
  • Mega: 1 million+ followers. 

For us, our prime focus is on working with influencers who fall under the micro tier. With the help of a specific influencer marketing tool, we work collaboratively with influencers that boast between 3,000 and 100,000 followers.  

Alongside being a more affordable option for clients who may have smaller budgets, this approach allows us to work with influencers that are super relevant, and who have audiences that are typically more engaged. 

 Who is our Influencer Marketing bolt-on service intended for? 

Our influencer marketing package has been carefully curated by the team to work effectively alongside our digital PR campaigns and other link-driving activity. This is because we want to really maximise the research and assets produced for our clients through digital PR and make these work even harder for you.  

By activating influencer marketing in the form of a service bolt-on, we can use the resources created specifically for client campaigns to amplify key messages​ and deliver a stronger, cross-channel campaign that packs more punch. 

What types of brands should consider influencer marketing? 

Due to the nature of the product, our influencer marketing offering is typically going to be most suited towards:  

  • B2C clients in any of the following sectors: home, property, DIY, fashion, travel, hair and beauty, food and drink​. 
  • Clients with an exciting product, sale or unique service​ we can weave into the campaign (to ultimately help drive traffic and sales) 
  • Clients that want to reach and engage audiences via TikTok or Instagram (predominantly) 
  • Clients with their own social presence on at least one of the above-mentioned platforms​ 
  • Clients who are prepared to be playful and flexible with content and style, for example, letting the influencer guide on what their audience is most likely to engage with​ 

Why should I invest in Influencer Marketing for my business? 

There are many reasons why launching an influencer marketing campaign could be beneficial to your business, but here are just some of our top reasons: 

  1. According to studies, two-thirds (68%) of marketers are already doing influencer marketing, meaning it’s considered a key marketing tactic by many already​. 
  1. You’re able to cherry-pick influencers that are the best fit for your business, which can help you to get in front of your key customers, both current and new. 
  1. It can help you improve your brand perception through affiliation and recommendations with trusted people​. 
  1. It provides a solid ROI. According to studies, on average it is estimated that for every £1 you put into this, you get £4 back in earned media value. 
  1. Because we’ve developed our influencer marketing offering as a bolt-on to work ​alongside existing digital PR campaigns, it will enable us to take PR campaign assets and amplify key messages​ to maximise your budget.  
  1. Influencer marketing projects can be activated ahead of any key or peak periods that are specific to you and your brand in order to increase reach​. 

It’s worth noting that influencer marketing alone is not intended to be a link-driving tactic. If increasing link numbers and boosting your backlink profile is your main objective, we’d still suggest a blend of digital PR, content marketing, and targeted outreach.  

Ultimately, if you are a brand looking to spotlight a product or service you provide, then influencer marketing can be an effective way of getting in front of your desired audience. To hear more about this or any of our other SEO and digital services, get in touch with our friendly team of experts.