Is Influencer Marketing Through Social Media Actually Benefiting Companies?
By Riley Boshardt
In this new technological age, newer generations are finding new ways to promote new companies and apps by using their own fame. They call themselves influencers,and they are very important to businesses trying to increase their earnings. To build some foundation let's start with the definition of an influencer. Influencers are people with enough celebrity, credibility, or authority on social media to affect consumer behavior when it comes to consumer decisions.
Why Influencers Matter
Companies and businesses use influencers to promote and incorporate new ideas into their selling strategy. When a business creates new ads, they are looking to build credibility and find new consumers, but they found an easier and more effective way. That's using celebrity endorsements, AKA influencers. Think about it this way: when you want to buy a new product, what is a more effective selling strategy? Option number one: Creating an ad with only a picture of a product and a few words saying it's effective? Or option number two: your favorite celebrity using the product and saying it’s effective? If it were up to me, I would say option two.
Humans make most of our decisions based on our visual senses, and most of the time if we like something we see, we will do anything to get it. So in theory, seeing one of your favorite celebrities or athletes will likely appeal to your senses, and make you want the item they are promoting. The reason why influencer marketing is so well used for different companies is due to its efficiency for the celebrity and the company.
Social Media
One of the main ways influencers make their endorsement deals and help influence consumer buying decisions is by using social media such as Snapchat, Instagram, and Tik Tok. These are just three of the main apps that have the most users yearly. Every business needs to have a standing on social media to promote new companies, new items, and new updates. With the help of social media, many companies are able to discover their target audience, better ways to promote their product, and possible people who can become their next influencers.
An example of a well known endorser is Charli D'Amelio. For those that haven’t heard of her, she is an 18 year old Tik Tok star who started her account in 2019 and later became an endorser for Dunkin in 2020 after they saw one of her viral videos holding one of their cold brew coffees. After this viewing the ball started rolling very quickly for this Tik Tok star who now has over 132.98 million followers on Tik Tok and several other endorsements.
Another example is a man everyone knows all too well, Kobe Bryant. This basketball legend was known to have endorsement deals with over eight companies. With Kobe’s help and the movement of ads and commercials to many social media sites, Kobe improved the majority of these companies by increasing brand loyalty and significantly increased their earnings due to his popularity and fandom.
Benefits of Influencers
When companies use influencer marketing techniques, they are able to improve their brand awareness, increase their traffic, and drive messages to the brand's target audience. All these benefits are making companies more money, and creating more awareness for this specific type of marketing that more companies can use. Not only do the companies using the influencer benefit, but the actual celebrity or person involved in the endorsement deals get more features and more involvement in the business, allowing them to make more money.
Byline: Riley Boshardt is a strategic communications major at Texas Christian University with a focus in Social Media.