Influencer marketing helps brands connect with relevant audiences. It’s a great strategy for brands that want to raise awareness, increase their reach, and drive sales.
However, while it’s an effective strategy to use, there is a dark side to it. It, therefore, becomes crucial to take note of these benefits and drawbacks before implementation.
The following are some of the benefits of influencer marketing:
Pros of Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing can help change how people feel about your brand. It can help you build trust and credibility.
Other benefits include:
Drives Consumer Action
Influencers build strong relationships with their audiences. Their followers consider their advice important and look up to them for recommendations.
As an advocate for your brand, an influencer can drive potential customers to trust your brand. They can also influence them to buy your products or services.
It Does Not Have to Be Expensive
Influencer marketing does not have to be expensive. You can work with influencers who prefer non-cash initiatives.
They promote your products in exchange for free products, increased exposure, etc.
Cons of Influencer Marketing
Before investing in influencer marketing and any marketing agency, it’s important to know what challenges you may face. The following are some of the cons of influencer marketing:
Picking the Wrong Influencer Can Harm Your Brand
It’s crucial to pick the right influencer to avoid wasting time, resources, and effort. The wrong influencer may also ruin your brand image.
What’s more?
It’s hard to evaluate the genuineness of an influencer’s followers. Some influencers use bots to increase their followers and engagement.
But you can avoid this by using influencer marketing research tools. These tools can help you find the right influencers, monitor influencer campaigns, and measure results.
Measuring Results Can Be Challenging
Influencer marketing requires a lot of effort to find the right influencer. Consider too the time spent launching, monitoring, and running successful campaigns.
However, all of this can be in vain if you don’t measure campaign performance. For more influencer marketing pros and cons, check out the infographic below from Shane Barker. It offers more aspects to consider before implementing influencer campaigns.