| | OCTOBER 20218INFLUENCER MARKETING: EVERY BRAND'S 'MUST HAVE' MARKETING STRATEGYIN FOCUSBY CEO INSIGHTS TEAMNearly a decade ago, no one would have believed that a common man can also become an influencer and promote a brand. Thanks to social media, the common man's dream has transpired into reality. A few people among all have created a niche for themselves through their unique concepts and presentation on social media platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and many others. They have not just garnered tons and millions of fan following, but also have created an vertical in the marketing industry called Influencer Marketing.Today, brands use such influencers to promote their offerings, though one thing remains common among them, is brand persona which they relate to. Once a rarely populated segment, social media influencers today have almost saturated the market and some even got caught-up in fraud. Despite all these, today, influencer marketing is driving the communication strategy for many brands. This is why the global influencer marketing platform is valued to be around $24.1 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 32 percent.However, today influencer marketing strategies are more difficult to navigate than ever before for any brand. This is because of the increasing use of smart phones among common people and them being aware of the power that social media holds. Hence, we find influencers from quite a young age to even old people who hold strong following among masses. Some brands as big as PepsiCo, Amazon and Biba have roped in nano-influencers to scale up their brand engagement. Such engagement becomes more power-packed during the festive times.According to a survey 89 per-cent said that ROI from influ-encer marketing is comparable to or better than other channels. Some even said that influencer marketing deliver nearly 11 fold higher ROI. The pandemic played a crucial role in empowering in-fluencer marketing. As people in bulk consumed increasingly dif-ferent content on different OTT platforms and online, this proved as a fertile ground for nano-influ-encers to create a niche for them-selves in their area.While in the past, influencers and/or bloggers were restricted to mostly women focusing on fashion and lifestyle, this increasing digital penetration helped influencer marketing to leap frogged to different categories of content targeting a wide variety of customer base. Today influencer marketing offers deeper engagement and organic growth for brands. So, is influencer marketing worth all the hype? According to a survey 89 percent said that ROI from influencer
< Page 7 | Page 9 >