Influencer Marketing is an interactive form of marketing that involves a single influencer coordinating several promotional campaigns. It’s a form of online media marketing. In short, the goal of influencer marketing generally is to create brand awareness in a cost effective way, while simultaneously increasing engagement and reach with their audience. Consider this: you are an entertainer with an album that just came out and you are going to tour the country next week.

You decide to launch a promotional campaign centered around the album as a means of creating awareness and interest in the product. You will likely be using several different platforms to reach your audience including radio, TV, Internet, and even the big brand names such as Nike, Moxy, and McDonald’s. You begin by writing an article about the new album that you would like people to know about. You then take this article and write a blog post on the same subject focusing on the key takeaway of the article. Now you have a two pronged promotional effort working.

Let’s say you decided to use YouTube as a platform for the article and blog post written above. What you would probably do is start interacting with other users in the YouTube community and leave some comments. You would most likely not go into detail and provide links to your merchandise. However, you could tell someone important about the upcoming release and ask if they would like to mention it on their page or on their social media network ( Pinterest for example). If enough people mention your product on their page or social media network it will create a bit of word-of-mouth buzz around your product, which will drive additional engagement.

You also want to make sure to share the post shared from your micro-influencers. Your followers are likely other people on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, etc. So you want to find and add your followers on all of these social networks. If you can be a useful contributor and provide value to them they will begin to develop a relationship with you and as your relationship grows your followers will engage with you as well.

Now lets say you were not working with other brands and instead you were going it alone. You might want to start posting daily on your own blog pointing out new information and new products that you have uncovered. This is one of the easiest ways to incorporate influencer marketing into your campaign because you are starting from scratch. You don’t have to worry about partnering up with someone else or having someone else promote your product. You also won’t have to spend money to pay for advertising. All you have to do is put up a blog or website that provides helpful information and use social media to let others know about the content that you have to offer.

The key takeaway from this article is you need to make yourself valuable to influencers. If you offer value to others related to the product you are promoting then they will want to help spread the word. As an added benefit, once you have helped to build relationship with influencers they will want to recommend your content to their followers. As you can see, there is a lot of potential for being a helpful contributor to the industry and as you continue to contribute great value your influence will grow and your following will increase and ultimately your influence will take your business to the next level!