Influencers and their role in building your brand (2)

Brand influencers are a more recent concept and development in marketing, and as such need to be clearly differentiated from the prior concepts of brand endorsements and brand ambassador roles of different celebrities. Many companies use these terms interchangeably. Influencers and brand ambassadors can fulfill the same basic purposes especially as both share your product with their audience, which helps you grow your customer base. However, several key factors separate brand ambassadors and influencers.

Brand ambassadors are real people who love your brand and your products. These individuals actively use your brand’s products, and they want to spread the word about your products because they are passionate about seeing your brand succeed. They can be looked upon as “top-notch cheerleaders” for the brand.

Brand ambassadors are usually also experts in your brand, and experts at promoting your products casually, via word-of-mouth. They may not always be celebrities, and they don’t always have a gargantuan network of social media followers. But, they are often authorities in their field — and the field your brand serves. For example, a dentist makes a credible brand ambassador for mouthwash and a fitness instructor makes a reliable brand ambassador for wellness and health products.

A brand ambassador is also the “face” of the brand. Ideally, the candidate is a tastemaker in their communities, and should plan to use already established networks and relationships to market the brand via word-of-mouth marketing tactics (i.e. referring friends, posting about the brand online, etc.). He or she is specifically engaged to increase brand awareness and boost conversions and sales. On top of that, a brand ambassador will also represent their company at specific events, where they may perform product demonstrations or give away sample products.

Brand influencers refer to someone who has a following, especially online, within a specific niche that they engage with regularly which gives them the power or ability to impact and influence their purchase decisions. Influencers are extremely vocal about a topic or brand, and typically use social media as a vehicle to express their opinions. They seem to have an innate ability to influence those around them. Such individuals may be micro-influencers, or everyday people who happen to be food, travel, fashion, and other types of bloggers. They may have around 1,000; 20,000; 50,000 or hundreds of thousands of followers but are effective at engaging their audience and creating buzz about a brand.

In most cases, an influencer is used to help a brand launch one new product or service, and most of the time the brand will hire more than one influencer to reach as many potential clients as possible. Influencer Marketing is a hybrid of old and new marketing tools which takes the idea of celebrity endorsement and places it into a modern-day content-driven marketing campaign.

The difference between a brand influencer and a brand ambassador is the platform of influence. The brand ambassador may have acquired his role as an influencer as a result of excelling in some other fields like sports, movies or entertainment and is therefore expected to transfer those influences generated from another platform or area of life as a basis of influencing the customers or consumers of the products and services that they represent. The brand influencer on the other hand acquired his or her influence as a result of direct engagement, conversation or positioning with the customers or groups of customers in a particular niche or area within which he or she is expected to expand or use as a basis of influencing consumers within that niche. A brand influencer might have acquired influence only within the range of fashion; ladies’ fashion, IT, etc, and can just be expected to offer respected views and opinions within such niche areas. Any effort to venture beyond such niche areas into broader areas will make the person lose credibility. However, the brand ambassador primarily cashes in on his or her popularity or performance within a particular area to extend his or her influence towards the consumers.

Although many influencers are celebrities, not all influencers have followers in the hundreds of thousands. Rather, some have only a few thousand followers, like a micro-influencer, but still, have high authority within a niche. The influencers chosen by an organisation will depend on your brand’s desired reach and the average engagement you’d like an influencer to have with followers. Unlike brand ambassador relationships, your brand’s relationships with influencers will likely be short-term. An influencer will usually promote a product only once or twice. Influencer marketing doesn’t just involve celebrities, it revolves around influencers, many of whom would never consider themselves famous in an offline setting.