Getting the word out about your product and service has changed, but not nearly as much as you’d think.
Of course, the internet has become the global marketplace for absolutely everything and trying to make an impact on this global, never-ending street instead of the old fashioned main street is a lot more difficult. However, it’s still about billboards, banners, commercials, and getting someone with some name recognition to say nice things about your product and maybe hold it up in front of a camera.
Influencers are a new type of celebrity, but instead of being famous for acting, singing, or writing, they are famous for putting their life on display through very, very frequent social media posts. It might be a pic of what they’re having for breakfast, where they go for a walk, or even how they feel after reading some gossip.
There is, obviously, plenty of self-promotion involved, because they themselves are the brand. People who follow them on Instagram or Twitter are willing to take their advice on what is good, bad, and should be purchased right away. Yes, it might seem a bit underwhelming, but if you decide to ignore this marketing opportunity, it might just be a sign that you’d be better off hiring an influencer rather than becoming one yourself.
Regardless, there is a flexibility that comes from an internet constructed identity because you can appear to be whomever you want, even if your target demographic is someone who identifies as a trans sugar baby.
Do It Yourself
While it might not seem like it, there is a lot of work to become an influencer, plus that usual dollop of luck. You have to essentially live beside your phone, ready to snap a pic, offer a not-too-controversial opinion and retweet something you support on nearly an hourly basis. It is a lifestyle job in the sense that it completely stylizes your life.
The advantages of doing all this if you already have your own product or service to hawk is that you can tailor your influencer personality to whatever the item is. If you are selling some workout equipment, make a point of taking pics of yourself at the gym, or re-tweeting exercise advice, since that will attract the sort of people who will more likely become potential customers.
It’s a good way to save money on any other sort of marketing that you would have done, and it’s nice that you have complete control of it (which can be less stressful if what you are pushing is a bit strange, like a squirt gay site). There is also the unspoken but obvious truth about advertising in general: sex sells. It did in the past, and it still does now. So if you are ‘easy on the eyes’ to put it almost politely, you’ll already have a bit of a leg up in getting people to pay a bit more attention to any photos you put on the ‘gram.
Even if the flesh is looking good and the spirit isn’t weak, the big problem of trying to become an influencer is that so much of it can come down to a huge chunk of luck that is out of your control.
Doing the things mentioned above is certainly essential to the beginning, but there is no true recipe for success. What makes a thing truly go viral is just a certain person sharing a certain video or post to the right friend, who passes it on, and then it falls like dominos. However, that might not be a time-wasting risk you want to take for your business.
Get a Pro
If suddenly re-ordering your entire life around making it seem like a paradise for the internet crowd by showing every other moment of it for months to come doesn’t sound like fun, the other option is to find an already-established influencer and pay them to promote your product or service. After all, they are already experts at making Group Fun look effortless.
How much this will cost can depend on several factors, the most likely one being how many followers the influencer has. If the number is in the millions, you can expect to shell out a lot even for a quick, one-time shout-out post with a link to your product page. Having them tweet about it regularly, or show themselves using the product can even be more expensive.
One of the ways of getting around the possible high fees is to cut a deal with them, where they get a chunk of the sales every time someone buys your item by clicking on a link from the influencer’s social media posts. This symbiotic relationship is becoming one of the most dominant ones in cyberspace, as both parties can benefit from this form of advertising, circumventing your need to pay for banner space or even commercials.
The New Old Fashioned Way
It should come as little surprise that because the internet has been blurring together news, entertainment and advertising in one messy package for many years at this point, that there are now commercials that look like short films, and advertising firms that ‘spy’ on your every click or tap.
Banner ads may have their roots in the usual advertisements you’d see in print media way back when, but there’s a lot more that goes on under their hoods. Crafting an eye-catching one should be left in the hands of professionals, and you should definitely consider what sites to put them on to maximize their effect.
