What is the role of influencers' in today's marketing strategy? Will it gain momentum in future?

Have we been going through a power shift in favor of these numerous opinion leaders since the beginning of the 21st century? In 2001, the PR agency Burson Marsteller pointed out the enormous impact of these digital influencers in their study “E-fluentials”.  During the study period, influencers had an effect on roughly 155 million consumers in the United States – both online and offline – in their buying decisions. Since the population of the US at that time was 285 million, this means that they influenced over half the population!

Far from dying down, this phenomenon has continued to grow in importance over the past years, reaching its peak, mostly for two reasons:

• Consumers have never been so connected. Today, most opinions relating to a decision to buy (or not) begin online. These opinions take shape either during a Google search, while reading a scathing post on a forum, while looking at a product test on a specialty blog, or even while reading a tweet from a satisfied user. There is a huge selection of channels and media of exchange in today’s world, and brands are no longer at the top of the information pyramid.
• Consumers want to be inspired by brands. Today, we’re entering an era of affinity marketing where it’s absolutely necessary for brands to inspire the confidence, respect, and admiration of their customers. In a global economy, it has become extremely difficult for a business to distinguish itself simply by the superior quality of its products. On the other hand, a brand may gain the preference of its customers (and even be capable of making them pay a higher price) if it’s capable of instilling these aspirational values through its actions, and those of its directors. Conversely, a blemish on a company’s reputation will have an almost immediate effect on its sales, which wasn’t necessarily the case a few years ago.

Influencers have now become an indispensable component of online marketing success. They should be a part of your SEO plan as they offer a channel of trust. Influencers already have a reputation and a loyal following which trusts them.When you are recommended by an influencer, it portrays you as someone who has something of value to offer. This in turn indicates to Google that your content offers value and thus it enhances your website or blog's reputation.The competition is getting tough every passing day and getting ranked high in SERP is getting difficult. Hence, influencer outreach is one of the best ways to tackle this competition.

There is no doubt that influencer marketing is definitely here to stay.

Marketers used to focus on the 4 P’s. You probably had them drilled into your head as you pursued your marketing degree. Well, now marketers need to focus on the three E’s: Engage, Equip, Empower.  If you can master these, you can become the most beloved and talked about product in your category, which will ultimately lead to increased sales.

If you want to win the marketing race in 2016, you need to unleash the power of word of mouth.

People like technology – but people mostly really like other people. The more digital life gets, the more people will value being understood, touched and involved by other people.

The consumer cycle is: see it; search it; shop it; share it.

The more that brands bring their consumers, customers and partners into their secret garden, the greater the rewards that will flow back in, and the bigger the garden will grow. 

Give consumers different ways to talk and share. Let them know that they are important to you and that sharing their opinions is important to you. Help them find ways to share within their circles and find ways to help move their conversations around. Lay’s is an excellent example to highlight how they empowered their fans to “Do Us a Flavor,” and allow consumers to create a new flavor of potato chips to hit store shelves. Over 3.8 million submissions were sent in 2013 making it one of the biggest marketing campaigns for PepsiCo owned Frito-Lay: http://adage.com/article/news/wayne-brady-acts-frito-lay-flavor-suggestions-twitter/291045/

Hi Sidrah,

Thanks for posting. Influencer marketing is very necessary for the current marketing scenario. Influencer helps to drive action, engage with the brand, create an emotional bonding and behavior, create brand’s credibility among your target audience.

"Change alone in the world is constant" - Yes this is always true in marketing context. 

Influencer marketing plays a major role in content marketing. There are many valuable advantages of influencer marketing and they are:

- A trusted influencer can generate highly authoritative links which will have a positive effect on your website and SEO strategy.

- Increase Brand Value with recommendations and word-of-mouth reviews

- Support in Reach and Conversions

Get connected with influencers will create a huge impact in Google Pagerank (SEO), Social Media Metrics and many more.

Whoever love to do digital marketing, they should always keep a thought about "Influencer Marketing" - (this is my humble suggestion)

So I conclude that: Influencer Marketing is Good to Consider in Current Marketing Strategy Trends.

Thanks

Feroz Khan

In fact, Influencers have an inevitable role in modern marketing strategy, most of their strategies are highly successful. but rather one side successful strategy could not be successful on another side,

Momentum could be gained in future.  

The path to influencer marketing success always starts by defining your customer or audience and working backwards to figure out who these people engage with and trust. that of course depends on the different cultures.

at the end of the day it is a tool based on the accessibility nowadays (like the social media channels). so the tool is important, but knowing your customer well and knowing their behaviors are more important.

i tried to answer your question from different perspective and i wish i can make my answer clear enough.

thanks for your invitation 

My answer won´t add more value for this question. Agree with the ones given. Thanks