Influencer marketing is a strategy that uses popular social media personalities with large followings to promote brand messages. There are different types of influencers classified by their role, number of followers, or preferred social channel. When choosing influencers, brands assess their relevance to the target market, reach among followers, ability to generate responses, and potential return on investment. Key factors that determine influencer value include engagement between the influencer and followers and whether followers take desired actions like purchases.

1. Influencer Marketing
Ella Whalen

2. Role of Influencers in Marketing
–A marketing strategy that uses opinion leaders,
popular on social media, to drive marketing
messages to a targeted audience
–Firms hire or encourage well known influencers
to promote brand messages to their followers
–Examples of influencers includes sports and
entertainment personalities such as Cristiano
Ronaldo or Kylie Jenner, or individuals who
have gained their following through social media
such as Charli D’Amelio or Addison Rae
Charli D’Amelio has a
Tiktok following of 128.4
million
Source: Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael Levy. Marketing. McGrawHill, 2022.
Source:
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3. Types of Influencers
–Influencers can be classified by their role and
expertise, number of followers, or preferred
channel
• Celebrity – has a large following and is widely
recognized
• Micro – niche interest with a modest following
who posts on social media sites
• Blog – writes for a blog and has readers and
subscribers because of that content
Source: Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael Levy. Marketing. McGrawHill, 2022.

4. Types of Influencers (cont.)
• Social Media – popular on social media
platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and
YouTube among followers in a specific target
audience
• Specialized – expert or key opinion leader in
a specific field
–Determining the type of influencer that is
appropriate for a campaign depends on the
target market and the goal of the message
Source: Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael Levy. Marketing. McGrawHill, 2022.

5. Assessing the Value of an Influencer
–The value of an influencer is not determined solely
based off their number of followers
–Brands can determine how well influencers can
influence their target market by considering the 4Rs:
• Relevance
• Reach
• Response
• Return
Source: Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael Levy. Marketing. McGrawHill, 2022.

6. Relevance
–Pertains to both the influencer and their followers
and how they connect with the brand and its
message
–Influencer marketing is more effective if the
influencer has some expertise in the brand or
product that they are promoting
–Followers of an influencer should align with a
brand’s target audience
–For example, followers of Cristiano Ronaldo may be
interested in the brand of soccer cleats he wears,
but may not care about what brand of baby food his
children prefer
Source: Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael Levy. Marketing. McGrawHill, 2022.
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7. Reach
–Refers to the percentage of a target population
exposed to a specific marketing communication at
least once
–Depends on the number of followers, the level of
activity of the influencer, and the degree of
engagement between the followers and the
influencer
–When influencers use an appealing or exciting way
to market a brand, rather than just sharing a basic,
informational message, their followers will like,
comment on, and share the message, allowing it to
reach a much wider audience
Source: Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael Levy. Marketing. McGrawHill, 2022.

8. Response
–Once followers engage with a message, brands
need the followers to respond in ways that will
benefit the brand
–A brand must determine the goal of its campaign in
order to measure the response
• If the goal is exposure, the brand can look at
likes and comments to see how many people
identify with the brand and its message
• If the goal is to encourage sales, the brand can
try to determine if the followers are making
purchases from the brand because of the
influencer
Source: Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael Levy. Marketing. McGrawHill, 2022.

9. Return
–Financial returns are often measured using
return on investment (ROI)
–ROI is the revenue earned from some action
less the cost of that action, divided by the cost
–For an influencer marketing campaign, the ROI
would be the revenue earned from it, less the
costs of paying the influencer, divided by those
costs
Source: Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael
Levy. Marketing. McGrawHill, 2022.

10. Return (cont.)
–Brands must consider the goal of their message,
their target market, and their projected ROI
when deciding what influencers they want to
collaborate with
–It is difficult to determine if consumers buy
products because their favorite influencer uses
the product
Source: Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael Levy. Marketing. McGrawHill, 2022.

11. Ethical Concerns in Influencer Marketing
– Some influencers commit fraud by
• Falsely representing their reach and relevance by
inflating their number of followers using “booster”
services to make their number of followers appear
higher
• Not clearly labeling posts as advertising which leads
consumers to believe that the influencer is
recommending the product based on their own use
and opinion, when in fact they are being paid to
promote the product
• Creating posts and promotions that are inauthentic or
insincere, by sharing evaluations and opinions of
products that they may not actually use
Source: Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael Levy. Marketing. McGrawHill, 2022.