We are witnessing the immense effect that these influencers are having in our region, the Middle East. This growing power of social media influencers and bloggers has been revealed in a previous research conducted in June 2016 by Dubai based PR agencies “ BPG Cohn & Wolfe” and “YouGov” showing that 71% of UAE residents aged 18-40 were happy to take advice online before purchasing (YouGov, 2016).

It was set that those, who follow blindly these influencers, are sought to take their advice in 3 different areas: beauty, fashion and food. This makes us wonder whether all brands should integrate influencers marketing into their PR strategies or not.

 

We all know that for a band to be labeled “successful”, one of the key tactics to this achievement is the brand depending on the “Word of Mouth”. This technique might be one of the oldest ways businesses have ever used to gain more clients. In which ‘new’ clients get introduced safely into a brand because of what they heard positively from their friends, family members or even colleagues. However, today we have applied this type of technique on social media as well; in which these influencers represent the “friend, family member or even colleague you used to take advice from.”

Your favorite influencer has become the person you trust enough in order to take advice from. Therefore, these brands they have turned their attention into working closely with multiple leading influencers in the region in order to have them talk about their products or services, spread the word and then finally make ‘you’ as a new client buy blindly what they’re offering. They say that this type of methodology is actually very good for brands because of the following reasons: 

1. Influencers are more favored than typical celebrities 

2. Consumers are cautious of paid advertisements

3. Efficient marketing tool

4. Their marketing is traceable 

 

Firstly, in the elder days when mega artists such as Michael Jackson used to buy a pair of shoes, jacket, trouser or any other type of clothing/accessory, his fans used to instantly go and purchase that certain product without even knowing what brand it is or even in some cases how much it costs.
Testimonial propaganda used to make these businesses earn popularity plus money at the same time. However, in today's world, we have become more acknowledged of the fact that even with all our love and interest to our favorite celebrities, there will still be a gap between us and them. So that is why people have become more engaged with influencers, who are often closer to us, not by distance but at times by the same capabilities of buying certain products or services.
 

Secondly, ‘us’ as consumers have become aware of the same repeated, old fashioned techniques that advertisers use to gain our attention. Therefore, when influencers came into the scene, they offered advertisers a new way of showing off products to those of interest through reviews, unboxing and giveaways. 

 

Thirdly, through research done by many companies that use influencers as a tool to market their goods; they have come to find out that they are instantly gaining more income. To support that, “According to a recent study by Tomoson, 22 percent of the surveyed marketers said influencer marketing is the most cost-effective PR tool, apart from email marketing. The report also revealed that influencer marketing boasts a considerably high ROI. It yields an average return of $6.50 in revenue per $1 spent. While 13 percent of brands earned an impressive return of $20 per $1 spent, nearly 70 percent brands made $2 or more for each $1 spent on influencer marketing.” (Smith, M., 2017)

 

Lastly, we all know that a huge part of knowing whether a campaign did well or not for PR professionals and marketers is by tracking it and seeing if it had created some type of impact for the audience or not. That is why at many times we study brands marketing strategies to better understand why they use Focus Groups.

Today, with the help of advanced technology and our most used device “the smartphone”, we are able to know whether these influencers after being paid by the brand are actually doing their job or not.

 

All companies track the influencers they are collaborating with on social media, through deeply analyzing their likes, brand mentions, click-through rates, impressions, stories, lives and others. “In 2011 the Swedish watchmaker, Daniel Wellington, was a startup business worth $15,000. After successfully partnering up with several social media influencers on Instagram, they sold over a million watches in 2014, and earned revenue of $220 million in 2015.” (Smith, M., 2017)

This a huge example of how brands can go from nothing into internationally recognized brands by just using clever tactics such as Influencer Marketing. 

Furthermore, influencer marketing can be divided into earned influencer marketing and paid influencer marketing.
The first one stems from unpaid or pre-existing relationships with influencers or third-party content that is promoted by the influencer to further their own personal social growth. In order words, it is for their personal reputation.
Whereas, paid influencer marketing can be considered a sort of partnership, advertising or testimonial messaging. In this case, the budget depends on the popularity of the influencer.

In conclusion, according to Sudha M. and Sheena K (2017), “influencer marketing can be used to establish credibility in the market, others to create social conversations around their brand, others yet to drive online or in-store sales of their products.”