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What Are Some Examples of Influencer Marketing?

Influencer Marketing
What Are Some Examples of Influencer Marketing?

Social media has transformed the way we interact online forever. It has also impacted the way we hear about products and decide to buy them. 

Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that involves companies forming a partnership with influencers to promote their brand.

Read on to learn more about the different types of social media influencers, see examples of what social media influencer marketing looks like, and even get some examples of influencer content ideas.

What Are Influencers?

An influencer is anyone with the ability to inform and sway potential customers via online promotion. 

Brands find, recruit, and partner with these content creators and usually provide either money or merchandise in exchange for brand promotion.

What Are the Types of Influencers? 

The influencer marketing pyramid highlights four types of influencers: 

Types of influencers colored graph

Pictured: The influencer marketing pyramid (Source: Hivency)

  • Nano-Influencers. At the bottom level, there are brand advocates, everyday people who are interested in and can advocate for brands. These people are potentially emerging influencers with good engagement and typically have somewhere between 1,000–5,000 followers.
  • Micro-Influencers. One level above that, there are slightly more popular and established influencers who still have a relatively small following. 
  • Macro-Influencers. Then there are social media celebrities, professional bloggers, and other thought leaders, also known as macro-influencers. These influencers have higher following, in the 5–6 figure range, and they typically get great visibility.
  • Mega-Influencers.The top layer, which is the smallest and most elite group, are celebrities, also known as mega-influencers. Celebrities have been involved in advertising campaigns for years. While this group can draw you the largest following, they’ll also cost the most to work with.  

What Are Social Media Influencers?

Whereas 15 years ago, bloggers ran the influencing landscape, most of today’s influencers are social media influencers. Now, anyone can start making content and end up working with brands.

There are many types of social media influencers, from those that mostly stick to one or two platforms vs. those who are reachable everywhere. There are influencers in every niche, from sports to fashion to lifestyle to pets.

Examples of Influencer Marketing

If you’ve been on the internet before, you’ve seen influencer marketing

More specifically, if you’ve been on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube in the last few years, you’ve probably seen people who gained a following and monetized it by working with brands.

Successful influencer marketing campaigns usually involve a strong alignment with the brand team’s goals, the campaign’s current stage in the marketing funnel, and the chosen influencer’s topic and following. Here are a few examples of 2022 influencer marketing campaigns:

Caelynn Miller Keyes x Wilson

Many previous reality TV show stars use their personal brands on social media to gain fame, following, and brand partnerships. One example is Caelynn Miller Keyes, a previous Bachelor and Bachelor in Paradise contestant, whose sporty demeanor makes her a great partner for Wilson Sporting Goods. 

Nanoinfluencers and Microinfluencers x Halara

Halara, an athleisure brand similar to Girlfriend Collective and Outdoor Voices, employs a nanoinfluencer strategy through recruiting brand ambassadors. Their target market is clearly young women, and thus they find people with around a thousand to a few thousand followers that fit that description that are willing to promote the brand in exchange for merchandise and affiliate link commissions.

CanadianBros x Big Country Raw

Even dogs can be influencers! Jasper and Louie, a Pomsky & Eskiemute from Canada, have over 40,000 followers and have made various brand deals. In the above post, Big Country Raw, a pet food brand, sponsored a deal to promote Big Country Raw to the dogs’ followers.

Examples of Instagram Content Ideas for Influencer Marketing

Up-and-coming influencers are always looking for great content ideas across platforms. Here are some Instagram content ideas for beginners:

  • Do an Introduction or some “getting to know you” posts.
  • Create informational, how-to posts.
  • Show a “behind the scenes” of your day or process.
  • Create reels (video content) emulating today’s trends.
  • Do an #AskMeAnything (AMA) so followers can learn more about you.

And a few content social media marketing tips for brand advocates wanting to become influencers:

  • If you want to gain more followers, create content around a niche, follow accounts you think could be interested in your content, and leverage relevant hashtags.
  • If you want to grow your engagement, interact with your followers via comments and messages.
  • If you want to be reached out to by brands, continue to grow your following, monitor important metrics like engagement, and buff up your product photography or videography.

Lionize Makes Working With Social Media Influencers Easy

Do you want to gain brand awareness, build credibility with a new group of people, and make more sales? Influencer marketing could be right for you, and Lionize makes it easy. 

Click here to book a Discovery Call. We’d love to help you find the social media influencers you’re looking for