I’ve hated the word “influencer” for the longest time. But it’s stuck and there’s nothing I can do about it. Just know I cringe every time I use it.
What word would I prefer, you ask? I don’t know but just not that. Lol.
Anyway, that’s what we are talking about today. Influencers and Influencer Marketing.
An influencer according Google is a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media.
While influencer marketing is the process of identifying, researching, engaging and supporting the people who create high-impact conversations with customers about your brand, products or services.
Now, the world has jumped on this incredible marketing strategy so much that brands are cutting out traditional methods of advertising. At least a percentage of it.
It has allowed bloggers and social media personalities to make a career off it by affiliating their brands with paying brands, using their platforms as advertising avenues.
Great, right? Right.
BUT! Is it a thing here? In Namibia?
It could and should be but first we’ll need to fix a few things. Today we will touch on only two things.
Brands and Advertising Tactics
The digital landscape is changing the way we do business, the way your customers access information, and how your customers or prospects make decisions. In order for us to take advantage of influencer marketing; marketing managers, company heads, marketing teams in Namibia need to fully understand the concept .
Traditional advertising methods may still be relevant to a certain demographic, but a huge percentage of consumers are influenced by information they find on Instagram, more so by the people they follow, whose opinions they value.
The targeting and relationship-building potential of inbound marketing methods like influencer marketing offers greater yields and increasingly relevant customer relationships. www.traacker.com
Namibian branding and marketing managers need to see it important and valuable. They will also need to be able to convince the top traditional company heads on why they should get in on this concept.
NB: Influencer marketing does not revolve around paid shills, or celebrity endorsements. It’s about unique, honest, legitimate relationships between the customer, brand and influencer. Which is exactly what makes influencer marketing so unique from other marketing tactics. When brands commit to influencers, they are also committing to being long-term advocates for their audience and customers. www.traacker.com
Influencers?
Now, for Influencer Marketing to work here, we will need actual billable influencers.
I need to mention that celebrities aren’t necessary “Influencers”, and people with large followings aren’t automatically that either.
What most influencers around the world are doing really well is consistently creating quality curated content. They have blogs with posts coming out every week, they have video content coming out every week on their YouTube channels. They stay creating, building relationships with their following, entertaining their audience by creating quality content they can easily consume.
I’m afraid that’s where we are lacking and because of that it’s going to take a while for international brands/entities to trust our capabilities.
I feel like I say this every week;
we need to create more.
I’ve been seeing more and more people starting their content creating journeys and that has me very excited. We still have a lot to do but at least we have started.
They will need to find us creating, that way we will be able to meet them half way.
Okay, there’s more to this, let’s tackle it in my future posts.
What are your thoughts on influencer marketing in Namibia?
