Influencer marketing is now a mainstream form of online marketing. It has been a buzzword for a while now, and the mainstream media regularly refers to it. Yet, there are still people who don’t really understand what influencer marketing is all about. Indeed, some people come across the phrase for the first time and instantly ponder, “What is influencer marketing?”

The Influencer Marketing Hub is now an established website with hundreds of articles explaining the intricacies of influencer marketing, along with other types of online marketing. The original version of this post was the first article we wrote for the site. We know, however, that there are still people who come here for the first time, wondering what influencer marketing is. So, we have updated this article to focus on the basics of influencer marketing for 2023.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing involves a brand collaborating with an online influencer to market one of its products or services. Some influencer marketing collaborations are less tangible than that – brands simply work with influencers to improve brand recognition.

An early example of influencer marketing involved YouTube celebrity PewDiePie. He teamed up with the makers of a horror film set in the French catacombs under Paris, creating a series of videos in which he underwent challenges in the catacombs. It was pitch-perfect content for PewDiePie’s 111 million subscribers and received nearly double the views as the movie’s trailer. Everybody won.

That’s a simple example. It’s easy to imagine a celebrity teaming with a company to pitch a product—even if the pitch is a series of 10-minute videos instead of a 30-second television ad.

But people wouldn’t be talking about influencer marketing—you wouldn’t be at a website called the Influencer Marketing Hub reading about it, either—if it didn’t have a much broader set of applications. And the key is in that word, influencer.

Influencers, unlike celebrities, can be anywhere. They can be anyone. What makes them influential is their large followings on the web and social media. An influencer can be a popular fashion photographer on Instagram, or a well-read cybersecurity blogger who tweets, or a respected marketing executive on LinkedIn. Within any industry, there are influential people—you just have to find them. Some will have hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of followers. But many will seem more like ordinary people. They may only have 10,000 followers, less in some cases. Yet, they will have developed a reputation for being the experts in their field. They are the go-to people who provide the answers to people’s questions. Depending on their sphere of expertise, they are the people who make the most engaging social posts on their specialist topics. They share the best pictures, make the most entertaining videos, and run the most informative online discussions.

Influencer Marketing Statistics

Influencer marketing has grown to $16.4 billion in 2022.
Businesses are making $5.2 ROI for every $1 spent on influencer marketing.
There has been a 465% increase in searches for the phrase “influencer marketing” on Google alone since 2016.
90% of survey respondents believe influencer marketing to be an effective form of marketing.
67% of brands use Instagram for influencer marketing.
1360 Influencer marketing focused platforms and agencies entered the market in the last 5 years alone.

What works in Influencer Marketing

Carefully consider your approach to influencer marketing

Be organized, put together a strategy, plan, and budget, spend time on research
Decide on your approach to finding influencers – find them organically, subscribe to a platform, or work through an agency
Be patient and be human – people talking to people, not companies talking to companies
Develop a schedule

Does the influencer prefer monthly/quarterly/biannual calls or newsletters?
Integrate with your PR schedule, product release schedule, etc.
Send emails on behalf of key executives. Plan travel schedules for executives and arrange face-to-face meetings

What Influencer Marketing is Not

Influencer marketing isn’t just about finding someone with an audience and offering them money or exposure so they can say good things about you. That’s what viral celebrities are for. Influencers are people who’ve spent time building their own brand and cultivating their audience; they will be naturally protective of their reputation and the people who trust them. They’re people who have the patience and focus to succeed in social media, one organic follower at a time—people like this aren’t interested in doing influencer marketing solely for the money.

Influencer Marketing is also not about quick results. It’s the same kind of slow-and-steady approach as Social Media and Content Marketing, where your campaign isn’t about directly selling your wares. Instead, it’s about demonstrating your authority, credibility, and thought leadership within your industry. It’s about becoming synonymous with whatever it is that you offer, like when people say they’re going to Xerox a document instead of photocopying it, or to Hoover the floor, rather than vacuuming it.

With Social Media Marketing, it’s a slow game of acquiring the kind of followers who are going to be loyal and engaged. So it’s tempting to think that joining forces with an influencer is going to be an easy way into the hearts and minds of his or her followers—it’s not that simple, though. Because to ally yourself with influencers, you’ve got to earn their trust and respect.