Marketing, it would appear, appears throughout in history, and we’re not just talking about stooges placed in crowds to say nice things out loud about the snake oil being sold from the briefcase of a travelling salesperson in the old west. Marketing goes back much further than that. Based on evidence, Roman gladiators would spend the minutes before their public brawls walking around the arena endorsing whatever they were paid to endorse (e.g. sandals, swords, bread, cloth). Along with roads, plumbing, and established currency, Rome gave us the influencer.
If you are getting your startup going and you feel that you’re at the point of needing extra guidance, check out these entrepreneur tips. Today, however, we’re going to give you a quick look at influencer content because, as a startup, you may have looked into this marketing option and not known whether it was right for you.
What Is Influencer Content? (and Why Should Start-ups Care?)
Influencer content leverages the relevant channels to gain relatively high levels of visibility over a relatively short span of time. What does that mean? It means getting your product or service seen by potential customers via the use of an established industry blog or other social media platform with many followers.
Depending on your aims and how much you want to get involved, the content creation side of things will come down to one of three options:
- Content is created purely by the influencer
- Co-created content between the influencer and the client
- Content is created by the client, and promoted by the influencer
Whatever you choose, your startup will gain instant visibility across the influencer’s network. This means gaining promotion from an established industry commentator, which builds authority and trust– and hopefully gains you backlinks to your money pages in the process.
What Is Earned Media? And How Can Influencer Content Help?
In the world of online marketing, you basically have two options in the quest for visibility. You can pay for your online presence, or you can earn it. By earning it, we mean that your content has been deemed to have had sufficient and agreeable worthiness to be clicked on, shared, and linked to by a range of users (including authority sites), such that your content is now seen as trusted and valuable by search engines, thus boosting your natural ranking.
Let’s Tie the Ends Together Now…
By paying for influencer content, your startup will gain visibility, giving you a digital “leg-up” whereby users will become familiar with your brand. This, in turn, creates a buzz about your brand, and encourages other commentators to review and comment and post about your service or product. When this second tier of digital chatter about your company kicks in, the much coveted “Google juice” will start to flow in your direction. This process of natural mentions that help to boost your search engine ranking is called earned media; organic mentions are not bought, but may be based on leveraging an original piece of influencer content. In the end, it is all quite simple, when you know how it works.
short url:
