Influencer marketing can involve a celebrity, a blogger or even someone in a community that has gained the trust and respect of everyone that is involved in the community. While the general idea of influencer marketing involves utilizing a person, many companies have also had a lot of success by utilizing another brand that can help them thrive in their own industry.

Influencer Marketing In the Real World

Any kind of business can utilize influencer marketing to grow and gain more authority in their industry; thus leading to an increase in customer engagement, customer interest and sales, which is usually the main goal of such a campaign. Before we look at how influencer marketing can help your business thrive, let’s take a look at some real world scenarios where this type of marketing strategy has helped businesses become more popular.

Styld.by is a collection of denim-based apparel that is now worn by millions of people around the globe. How did they become so famous? Influencer marketing, of course. This is actually a really great example of influencer marketing as the company did not only get one or two influencers involved but thousands. They feature a series of snapshots on their website where they showcase their influencers wearing their clothes. They have gained the influence of singer Xriss Jor, art director Mirjam Flatau, as well as many famous bloggers, photographers, and models.

Other examples of brands that used this marketing technique to increase awareness of their own brand:

• At the Warner Sound Festival, Nikon teamed up with Warner Music Group to showcase their camera offerings during the festival. Thanks to the team up and influence by Warner Music Group, the company’s hashtag trended for the entire weekend on Twitter.
• Sephora, trusted brand in the health and beauty industry, was able to increase their brand awareness by starting a new platform that provides any person the ability to offer unbiased reviews. After starting the platform, they sent sample products to famous beauty bloggers and asked them to do an honest review on their platform about the samples they received.

The True Power Of Influencer Marketing

The examples above can offer you a clear overview of just how powerful influencer marketing can be for your business. While these examples all focuses on brands that are already popular, the marketing strategy can be utilized by any type of business – big or small – to increase brand awareness and to increase sales. Even some smaller companies have utilized the marketing strategy as part of their marketing plan in order to get more people to trust in their brand and buy their product or services. This means that no matter what type of business you are running, adding influencer marketing into the mix can definitely hold many benefits for your company.

One of the best things about this type of marketing is the fact that influencer marketing works for any type of business in any industry. If you take a quick look online, you’ll notice that there are blogs that specializes in just about every industry and niche you can think of – many of these blogs are very popular and has thousands of people following them daily for updates. To give you proof of what we mean, let’s look at some popular blogs in different niches:

• Freshome – Interior Decorating & Architecture blog. This blog has more than 1.9 million followers on Facebook and over 200,000 followers on Twitter.
• Nerd Fitness – Physical Fitness blog. This blog has over 90,000 likes on its Facebook page, 13,400 followers on Instagram and more than 28,000 subscribers on YouTube.
• WP Beginner – WordPress tutorials and training. This blog has a combined total of 600,000+ subscribers on their various social media channels.

• Smitten Kitchen – Cooking blog. This blog has more than 500,000 likes on Facebook, over 100,000 followers on Pinterest and thousands more followers on other social networks.

While these are only four examples of popular blogs, they should give you a clear idea of the fact that there are famous blogs in every industry you can think of. This means that, no matter what type of business or website you have, there are an endless number of opportunities available to you if you open up to influencer marketing. Even one single post or mention by a famous blog in your niche could mean that millions of people will notice your blog and will potentially visit your website to learn more about your brand.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing is seen in our everyday lives. Celebrities promoting branded products, brands collaborating to increase each other’s exposure and fashion bloggers snapping themselves in the latest designer wear. No matter what type of niche your brand is in, by utilizing influencer marketing, you can boost your exposure and sales significantly. Influencer marketing, however, can be a difficult task if you’re not sure how to do it the right way. In such a case, contacting a digital agency that specializes in this kind of marketing strategies can help you succeed without having to learn anything yourself.

The post The Benefits That Influencer Marketing Can Offer Your Business appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

What does Report Say?

According to the report from Traackr and Altimeter Group, influencer marketing offers a great opportunity for brands that are willing to invest resources, more time, and focus more on customers’ needs. Based on the report named Influence 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing, to experience all benefits that come with this marketing strategy, it is essential to make it a priority. Despite the enormous potential, influencer marketing is largely underemployed by numerous companies that don’t even allocate enough finances to this strategy.

Researchers who worked on the report polled 102 brand strategists and marketers from enterprises like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, American Express, and many others. About 48% of poll respondents were associated with companies employing more than 10,000 staff.

The findings showed that 71% marketers consider influencer marketing as a strategic marketing category, but only 43% tried out this practice, while 28% involve influencers at the campaign level. At the same time, 83% said their major priority was to identify and build quality relationships with influencers. Despite the fact that 28% run an “always on” program, only 5% of polled enterprises implement this marketing strategy across all functions of the business.

Principal analyst at Altimeter explained that marketers should reimagine their role of a central driver of organizational change by paying more attention to customer needs. They should connect with customers in more genuine and practical manners.

It’s all about Relationship with Customers

The report explains that a successful internet marketing program should be constant or ongoing, not one-off. Besides that, companies should allocate more finances to this strategy, as mentioned above. Some brands have already recognized the true potential of influencer marketing, have bigger budgets for this purposes, and they’re already experiencing benefits.

Influencer marketing isn’t just about getting someone with a big follower count to mention your product or services on social media. In order for it to truly work, it is paramount to consider customer needs and meet their expectations. The more a company builds up a relationship over time, the greater the compact its campaigns will have. That way, endorsements from influencers, bloggers, and vloggers will seem trustworthy. Plus this adds to the whole idea of a subtle marketing campaign.

How can Influencer Marketing Get You More Customers?

According to a study by McKinsey, consumer-to-consumer word-of-mouth generates twice the sales of paid advertising. In fact, word-of-mouth strategy is associated with 37% retention rate. If you’re wondering what makes influencer marketing so successful at getting you more customers, here are some reasons:

• More reliable than paid advertising – This marketing strategy leverages the popularity and follower loyalty that a person commands on social media
• It is more targeted and authentic way to convey a message
• Influencer marketing can attract customers that aren’t originally your target demographic too
• Generates more traffic to your website – Each time a blogger or influencer mentions your product or service you provide, your website can get more traffic. It is needless to mention influencer marketing is an ultimate SEO strategy because influencers provide unique content and increase its reach and engagement
• Finding perfect blogger or influencer increases the customer – You can’t contact tech blogger and ask him to mention or promote some beauty product and vice versa. Reaching people that match perfectly with your business also allows you to have greater success in getting and retaining customers. The best thing is, there’s no need to go through social media networks to find influencers and bloggers when there are numerous services like ProvenSEO for example, that build your content and its ranking on search engine results but also help you find and connect with ideal bloggers
• Honest advertising – Consumers are sick and tired of false ads and “too good to be true” promises. Bloggers worked hard to build their reputation and it’s highly unlikely they’ll promote something they don’t believe in

Conclusion

Influencer marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies in 2017, and its efficacy and success continue to grow. In order to get the most out of influencer program, it is necessary to build a quality relationship with consumers rather than relying on influencer endorsements only. This adds to the trustworthiness of the company, makes endorsements more reliable, and customers are more likely to respond and purchase products/services when the brand focuses on their needs too.

The post Report: Influencer Marketing must Pay More Attention to Customer Needs appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

Influencer Marketing Research

Between August and September last year, the companies Altimeter and Traackr in partnership with TopRank Marketing have conducted a survey of 102 marketers and strategist to examine the current state of influencer marketing. Their findings were published in a report titled Influence 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing. The report introduces a concept called as ‘Influence 2.0’ for the future of enterprise businesses. What Influence 2.0 suggests is true customer centricity and the growth in digital transformation. The statistics outlined in the report show in themselves what works and what doesn’t in today’s marketing, but marketers will find the additional suggestions provided there helpful.

What The Survey Found?

The respondents in the aforementioned survey were mostly larger companies with over 1000 employees, and almost half of them (43%) stated that they were only experimenting with influencer marketing. Furthermore, 28% of the respondents said that they called for influencers in individual campaigns and only 24% had influencers involved in continuous programs. Only 5% of the respondents stated that they involved influencers in all their marketing activities. However, the use of influencer marketing varied greatly among different businesses. Business-to-consumer (B2C) companies seem to be the most actively engaged with influencers as 55% stated that they employed ongoing influencer programs while 83% stated that building a one-to-one relationship with key influencers was their top priority. On the other side of the spectrum are business-to-business (B2B) companies where only 15% said they were running ongoing programs.

Other Findings

However, other research on this same topic had slightly different findings. Linqia, an influencer marketing platform has conducted its own research and the findings were published in their paper called The State of Influencer Marketing 2017. According to Linqia’s report, influencer marketing has experienced an explosive growth last year with 86% of marketers saying they used the tactic and 94% saying they found it highly effective.

Investment in influencer marketing also seems to be booming with marketers spending between $25.000 and $50.000 per influencer marketing program. However, the survey’s respondents also said that they plan to double on these investments in 2017 with some planning to spend as much as $100.000 per program.

Why Utilize Influencer Marketing In 2017?

As far as the reasons behind influencer marketing endorsements go, there seem to be agreements between the two surveys. In the Influence 2.0 report, 94% of the surveyed marketers stated that the main reason why they involved influencers was to improve brand advocacy. Other cited reasons were to increase brand awareness and to reach their target audiences. As far as the Linqia survey goes, most respondents (89%) said they used influencer marketing in order to create authentic content about the brand but also to drive engagement around a particular brand (77%). More than half (56%) stated that they utilized this marketing tactic to drive more traffic to their websites or landing pages.

The Challenges of Influencer Marketing In 2017

However, influencer marketing, being a relatively new type of marketing tactic comes with its own set of challenges. The most commonly cited challenge for 2017 that marketers face is measuring the actual ROI of influencer marketing according to the Linqia survey. Around 61% of marketers are measuring their ROI through audience reach but which we know has its setback (purchasing of fake followers). Another commonly cited challenge is finding which influencer to work with according to 45% of the respondents. As far as the most preferred social media platforms for influencer marketing go, Instagram and Facebook are still taking the lead with almost 90% of the respondents looking for their influencers there. These were followed by blogs (48%), Twitter (44%), and Snapchat being the least used social media platform as only 28% of the respondents turned to this platform. By the looks of it, more and more marketers will likely be turning to platforms like ProvenSEO to make looking for the best influencers and marketing strategies easier.

Also See : Influencer Marketing: Top 7 Reasons Why It’s the Future

Conclusion

Influencer marketing is one of the most popular buzzword in today’s media-driven world that seems to have caught the attention of mostly B2C companies. According to the surveys mentioned in this article, influencer marketing has experienced a boom last year, and as evidence shows, investments in influencer marketing will continue to expand in 2017. With social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook being the most popular place to find Influencers, we should continue to see more and more companies using them as marketing platforms. Other than that, marketers will need to think of smart ways to measure their ROI and to seek help from marketing platforms.

The post Influencer Marketing Future – What to Expect appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

5 Steps Formula for Influencers

If you’re reading this post, then there is a good chance that you would like to become an influencer, but you are not sure how to step into this world and start to cash in on this billion-dollar market. Truth is, you are not alone. Just as you and many other potential influencers are unsure of how to get started, many brands are also uncertain about how they can implement an influencer marketing strategy into their business model to get better exposure for their brand. Fortunately, a five-step formula has been created that helps beginners enter the world as influencers. The formula explains everything that needs to be done – by following the steps, any person who has a passion for something can build authority in a niche and become an influencer.

Step 1: Passion

The first step is to have a passion for something. You may be passionate about maintaining a healthy weight, collecting model cars, building muscles, styling hair or something else. When it comes to being a successful influencer, it is vital that you are passionate about the niche you are targeting. Only then will you be able to become truly successful and make real money.

Step 2: The Platform

Once you have found a niche that you are truly passionate about, the next step is to decide on a platform to start out with. A lot of people try to target all possible platforms when they only start out, but these people often find it difficult to build a following and authority on multiple platforms in the beginning and give up. The key is to start out with a single platform – do some research and find out where the target audience for your niche hangs out, then start with that platform. Once you have mastered the platform and have a large number of followers, you can think about moving to other platforms as well.

Step 3: Likable Content

Deciding on a platform will help you determine the best type of content you can create. For example, if you decide to start out with Sound Cloud, you’ll most likely start out with podcasts. If you start out with Twitter, you’ll need to come up with catchy tweets and add popular hashtags to reach your target audience. If you decided to start a blog instead, then you will need to write in-depth expert posts on different topics in your niche. The important part is to create content that is tailored towards the platform that you have chosen to start with, but at the same time you should focus on creating content that is likable – this will ensure readers are more likely to share your content and follow your accounts.

Step 4: Distributing Your Content

Writing content is important, but distributing the content is often considered to be even more important as your content is worthless if no one is able to find it. Thus, implementing an effective distribution strategy is essential if you plan on reaching a large following and obtaining authority in your niche – which is the only way to become a trustworthy influencer.

Step 5: Converting Your Influence into Cash

Finally, the most important step of the five step formula to becoming a successful influencer – conversions. Without conversions, all of your efforts would be worthless. Conversions are your ultimate goal and are what will bring in the money. It is also the best way of building better authority in your niche – a brand will be keener to hire you as an influencer if you can proof to them that you can convert their strategy into real sales. If you are not planning on providing a service as an influencer, then you need to make sure you gain enough conversions to ensure your specific monetizing method brings in enough cash to call it a business.

Making Money as an Influencer

After you have implemented the five steps of this formula, you should continue growing your audience and following until you reach a number that will mark you as a trustworthy and noteworthy influencer in your niche. When you reach this milestone, you can start to implement certain monetization strategies to start cashing in on your network. These are the most effective ways of making money as an influencer:

• You can provide a service as an influencer – brands can pay you to post content that promotes them on your blog and social media channels.
• You can promote products for brands and they pay you for every sale you refer to them. This is also called affiliate marketing.
• You can sell advertisement space on your blog, if you decided to use a blog as your influencer platform.
• Once you have a lot of authority in your niche, you can offer personal consultations and training via Skype and other messaging platforms at an hourly or fixed rate.
• Individuals and companies can hire you as a marketing coach.
• You can start your own influencer marketing agency, just like Proven SEO did, and offer sponsored blog posts and social media outreach to brands, bloggers and other clients.

These are, however, only a few ways you can monetize the network you have grown.

See More: Influencer Marketing: Top 7 Reasons Why It’s the Future

Final Words

Becoming an influencer in a certain niche takes time, patients and a lot of work, but it can be very rewarding if you follow the appropriate steps that are needed. As an influencer, you will often help brands and bloggers increase their awareness by providing different types of outreach services – such as a post or mention on your social media channels, or a sponsored post on your blog.

The post 5 Successful Influencer Marketing Steps to Make More Money appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

If you have been following the latest trends in internet marketing, then you most definitely have heard the term “influencer marketing” mentioned at least once – you might even be utilizing this strategy already as part of your marketing plan. Influencer marketing is becoming more popular every year and many businesses see a lot of growth in customers and sales by utilizing influencer marketing.

Influencer Marketing Versus Traditional Online Advertising

More businesses than ever before are using influencer marketing to grow their business and this strategy is quickly becoming more popular than the traditional way of online advertising – and for a good reason. Hubspot reports that Adblock Plus, a web browser extension that blocks ads on websites, has more than 500 million users. They also report that 64% of internet users think ads are intrusive and annoying, while another 54% reports ads cause a disruption with what they are doing and 36% report it uses too much bandwidth. With ad blockers rising in popularity, the traditional way of advertising online through banners and ad networks are not as effective anymore. Beta News reports that marketers may lose as much as $27 billion by the year 2020 because of the rising popularity of ad blockers. Using influencer marketing, however, or using an agency that specializes in this kind of online promotional strategies, like Proven SEO, can give you better results and prevent your business from losing money.

Rules To Follow With Influencer Marketing

If you are planning to utilize influencer marketing to boost your brand recognition, then you should know that there are some rules you should follow when you implement this marketing strategy. Many business and website owners fail to consider these rules when they start to utilize influencer marketing and this can result in lost money rather than additional profits. Let’s explore the different rules that should be considered with such a marketing plan.

Be Original

Adweek reports that as much as 75% of internet marketers are already using influencer marketing to expand their brand and to become more successful online. Many of these marketers have been able to utilize the technique successfully. Unfortunately, some people tend to copy the strategies used by others in their own campaigns. To ensure your campaigns are successful, you should come up with original content and ideas to use in your influencer marketing plan – this can greatly enhance the trustworthiness of your campaign and may also increase the click-through rate.

Know How To Recognize An Influencer

A social media user with 100,000 followers is not necessarily an influencer. There are many ways to build up a social media following and some only do it for the money. When you search for influencers, you need to do some research on every potential influencer you find before you start contacting them. The Content Marketing Institution recommends looking at the potential influencer’s engagement and the quality of the content they post before you reach out to them.

Relevancy Matters

While searching for influencers, you should consider the industry they are targeting, the niche their following is interested in and how relevant their publications are to your own business. Even when a potential influencer is in the same industry as you are, it does not necessarily mean they are completely relevant to you. Social Media Explorer explains that relevancy adds value to content and positions your brand as a more trustworthy source of information.

Don’t Neglect Your Own Online Presence

A lot of marketers focus so much on their influencer marketing strategy that they tend to forget they should still maintain their own presence. If an influencer is able to drive traffic to your blog or social media profiles, you will not be able to utilize these new visitors if your online presence is standing still – you need to stay active, regularly update your social walls and continue publishing new blog posts to show the new visitors that you are active and will offer them value if they decide to become a fan.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing is now an active part of more than 50% of all marketing plans. It has become an essential form of marketing due to the increased number of users installing ad blockers. Utilizing this strategy should thus be a priority in your next marketing plan, but not adhering to some basic rules can cost you a lot of money. Following the rules we’ve shared in this post will help you achieve better results while limited the amount of money you spend.

The post The Rules That Will Help You Master Influencer Marketing appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

Wordometers report that more than 600,000 blog posts are written every single day. Hat Trick Associates report that there are more than 1 billion blogs on the internet. These statistics are evidence that the internet is thriving and it continues to grow every single day.

The statistics are also clear proof that having an online presence is essential for any type of business – no matter what you do or what you offer your customers.

One problem that many businesses face is the fact that, even though there are so many people using the internet, blogs and social networks, it can be quite difficult to make an impression and get a fraction of these users to like their pages.

How Fitness Companies Can Utilize Influence Marketing?

The fitness industry is quite popular at the moment. The health industry has an estimated global worth of $81.2 billion.

There are almost 40,000 fitness clubs in the United States alone and millions of bloggers regularly publish articles, videos and images related to the fitness industry on their blogs and social media profiles.

While an established fitness bloggers can post almost anything on their blog and thousands of their readers will instantly start to share the post, a newcomer to the industry, even if they are an expert, will have quite a difficult time trying to get people to read (and share) their content. These people can utilize a promotional strategy known as influence marketing to reach more people and establish a level of trust between them and potential fans.

Influencer marketing is nothing new. It has been around for many years. The rise in Ad Block users, however, has caused this marketing technique to become much more popular than ever before. Other factors, such as the average consumer becoming more aware of adverts and avoiding them, has also contributed to the increase in the use of influencer marketing.

The fitness industry, just like many other industries, can utilize this marketing technique to get more people to trust them, get to know them and to build authority for them in this popular sector.

Let’s consider how individuals and businesses in the fitness industry can utilize influencer marketing to their advantage.

Expertise in the Fitness Industry

Any expert in the fitness industry who has become an authority have a lot of influence on others who want to lose weight, get fit or build muscles. This can be used to the advantage of a brand, business or even a blogger.

If an expert in the industry recommends a product to their followers or advises their followers to read a good post on another blog, they would be more likely to follow through on the recommendation than they would’ve been if they saw a random advertisement on the internet.

They Share a Specific Interest

The good thing about using an influencer for your brand is the fact that they are usually interested in a specific sub-niche within the fitness industry.

For example, a personal trainer who produces videos about building muscles wouldn’t necessarily talk about losing weight or dieting for a reduced body fat, but, instead, only talk about muscle-building supplements and strength training exercises.

If you own a business that sells supplements for bodybuilding, then you would most likely be very successful if you hire such an influencer.

Fitness Influencers are Usually Picky

You would think that hiring someone that is very picky is a bad thing, but, when it comes to hiring a fitness influencer, it can actually be a very good thing.

People who have a lot of influence on people interested in the fitness industry are usually very picky when it comes to what brands, products and services they would represent or promote within their content. This means that they only represent the best products – making sure you get quality representation for your brand.

It’s an Excellent Form of Native Advertising

Native advertising is a type of advertising that is done in a “natural” way, which means it feels authentic to the target audience and not like something that was paid for. When you hire an influencer to represent your fitness product, service or blog, then you get access to an excellent for of native advertising.

The blogger, vlogger or expert you hire will naturally talk about your brand in their videos or posts in such a way that the fan will want to use it after hearing or reading about it.

See more: Micro-Influencer Marketing Is the Next Big Thing in Digital Marketing

Conclusion

Thousands of fitness experts, health experts and bodybuilders have gained the trust of many fans on social media and the internet in general. This is great news for any person who wants to enter this industry, but unsure of how they can gain authority among potential fans. By utilizing influencers in the industry, even newcomers can become popular, share their stories and become successful.

Many agencies, such as ProvenSEO, provides an easy way to get in touch with experts in the fitness industries to use in an influencer marketing campaign.

The post Learn How Your Fitness Company Can Benefit From Influence Marketing appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

When you talk about internet marketing, one of the main subjects that will come to mind is content marketing. Content marketing plays a vital part in promoting any type of business or website on the world-wide-web – it refers to the promotion of content that was produced specifically to target an audience and steer their interest towards the products, services or information that is provided on the promoted website or blog.

A recently trending topic that is also part of an internet marketing strategy is influencer marketing. This strategy is becoming more popular than ever and businesses have been able to grow exponentially with the utilization of this marketing technique.

While both of these strategies can be placed underneath the topic of internet marketing, a lot of people seems to be getting confused about how exactly the two are linked together.

In this post, we will be exploring the basics of each technique and help you better understand the link between influencer marketing and content marketing.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the foundation of any internet promotional strategy. It refers to the creation of content that has been developed specifically with the target audience in mind, as well as the promotion of this content – in such a way that it is seen and read (or watched / listened) by the target audience.

During content creation, a lot of aspects need to be taken into consideration. This is why content creation is often categorized with content marketing – both of these channels utilize the same information to reach a specific goal.

To help you better understand, let’s consider an example – you may own a self-development blog that teaches people how to improve themselves and reach higher goals in life.

Before you can implement any type of content marketing strategy, you need to produce content first – but, before any of these can be done, you first need to understand your audience better. Thus, you set out to study your target audience, learn more about them (where they hang out, what they are interested in learning, how they speak, etc). Once you obtain this information, you produce content that utilizes the information you have gathered.

Finally, you implement a content marketing strategy – the strategy involves promoting the content on your blog, link to the content from your website, send out a newsletter that mentions the content to your subscribes and share it on your social accounts, which is the most beneficial channels for this type of marketing, as reported by HubSpot.

What Is Influencer Marketing?

Now that we have covered content marketing, let’s explore influencer marketing before connecting the two together. This type of marketing refers to the promotion of products, services or information about a brand or business, but, instead of using your own blog or social accounts, you utilize the marketing channels of an influencer in your niche.

While using celebrities for this purpose have always been a popular form of influencer marketing, recent evidence suggests that using micro-influencers in your niche may actually yield better results as they have followers who trust them and whom will act upon their recommendations.

Influencer marketing may still be a new term in the digital marketing industry, but it has quickly gained popularity. The Influencer Orchestration Network reports that as much as 70% of YouTubers make decisions based on the influence from an influencer whose channel they are subscribed to. They also report that as much as 71% of consumers now make decisions based on recommendations by influencers on social media channels.

Furthermore, they report that for every $1 a business invests in an influencer marketing strategy, they earn back $6.50. With this increasing awareness of just how effective influencer marketing strategies can be, many agencies, such as Proven SEO, have been adding this technique to their portfolio of service offerings.

The Link Between Influencer Marketing And Content Marketing

We explained what each of these two marketing methods is, so now let’s take a look at how they are connected. Since content marketing involves the promotion of content that was produced to represent a company and influencer marketing is a term that refers to using an influencer in a certain niche to expand the awareness of a brand or business, content marketing can be classified underneath influencer marketing.

When an influencer is hired to represent or promote a brand, they will create content (or the business will create their own content) that will be promoted (content marketing) on the marketing channels, which may include a blog and social media channels, of the influencer (influencer marketing).

See also: The Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing

Conclusion

Influencer marketing is a rising trend that businesses are using to help them reach more consumers and grow. While content marketing is often classified in its own category, it can also be connected to influencer marketing as the marketing strategy also involves the creation and distribution of valuable content that will increase consumer awareness of a brand.

The post What is the Link between Influencer and Content Marketing? appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

The second method, known as off-page optimization, refers to all the elements that need to be imple-mented on external sources to affect the ranking of a website in a positive manner. All off-page strategies include some form of backlink building. Backlinks are, in fact, the backbone of any off-page search engine optimization strategy. Backlinks are links that point towards a specific website from external sources. For example, if you own a blog about fitness, you may write and publish content on another fitness blog that includes a link back to your fitness blog.

Quality Vs. Quantity

Quality versus quantity is something that has sparked a lot of debate among website owners, bloggers, and online marketers. While some prefer to have thousands of backlinks pointing to their website, others would rather have only a few backlinks that are of high quality. With the advancements in internet technologies and the frequent updates that are implemented into the search algorithms of Google and other search engines, it is now better to focus on the quality of backlinks rather than the quantity of backlinks – most individuals who frequently build links to their sites have noticed that quality always wins over quantity.

Should You Buy Backlinks?

Most website owners do not have enough time on their hands to constantly work on building backlinks for their website to increase and maintain a high ranking for specific keywords in search engines. Let’s face it – building quality backlinks that have a positive effect on a website’s position in Google is hard work and takes time. Many of these individuals have started to opt for buying backlinks so they can focus on producing valuable content for their website or blog. Unfortunately, many of these individuals have learned that buying backlinks to rank higher in search engines aren’t always a wise choice, especially if thorough research has not been performed before getting the links to point back to their sites.

Even though buying backlinks rather than building them yourself may not always be the best way to go, sometimes you may not have a choice due to a very restricted schedule. In such a case, you should ensure you perform some initial research and only purchase from trusted sources. Before any person you are buying a link from gives you the backlink, ask them for details of the website that they will be linking from. If the person refuses to give you the URL, then move on and find someone else. If they do provide you with the URL, then you should do some research to find out whether the link will be good or bad for your online property. Some of the most important factors that you should consider while doing your research include:

• A lot of people will give you a “PageRank” value. This value is of no relevance as Google has discontinued the use of this feature and do not take this into account anymore. Thus, if the seller is giving you a “PageRank” value, it means that they are most likely not caught up to the latest trends in SEO.
• Take a look at the content that is found on the website and make sure the content is relevant to the content on your site. If you own a fitness blog, you don’t want a blog about computers linking to you.



• Analyze the website’s on-page SEO. This is an important factor when it comes to author and ranking. If you are not sure how on-page SEO works, then you can use a free online tool to draw up a report. If the website has a poor on-page optimization rating, then skip forward.
• Analyze the website’s search rankings. There are many free tools that will give you detailed in-formation about how well a specific website is ranking in search engines and for what keywords they are ranking. Make sure the website isn’t ranking for any scaly keywords.
• Finally, take a look at the website’s backlinks. It is also important to know what sites are linking to the site that you are buying a backlink from. Make sure the sites linking in also have relevant content and that they are also trustworthy. You can also use a free online tool to draw up a list of links that are pointing to the website.

See more: How to Avoid Penalties with the New Influencer Transparency Rules?

Conclusion

Building backlinks yourself is often the best way to create a natural increase of rankings in search en-gines, but some people are not patient enough to wait for this process or simply do not have enough time on their hands to perform these operations themselves. In such a case, buying backlinks from other websites are often a preferred option. If you are considering this option, you should make sure you educate yourself about different aspects of SEO. You can also utilize an SEO agency to perform all of these tasks for you, including the off-page SEO strategy. Many agencies, such as Proven SEO, provide more effective backlink building strategies by getting high authority sites to link back to you.

The post Buy Backlinks – Can You Outrank Your Website In Major SERP’s? appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

You need to utilize a careful marketing strategy that will get you the best possible ROI for a reasonable price.

In case you were wondering how to use influencer marketing on social media, here are 12 things to consider.

Influencer Marketing Strategies

1. Find the Best Influencer

The best influencer does not necessarily imply the most popular influencer. What it does mean is an influencer that best matches your brand. Similarly, your influencer of choice is more likely to agree to collaborate if your brand supports their image, message, and if it is relevant to their current audience.

2. Find a Helping Hand

Sometimes, it’s best to ask experts in the field of influencer marketing to help you find the best strategy.

Platforms like ProvenSEO offer such services to agencies and companies and they’re found to help you save time and money on marketing so you can focus on other important aspects of running your business.

3. Give Your Influencers Creative Freedom

The main reason why influencer marketing has proven to be so successful is that it attracts customers through organic content. If you have too much say in how your influencer will promote your brand, you may be taking away some of their authenticity.

Let your influencer have their creative freedom and you are more likely to gain some of that audience’s trust as well.

4. Look for Micro-Influencers

If you’re a small business just trying your hand at influencer marketing, you’ll already be turning to micro-influencer. But if you’re a larger company, the same rule can apply.

The technology company Markerly recently published results from their survey showing that micro-influencers have greater audience engagement.

This is the main reason why even big brands are reaching out to micro-influencers to help sponsor their products/services.

5. See What You can Offer

Not all influencers are looking for monetary gain through collaborations. Some may see it as an opportunity to increase their outreach and build a reputation.

If you’re on a tight budget, you can find influencers who are willing to collaborate for product samples or smaller prices. Make sure to keep this in mind when looking for an influencer.

6. See What Your Influencer can Offer

While you should give your influencer plenty of creative freedom, you also need to be clear with them what you are trying to achieve with your collaboration. This is, after all, a business agreement that needs to benefit both sides equally.

Do you want them to increase brand awareness, promote a product, or increase traffic to your website?

7. Share their Content

The best type of business agreement you could have with an influencer is that akin to a partnership. So, make your collaboration mutual by sharing their content on your social media accounts. However, make sure that you share only content relevant to your brand only.

8. The Type of Social Media Platform also Matters

Corbett Drummey, co-founder and the CEO of Popular Pays explains which platform works best for what business. Facebook is a great marketplace for brands who want to target a specific demographic while Instagram is a perfect choice if you’re looking to get quality content to increase your sales.

Pinterest is a great choice for brands trying to reach female customers while Snapchat is the easiest way to reach younger audiences.

9. Tell Influencers to Share Your Content

You may already have plenty of quality content on your Blog or social media accounts and just need someone to push that content to a relevant audience. Simple retweeting and sharing of content is the easiest way for your to rank in SEO and that your influencers will also find the easiest thing to do.

10. Focus on Experience

Instead of sending your product to an influencer and telling them to review it, you can let the influencer get experience with your product first. This will make for more authentic content that both you and your influencer need.

11. Image is Key

Provide your influencers with high-quality images that they can include in their content. This is especially true if you’re looking for influencers on Instagram and Facebook.

12. Be Different

While SEO will help you rank first in search engines, quality content is what helps in the long run. Think outside the box and make sure to reach influencers with quality and unique content. In this way, you’ll be able to become noticeable in all that online clutter.

Also See : Top 6 Social Media Marketing Trends to Stay Ahead in 2017

Conclusion

Influencer marketing is not as simple as it may initially seem. For a successful marketing campaign, you need to do plenty of research before reaching out to an influencer. Other than that, working on your own brand and image is important if you want to reach a large audience with the help of influencers.

The post 12 Influencer Marketing Strategies on Social Media appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

This is especially true for small business owners who need influencers to help them spread brand awareness.

To help you get started with influencer marketing, here are 8 tips that have proven to result in successful campaigns.

1. Look for Audience Engagement

Influencer reach is no longer considered an indicator of an influencer’s quality says Evan Asano, CEO, and founder of Mediakix, a leading influencer marketing agency.

Instead, what you should focus on is looking for influencers that are engaged with their audience. These kind of influencers are more likely to motivate their audience to take action while the same may not be true with influencers who simply have a large number of subscribers – not all of which are interested in the message they’re trying to spread.

2. Give Your Influencer Creative Freedom

Sure, you need to have some creative control over how your brand is represented, but you also need to give some of that control to your influencers.

Influencers know their audience best because they interact with them on a regular basis and have been creating a specific type of content their audience enjoys.

Let your influencer create material for your brand that matches their own brand and there’s a greater chance you’ll promote your product/service through organic content which most internet users now enjoy.

3. Micro-Influencers are Big Now

If you’re a small brand with a tight budget for marketing campaigns, then micro-influencers may be your only viable option. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing as Markerlyreports.

According to their latest research, micro-influencers are now attracting even big brands due to their greater audience engagement. These influencers are also more likely to attract an audience interested in content, meaning, you’ll actually be able to get their attention with the help of a micro-influencer while also spending less.

4. Keep a Close Eye on Your Campaign

While 95% of marketers judged influencer marketing to be effective, 78% of them also said that measuring the ROI of their influencer marketing program will continue to be one of their top challenges.

Luckily, there are ways you can roughly determine if your program is successful or not. Google analytics can help you analyze your referral traffic.

Other than that, any kind of increase in sales and leads could be a strong indicator that your campaign is working. Other things to look out for are impression visible through likes, views, and shares.

5. Find Your Match

Of course, a successful influencer marketing campaign is the one that results in a long-term business partnership.

Make sure to find an influencer that you will be able to work with for the long-run and think of your relationship as a partnership above all else. But for this to happen, you need to find the best influencer for your specific goals.

One way you can do that is through your own research or you can ask marketing agencies to help you with that.

Other than that, platforms like Proven SEO can also help you find the right influencers.

6. Make it as Effortless as Possible

Jamie Simoni, Social Marketing Manager at American Eagle Outfitters, says that its best to lay everything out on a silver platter when you’re trying to get someone involved in your campaign. Since influencers already have their hands full with their own content creation, audience engagement, and other endeavors, the easier you make it for them to spread your message, the better.

Communicate clearly with your influencer and if possible, do the majority of the work for them.

7. Focus on Shareable Content

Organic and authentic content is shareable content. While you’ll probably be giving plenty of space to your influencer to sponsor your product as elegantly as possible, it is still important to be clear with your influencer about how they will go about this.

Overly-branded content does not work in influencer marketing because it is not material that can be easily shared and liked. Evan Asano suggests creating organic content that people will find easy to utilize in their own life.

A good example is how-to instructions for a certain product which are more likely to be shared over a long period of time while product reviews not as much.

8. Keep Your Other Content Up to Date

A big part of every influencer marketing campaign is getting more traffic to your brand’s social media profiles and website. For this reason, make sure to keep these sites up to date and publish new content regularly. These sites will work as promotional material in themselves, adding up to your marketing campaign.

Also See : Top 6 Social Media Marketing Trends to Stay Ahead in 2017

Conclusion

Influencer marketing is all the rage now, and for good reasons. The marketing strategy has proven to be more in tune with online users helping generate more sales and increasing brand awareness.

If you are just starting with influencer marketing, make sure to follow these tips and we’re sure you’ll join in on the 95% of marketers claiming that this strategy helped them increase revenues.

The post 8 Tips for a Successful Influencer Marketing Campaign appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.