Should you collaborate with influencers? Pros and cons

The definition could be: person who acquires great significance and authority for a particular segment of the audience, which, gradually, has been growing its community and generating a large engagement through their actions and publications. 

This type of profiles come along with the growth of social networks. Influencers tend to have accounts that are beginning to gain popularity, and look for a way to monetize that community. 

For brands, they represent a different approach to their target audience from any strategy of communication carried out so far and much more genuine and real.  

The community that is follower of the influencer is a fan and, because of the emotional component of the fan phenomenon, is much more susceptible to the recommendations made by the influencer, who identified with and aspires to resemble, rather than with the brand advertising. 

That was the question that opened this post and that we are going to try to answer. 

There are different types of influencers, therefore, first and foremost, you have to start by making an approach to your strategy in order to know where to start to filter. 

The key to an influence marketing campaign is, as in absolutely everything related to marketing in general, the strategy. This is what will determine and measure whether something works or not. 

The main advantages come from the segmented reach. 

Volume will continue giving us a spot on television, but it is still cracking a nut with a sledgehammer: many impacts but with a limited capacity to hit the nail on the head. 

For its part, the influential people on social networks offer us a good range (although obviously less than an ad at prime time), but to a very specific audience with very defined common interests. 

In this sense, it could be said that the audience offered by an influencer is of higher quality than the more general strategies. 

In addition, influencers have a great capacity of prescription that allows to change the way in which we are approaching the target completely. 

Campaigns conducted by this type of profiles represent a personal recommendation that the user perceives on the same level by someone they respect and who they would like to look like. 

Concerning segmentation, we cannot ignore that influencers give access to an audience that is less present in the classic channels of the mix and that have so internalized Internet and their processes, develop a smaller capacity of being impacted with another type of tactics. 

For these digital natives who consume contents of influential accounts proactively, the collaboration of brands with influencers can be the key to their conversion. 

Influential people fit very well with other strategies. Those who have acquired genuine relevance can collaborate on any other channel. It is no longer unusual finding classic commercial campaigns or print media featuring Instagram or YouTube stars. 

The main con is that after all, an influencer, although he may get to sign a contract and collaboration conditions, it is not a regulated professional, so is more exposed to mistakes. We are not talking about crisis, but possible inconsistencies with the brand´s communication strategy. 

There is also an excessive connection to a third party opinion. 

What makes them so valuable as marketing assets can also turn against us. If a contributor to our brand manifests in any controversial issue, it can drag the brand it represents. 

Beyond the opinion or the ability to communicate, there is a basic matter: it is too hard to choose the perfect influencer. 

First, because not everything that glitters is gold, and is not enough to see how many followers it has or the engagement of its posts. The "professionalization" of these people, has come together with certain guile that makes some of them get artificially grow their figures. 

The end does not justify the means, we must be focused on strategy. It seems obvious, but a campaign requires an objective and influencers the mean, that is all. If we leave the entire weight of the action in their hands and there is a problem, it may be a failure. It is not influencer´s responsibility to choose the objective, the tone, how and when.