Asking experts or renowned personalities to promote a product or service has become an important marketing tool, especially on social media. Here are tips for approaching influencers and reaching their audience.
Influencer marketing is a lever that brands increasingly use. Traditional online advertising has indeed lost its effectiveness due to blockers like Ad Blocker and an overabundance of information (infobesity). Influencer marketing is about leveraging social media influencers to recommend products or services to a certain audience or community.
Influencer marketing generally refers to actions carried out in the context of a collaboration or paid partnership between a brand and an influencer on social networks such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok or Snapchat. The commercial and advertising character of posts, as well as product placements, must be explicitly stated to the audience or community.
There are four types of influencers:
- Mega-influencers (more than 1 million followers): Celebrities or public figures with a global reputation who reach an extremely diverse audience to increase a brand's visibility or popularity. Working with this type of influencer will require a very large budget. One example would be Roger Federer.
- Macro-influencers (between 100,000 and 1 million followers): These are considered experts able to influence trends. Their community is spread across the world. Being associated with these profiles allows you to present your products or services to a very wide audience in a somewhat more targeted way than with mega-influencers. Examples: Wendy Holdener, Olivia Faeh.
- Micro-influencers (between 10,000 and 100,000 followers): These are individuals who specialise in a particular field, such as fashion, sports, or beauty. They bring together a community of people who are very committed and passionate about the topics they deal with. Close to their followers, they are appreciated for their authentic expertise and are easily accessible to advertisers. Examples: Whitney Toyloy, Loredana Bamert-Carrabs.
- Nano-influencers (less than 10,000 followers): The most authentic of all, ordinary people who maintain a close relationship with their community. Soliciting this type of influencer can be ideal for small businesses with a limited budget. Extremely dynamic, their community can also help quickly get consumer opinions on a product or service.
An influencer's fame cannot be defined by simply using the size of their community. The engagement rate, which corresponds to the number of interactions on a post in relation to the number of followers and must be high, the influencer’s regularity of activity, and the impression rate, which refers to the audience actually reached by a post, are equally important criteria to ensure the effectiveness of a collaboration or partnership.
Increased recognition, improved trust and credibility, profitability; influencer marketing has many advantages. Before getting started, you must first:
- Define a strategy: Before creating the campaign, messages, goals (increase your reputation, boost website traffic, boost sales, etc.), target groups, channels (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, etc.), and the budget will have to be determined.
- Select the right profile: The collaboration must be consistent with the influencer’s image and content, at the risk of being poorly viewed by your community. Analysis of performance indicators (KPIs) such as the number of real and fake followers, estimated reach, impressions, engagement rate and posting frequency can be very useful to know if a profile fits the campaign and its goals or not.
- Determine compensation, expected results, and timetable: The chosen influencers' terms of collaboration or partnership will need to be negotiated prior to campaign launch.
- Measure performance: Indicators such as engagement rate, website traffic, and sales can be used to evaluate a campaign's success and, if necessary, adjust the focus to optimise performance.
Internet users often look for recommendations before making a purchase, and influencers play a significant role in guiding them in their decision to buy. Their content, perceived as reliable, amplifies the brand’s messages, provided it is addressed to the right people. Influencer agencies or platforms such as influencers.ch or collabment.agency are designed to help brands and companies find the right profile for their influencer marketing strategy and goals.
Sources: Marrone R.; Gallic C.; Le grand livre du marketing digital, 2018; Farner. Les 5 conseils pour réussir votre marketing d’influence, 2023 (consultée le 16 avril 2025); Kolsquare, Marketing d'influence: pourquoi, comment, avec qui?, 2025 (consulted on 16 April 2025).
