Why Social Media Influencer is a Great Investment for Mobile App Promotion?

June 17, 2021

|In Digital Marketing Strategy, Digital Marketing

If you built a mobile app, you know that it does not end with having approved on Play Store and App Store. You need to promote it to ensure that people will download, install, and use it.

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Sure, you can develop a robust App Store Optimization plan. But another tactic you can use is influencer marketing.

Today, influencer marketing has become one of the key tactics companies use to spread the word about their products or services. More so, now that there are 3.80 billion active social media users worldwide.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing wherein “influencers” promote your products or services.

Influencers are any internet-famous people with thousands of social media followers. It is akin to celebrity endorsements. But instead of TV personalities, your endorsers are internet-famous people.

The reason they are famous is that they are key opinion leaders in their niche. This explains why there are fashion and beauty influencers, foodie influencers, tech and gadget influencers, and more.

Moreover, influencers can help build online awareness about your services. And this usually happens on social media.

What is an Influencer?

In a nutshell, an influencer is someone that:

Has the influence to affect, in one way or another, buyers’ purchasing decisions. Mostly this is because of several factors like authority, knowledge, or the relationship they established with their audience.
Has a significant online following that they actively engage with. Their following usually depends on one of the niches or industries they are in.

But just like celebrities, influencers can be found anywhere. They can also be anyone.

What makes them “influencers” is that they have a large and relevant following on social media. Simply put, an influencer can be a college student who happened to know a lot about mobile gaming.

Moreover, he has thousands of followers who are into mobile gaming as well.

Yet, what makes these people what they are in their field is that they have developed a reputation in their chosen field or niche.

Using our mobile gamer example, social media users may follow him because he is good at mobile gaming. It is also because he shares honest game reviews and gaming tactics. Meaning, he is generous in sharing information that matters to his audience.

Influencers can create and produce content that will resonate with their audience. It can be a blog post, an image, a video, or an Instagram Story. This explains why they can engage with their followers.

To understand influencer marketing better, here are the different types of influencers:

Celebrities: As mentioned earlier, influencers are usually people who happened to be famous on social media. However, TV and movie personalities can also fit the mold. That’s because they inherently have many followers on their social media channels. The beauty of working with a celebrity influencer is that you can tap into their fanbase.
Macro-influencers: Macro-influencers are internet-famous people who have over 100k followers.
Micro-influencers: Usually, a micro-influencer has a following between 1,000-100,000 followers. Most of these influencers focus on a specific area or niche, and they are known to be experts in their industry.
Professionals: People in this particular group usually include authors, athletes, business leaders, journalists, or industry experts. You would find most of them speaking at conferences, and they typically have a high authority in their field.
Brand Advocates: A brand advocate is a person or customer who talks favorably on a particular product or brand.

4 Risks of Influencer Marketing

Over the years, influencers have bought in a lot of opportunities and benefits for brands and companies. Hence, you can consider them as your software development partner.

But just like with any marketing strategy, you also need to be aware of the risks that are associated with it as well. Here are some dangers or risks that you might encounter with influencer marketing:

Fraudulent Accounts

Most brands make the mistake of relying on numbers when working with an influencer. What they do not know is that some influencers buy followers.

As a result, you do not get to tap as many potential customers as you can.

What you can do is focus on how an influencer drives engagement. How many likes and comments do they get per post? And do they reply to some of the comments?

You can also use tools like IG Audit and HypeAuditor to know whether the influencer and his followers are fraudulent.

Insincere Relationship

Another problem with relying on numbers alone is that an influencer can be all over the place. Meaning, they promote a fashion brand today, and you will see them promoting a mobile game tomorrow.

While it is common for people to have multiple interests, an influencer that does not have a niche is less likely to give your brand the audience mileage you want.

The lack of a niche could also mean that an influencer does not have an established relationship with his audience. Hence, working with an influencer that does not have a sincere connection with his audience could backfire on your brand.

Controversies

Influencers are human beings, too, so they are bound to commit some mistakes.

Now, these mistakes can also potentially affect your brand when they decide to partner with you.

In a sense, that person represents your brand. So, when he starts doing certain things that are not in line with your brand’s values, you might be thrown into a bad PR situation.

Financial Instability

More often than not, celebrities and influencers can be an attractive way for big brands to generate buzz around their services. But because they have a huge fan base, that could also mean they charge a hefty sum.

If you do not manage your finances and influencer marketing strategy well, you might end up spending more than what you earn. This can hurt your business’ bottom line.

It is okay to pay the influencer you choose to work with as long as they can bring the results you want.

How Influencer Marketing can Benefit Your Mobile App

There is a common misconception that influencer marketing does not fit mobile app promotion. Nonetheless, you will need people who can recommend your service.

Whether you want to work with a tech-savvy celebrity or a macro-influencer, it is just a matter of finding the right people. And when we say “right people,” we mean influencers who can get the word out about your mobile app to your target users.

That said, we have listed down nine benefits of using influencer marketing to promote your mobile app:

Boosts Direct Sales

Perhaps one of the most apparent benefits of influencer marketing is that it leads to a greater sales volume and leads for your brand.

Chances are, people trust influencers as well as the message that they are trying to send out. Therefore, the chances that customers will likely respond are also greater.

Both trust and shared interests are what makes a brand influencer more impactful. This leads their target audience to convert faster. As a result, they are driving in more sales.

Improves Market Reach

Influencers are useful because they have already proved their knowledge over the years. Some even become industry experts and garner a huge fan base.

Influencer marketing is a quick and effective way to set up your brand to a much larger market, for instance, if you want to go global.

With the right influencer marketing strategy in your arsenal, you can gain international awareness. Also, it will be almost impossible without influencers on social media to reach out to a global audience for a limited time.

Build Trust and Authority

People follow social media influencers because they are inspiring. Moreover, their followers place their opinions and recommendations in high regard.

They have built a loyal following and established themselves as subject matter experts. This explains why their followers likely trust their insights and recommendations.

According to a study, nearly 40% of Twitter users bought an item because of a tweet from an influencer.

If you want people to download your mobile app, you might want to consider working with an influencer. Because, as mentioned previously, people take their recommendations in high regard.

Adds Value to Your Target Users

In general, marketing is all about providing solutions to your target users. The same thing goes when it comes to mobile application development. After all, you want to create an app that can help your users work efficiently.

Surprisingly, influencer marketing embraces that same concept.

Keep in mind that influencers are people, too. Meaning they have issues that your mobile app can solve.

Simply put, you can leverage your mobile app’s features when running an influencer marketing campaign. And it is also something that the influencers can talk about in their social media content.

Generates High-quality Leads

Lead generation can be one of the great benefits of influencer marketing for your app.

As mentioned earlier, influencer marketing happens mostly on social media. Hence, you can work with the right person who can spread the word about your mobile app.

Moreover, your influencer can encourage his followers to download your app. This is where lead generation comes into play. That’s because the influencer can bridge the gap between your app and your target users.

Deliver Real-time Results

Your primary goal is to boost your number of app downloads. Hence, you will need to implement a marketing strategy that can help you deliver real-time results.

This is where influencer marketing could come in handy.

Here’s the thing: If you are working with the right influencer, their followers are likely your target users. This means your mobile app can be relevant to them, compelling them to download your app.

Generate High ROIs

Research has shown, time and time again, that influencer outreach outweighs the costs. Also, the ROI or return on investment on influencer marketing is relatively high.

According to Burst Media’s survey, brands with an influencer marketing program are getting $6.85 for every $1 they spend on paid media.

Without a doubt, incorporating influencer marketing into your marketing strategy can pay off and have huge returns in the long run.

Another study reveals that influencer marketing has an ROI that’s 11 times higher than other digital marketing forms out there.

Beats Ad Blindness

Another benefit of influencer marketing is that you are sure that many people can see your mobile app.

If you have a Facebook page for your mobile app, only ten percent of your followers can see your post. This is Facebook’s way of ensuring that users see content that matters to them. These are usually posts from their friends and family.

Meanwhile, influencer marketing can help amplify your app’s online presence.

It also ensures that people will not get tired of your other marketing tactics. That’s because influencers can think of creative ways to promote your mobile app.

Acquire Long-term Results

When you choose to invest in influencer marketing in the long-term, you will see a boost in conversion over time. In your case, that would be the number of app downloads.

Investing in influencer marketing is like striking a long-term relationship with the influencer. Because depending on your budget, you can hire an influencer to promote your mobile app repeatedly.

In the same way, it takes time to build trust between your customers and brands. That same principle applies to influencer marketing and influencers as a whole.