Social media influencers have cemented their place in brand advertising because consumers are increasingly likely to trust the right influencers. A joint study by analytics firm Annalect and Twitter found that social media users on average trust influencers’ opinions as much as their own friends’. Nearly 40 percent of those surveyed reported purchasing an item after seeing an influencer promoting it.
Some brands, however, try to avoid the price tag associated with better-known influencers by engaging with “micro-influencers” — though those people aren’t always the perfect answer, either. That’s where brand ambassadors come in.
Brand ambassadors aren’t people who started their accounts with a specific theme in mind, then gained followers using hashtags and following like-minded accounts. Instead, they’re natural consumers with followings of real-life friends and people who trust their opinions. So, if you’re a brand looking for an endorsement, choosing a brand ambassador over a micro-influencer may help you gain a rush of new customers based on trusted recommendations and meaningful engagement.
News flash: Social media matters.
The typical social media user generally is focused on collecting followers from his or her friend circles, not from the world at large. If you’re a brand working with consumers, this type of user is much more helpful to your cause. Unlike micro-influencers, who have very little real-world impact on their followers’ lives, brand ambassadors have personal connections with their followers and can have offline conversations about what your brand has to offer.
Eighty-three percent of consumers surveyed by a Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising Report said they trusted loved ones’ recommendations, and were also more likely to discuss products offline with their friends than to contact a micro-influencer whose post they’d scrolled past on Instagram.
So, before calling on an account to speak on behalf of your brand, investigate its followers and engagement patterns, paying special attention to its “like follower ratio,” or number of likes it gets in relation to its number of followers. To put it simply: The quality of an account’s followers matters more than the quantity.
Lyft is a brand that has made great use of high-quality brand ambassadors. The ride-sharing service first made its name in that category by appearing to be the anti-Uber, “friendly and authentic” alternative. To cultivate this image further, the company used real people to spread its message, recruiting ambassadors by engaging with interested parties and making its ambassador program a core part of its company message.
That strategy worked: The company grew its market share by more than 135 percent in one year, according to PYMNTS.com. Uber, its main competitor, dropped from 84 percent share to 77 percent between January and…
