“Hey, Brian! You HAVE to check out this new restaurant — Seasons 52.” These were the words of my friend Mel a couple years ago, and they began my love affair with this amazing super-fresh restaurant in King of Prussia, Pa.
I’ve been back lots of times since — their flatbread and wine special is amazing — but I wouldn’t have gone that first time without a recommendation from my friend. That’s how business works a lot — by the power of word-of-mouth advertising. But it’s not always easy to get. So what do you do instead?
What if you could duplicate that word-of-mouth effect with advertising dollars? What if you could get word-of-mouth trust from so-called “influencers.” Is it possible? You bet it is. It’s (not surprisingly) called influencer marketing, and it takes place on social media.
Social media is a strange beast that’s created a new type of celebrity. A person people trust, just like I trusted my friend about Seasons 52. A person who gives their recommendations a lot more weight than a traditional advertisement. My friend’s kids say these people I am referring to are “Instagram/YouTube/Facebook famous.” And it’s these people you want to connect with.
The best part about this? It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Here are five steps to leveraging influencers to recommend your products or services, giving you that word-of-mouth effect for your business.
1. Start with the small fish.
There are tons of people with huge followings on all of the social media platforms. But they cost a lot of money to work with. Until you are sure of your market/message match, it just isn’t a…
