While it’s become a much bigger consideration in recent years, influencer marketing, as a practice, has actually existed for a very long time.
With the birth of social platforms, things have changed. The Internet has no limits, there can be as many influencers as the world requires. They can be of any age and social status, and in any area of expertise (or no area of expertise). And they can work with any brand. Influencer marketing is getting popular here in Bangladesh as well and we can see many influencers who are working with different brands.
Nonetheless, customers are more likely to buy when they get recommendations from a person they trust.
It is true that 49% of consumers seek guidance from social media influencers before making a buying decision.
Many marketers have realized that ads is not the best way to market their products. The rise of ad blocks is giving way for influencer marketing.
Today, digital influencer marketing is one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing. According to a 2017 study by the Influencer Marketing hub, every $1 spent on influencer marketing brings a return of $6.50, and the top 13% of businesses from the study received a return of at least $20 per dollar spent.
And there’s a real reason why digital influencer marketing is so effective. Through targeted influencers, you’re able to gain exposure to the exact consumer audience you need for your business. Sure, you can still use major stars like traditional influencer campaigns, but the modern landscape enables brands to also focus on people with smaller, more engaged audiences – audiences which more specifically align to your business niche.
Niche influencers tend to charge far less and can be just as effective. The only remaining challenge then is finding the right ones to work with.
Luckily, the software isn’t falling behind – a number of tools now exist which can help you find influencers online and reach out to them.
Here are some options to help you find your ideal influencer match.
1. Awario
Awario is a social listening tool that monitors major social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit) as well as news, blogs, forums, and the web in general for mentions of your brand and/or any other keyword.
This can be a great tool for finding brand advocates and niche influencers. To get the list of the former, you can monitor for mentions of your own brand and track the most active advocates. To get the list of the latter, it’s important to monitor industry keywords (e.g., “time management app”, “time management tool”, “time management software”) and your brands’ competitors. Awario ranks social media influencers and bloggers based on their reach and number of followers or daily visits to the blog.
Pricing: Influencer search is included in all plans as well as in the free trial, with plans starting at $29/month.
2. BuzzStream
In the words of its copywriting team, BuzzStream is a tool that helps you “Build relationships. Build Buzz.”
If you’re interested in influencer marketing, that probably sums up your goals pretty well!
So how does BuzzStream actually help you build those relationships and get that buzz?
It starts with influencer research.
First, BuzzStream offers a browser extension that lets you research regular websites you find while browsing the web. For example, if you stumble across a popular blog in your niche, BuzzStream lets you add that blog to your list and see a bunch more information about the person behind the blog.
Beyond that, BuzzStream also lets you use keywords to find influencers related to you and your niche. It’s more than a simple list – BuzzStream gives you a full image of both that person’s websites and social media presence:
Then, you can easily add those influencers to sortable, filterable prospect lists. For example, you can sort by authority, or whether someone has promoted you in the past (if they’ve already promoted you before – that gives you an even better chance to get that second mention!).
Once you have your prospect lists, BuzzStream makes it easy to send out personalized emails and automated follow-ups, as well as see data on how effective your outreach efforts are.
Basically, BuzzStream sets out to help you manage your entire influencer marketing efforts – from research all the way through to tracking your relationships and analyzing your performance.
Despite that full-service approach, BuzzStream still has pricing plans that are accessible for solo bloggers and entrepreneurs.
BuzzStream’s Starter plan begins at just $24 per month for up to 2 users. While it doesn’t have every single feature, it should have all the features most bloggers need.
And as you scale up in price, you get features that also make BuzzStream great for larger businesses and teams.
You can also get a 14-day free trial to see if BuzzStream is for you. While you will need to enter a payment method to get the trial, there’s no charge as long as you cancel before the trial is up.
Platforms supported: Blogs (main focus). But does integrate social media in some ways, like listing a blog influencer’s social media accounts.
3. Traackr
Traackr is an influencer marketing platform that does influencer marketing from start to finish – from finding social media influencers to measuring the results of the campaign.
The tool makes influencer discovery pretty straightforward due to its own influencer database. When searching for the influencer that fits your brand best, you can filter the findings by the influencer’s social media network, topic, language, location, age, gender, and brand affinities. The same filters can be applied to the influencer’s followers.
Other features include the option to organize your influencer campaigns in the app and measure their total results.
4. Upfluence
Upfluence is another influencer marketing platform, which includes a database of nearly three million influencers.
The tool analyzes each influencers’ niche, reach, engagement, location, and demographics, while also revealing the influencer’s habitual post times and the type of content they post most often.
Upfluence also seeks to distinguish between real and fake influencers. It can also show you the influencer’s price for posting on YouTube and Instagram straight away. For Instagram influencers, you can even analyze followers’ brand affinities, cultural interests, and more.
As with Traackr, there are also features that can help you organize a campaign and measure the results.
Pricing: Starts at $795 per month for 500 contacts.
5. BuzzSumo
Buzzsumo is a neat tool that can help you find influencers in a few different ways.
First, it can help you find the most popular content for specific topics. While I personally enjoy using this feature to find competitor’s top-performing content or just come up with topic ideas for my own sites, you can also just as easily use it to find the top-performing posts in your specific content niche (so that you can then connect with the person behind each popular post!).
Second, BuzzSumo also includes a great Twitter influencer research tool. You can search both Twitter bios and shared content to find relevant influencers. And I really love the Type filters that let you further filter by whether the influencer is a:
- Blogger
- Influencer
- Company
- Journalist
- Regular person
There are also other filters for activity, verified status, location, and more.
BuzzSumo offers limited searches for free. For unlimited searches, plus more pro features, plans start at $99 per month.
Platforms supported: Blogs, Twitter
Most of the tools on the list are made specifically for influencer marketing from start to finish. If that’s your goal – try a couple of them and choose the one you like most.
If you want to use influencer marketing as a part of your overall digital marketing strategy, choose the tools that provide you with more features, such as Awario or BuzzStream.
