A few years ago, effective marketing meant buying advertisement space in a popular print media, or using banners and posters, even distributing flyers. However, as social media platforms started becoming a rage, and people using those platforms grew popular with it, the way of marketing began to change.
Gen-Y certainly is not shy to talk about products, whether they liked using it, or not. Usually when someone with a massive fan following says something about a particular item, it impacts the mind of the people following them on social media. Companies noticed that, and soon enough, there were common people all over the internet marketing goods over social media.
Why social media?
With almost everyone being a smartphone user and again, everyone bang on social media, it’s easier to talk to someone sitting anywhere, instantly. This translates to more and more people using social media everywhere, all day long. Marketers target this exact audience.
Effective social media marketing is reaching out to the maximum number of people in a minimum amount of time. With the help of a popular internet celebrity, a brand can reach millions of people, even if they are not directly following him or her. By far, this is one of the cheapest, yet effective ways to advertise.
The market:
Social media posts from celebrities are big business; right now, it’s more than a billion dollar industry. Estimates from research firm, eMarketer say that advertisers spent nearly $570 million on Instagram influencers alone. Most of these influencers have crazy reach with their audience and fans, and usually rake in thousands of instagram likes on their uploads with ease.
The influencers:
All over the internet, there are plenty of people who are famous. There are people who blog, create YouTube videos, some are famous because of controversies; but they all have one thing in common – they are experts in marketing.
Multinational companies often hire them to advertise their products, often in an obscure way making people believe that the person actually used the product, and has an opinion. That opinion can be good or bad; bad press works today, like it worked a century back.
These people can make or break a company with their posts, share or tweets. As an example, Kylie Jenner, who has 25.2 million followers on twitter, caused a 7% drop in Snapchat’s value with a single tweet.
Businesses use them to promote products to their massive fan base. It doesn’t come cheap though. A YouTuber with 7 million followers earn approximately $300000 per post, Facebook comes next in $187500, and Snapchat and Instagram come 3rd with $150000 per post.
So, how do they do it?
Through social media marketing which works in 3 basic ways:
- Advertising: As the view count increases, companies pay the individual to put advertisements in his/her content. Roughly, 55% of the profit is earned.
- Sponsorship: It’s collaborating with the brands and promoting their products. Bigger names (both of the company and the celebrity) equate to bigger bucks.
- Affiliate marketing: Collaborating with others.
It all sounds easy, and doable, but the truth is, it needs an enormous amount of creativity to create a reputation so that people will follow. Their fan base is a result of relentless work and the power to influence a certain audience. That said, it’s not impossible; everyday more and more people are getting popular, and eventually, rich. In this modern age, marketing strategies have changed and the Gen-Y has a good role to play for big brands.
