Influencer marketing with your own colleagues

Influencer marketing is not a new trend, but it is a component that is increasingly important in your marketing strategy. There are now thousands of influencers and the number keeps increasing. With influencers you quickly think of social media celebrities such as the Kardashians. With the accompanying, high price tags. Fortunately, there are now many more types of influencers, making this form of marketing available to an increasing number of companies;

1. Mega influencers
These are often already known persons, such as artists, athletes and movie stars. They have a huge fan base and therefore a large reach. Collaboration with a mega influencer requires a large budget.

2. Macro influencers
This group of influencers has hundreds of thousands to a million followers. In this group you will often also find people who have turned social media into their profession. It is a group that has a fair amount of contact with their followers, but also a group that requires a fairly large budget if you use them for a marketing campaign.

3. Micro influencers
The micro influencer has approximately five thousand to fifty thousand followers and often specializes in a specific topic or niche. This ensures that they often have loyal followers who are really interested in the subject. Micro influencers often have a lot of contact with their supporters. If your company or product suits one of these influencers, you have a perfect match. Their followers are really interested in that specific topic.

4. Nano influencers
This is perhaps the most interesting group for many companies. Especially if you work in the B2B market. The nano influencer is a fairly new phenomenon in influencer marketing. This group has a maximum of five thousand followers and are not "professional" influencers. The nano influencer specializes in a particular topic and is seen by his followers as a reliable source. Therefore, the shared content often has a lot of impact.

The great thing is that every company has access to nano influencers, namely its own colleagues. Check it out; your colleagues are active on social media, have a network and are often a so-called "trusted advisors" for their relations. Your own colleague is that natural influencer. With passion for what he or she does. The power of your own colleagues is enormous. Research shows that messages shared by individuals deliver up to 8x more reach than messages shared by the company.

Although almost every colleague has experience with social media, it does not mean that they are (active) influencers. It is therefore important that they become visible, actively share content and enter into a conversation with their "fans". Most would like that, but need some help. Creating business content is slightly different than posting private photos, after all.

Fortunately, almost every organization employs the specialists who can offer this help or else they work with a good content agency. The most important things to help with are;
1. Provide a professional profile with a good photo
2. Tell what is permitted
3. Provide a point of contact
4. Help create content
5. Make sharing content easy

You see; any company can get started with influencer marketing. All you have to do is provide a stage to the influencers you work with on a daily basis. Who knows, you might work with the new Kardashian.