An influencer is someone with a substantial reputation. They use their image, voice, and fame to promote a product for the brand on their social media channels. They are usually paid to promote the product and let their audiences know that they are sponsored by the brand. There are 3 main types of influencers – celebrities, macro-influencers, and micro-influencers. Celebrities can also be social media stars who have a million followers. Macro-influencers who have a million followers on their social media or blogs; however, they have medium levels of reach and engagement. On the other hand, micro-influencers have a smaller size of their audiences. For that reason, they have high engagement and connection with their followers, which is a big plus of micro-influencers.
Next, brand ambassadors could be anyone who truly loves your brand and products, so they are willing the spread their passion to their followers. They might or might not get paid by the brand, but mostly, they will receive free and latest products. Additionally, most of them will happily agree to maintain a long-term relationship with the brand by repeatedly promoting and updating posts on their social media. Also, their strategy to get closed to the followers is via word-of-mouth marketing.
Each type of influencer has advantages and disadvantages. Based on the pros and cons, you can go with who benefits your brand the most.
For influencers, they are trusted, reach a huge audience, and can return on investment since they are popular and have millions of followers. However, it is a challenge to you because you cannot control what they do your brand in their downtime or if the numbers of their followers are real or fake. And remember, they only have a short-term relationship with your brand. So, if you want to boost your brand’s image immediately to your audiences and willingly spend well, you can consider influencers as your social media strategy.
For brand ambassadors, the biggest advantage is their power of word-of-mouth. Likewise, they humanize your brand and provide good and effective knowledge and information to your audience. And the only disadvantage of brand ambassadors that they can be tied to your brand, which may limit you from reaching new audiences and markets. If you are looking for a long-term relationship that can connect you to your customers and always provide inside knowledge and use of your products, the brand ambassador would be your best choice.
No matter what your choice is, you need to know your goals and key performance indicators of your brand to go with who can help you achieve them.
