Public Relations has evolved from mere Press Release dissemination and Press Conferences towards more innovative PR aspects. From social media marketing to influencer marketing and advertisements, Public Relations field has expanded its scope of service offerings to stay ahead of the curve with digitalisation. When it comes to influencer marketing, it is an indispensable aspect for businesses at present when carrying out various promotions. Behind most of the successful influencer marketing campaigns, is a PR agency that has laid the foundation by planning, coordinating and getting involved in execution, and measuring the success.
๐๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฎ๐๐ง๐๐๐ซ ๐ฆ๐๐ซ๐ค๐๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ข๐ง ๐ ๐ง๐ฎ๐ญ๐ฌ๐ก๐๐ฅ๐ฅ
Influencer marketing in brief is connecting with influencers to run product or service promotional campaigns for a specific business. Influencer marketing provides ample opportunities for businesses to take their products or services to a target audience. For example, if a company needs to promote a health care product, they can reach out to influencers in health and wellness field and if the product or service is tech related, there are a large number of tech influencers whom they can work with. Likewise, influencer marketing has come to stay with us while companies that seek this service through PR agencies have an added advantage of connecting with the best-suited influencers, given the close relationships between PR agencies and influencers.
๐๐ก๐ฒ ๐๐จ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ง๐๐๐ ๐ข๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฎ๐๐ง๐๐๐ซ ๐ฆ๐๐ซ๐ค๐๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ ?
Today, companies cannot just stick with traditional PR tools to drive promotional campaigns. They are required to explore new forms of marketing that PR has in store. Influencer marketing has become highly popular thanks to social media and most of the influencers are active in at least 2-3 social media networks. Most are largely active in FB and IG, two of the widely used social media platforms in Sri Lanka. Over the years, these influences have built around them a large organic follower base, which they consider an asset. Organic followers refer to those who have gathered around a particular influencer with a special interest in what s/he posts in social media. These organic followers can be targeted during a promotional campaign. Influencers, being highly creative, are capable of providing highly engaging content to attract audiences.
๐๐จ๐ฐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ง๐๐ข๐๐ฌ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐ซ๐ข ๐๐๐ง๐ค๐ ๐๐๐๐ฅ ๐ฐ๐ข๐ญ๐ก ๐ข๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฎ๐๐ง๐๐๐ซ ๐ฆ๐๐ซ๐ค๐๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ ?
As it is the case with media, relationships play a vital role in influencer marketing. PR Agencies have strong relationships with influencers in various categories. PR practitioners are competent in analysing each influencer through their follower base, audience engagement and particular niche to select the ideal influencer for a particular campaign. They are well aware of the fact that influencers need absolute freedom to come up with creative campaigns, and that understanding itself plays a critical role in the success of any influencer marketing campaign.
