Why Influencer Marketing Works Better Than Traditional Marketing

 To me, Instagram is a regular part of life. It is something that I interact with every day, whether it's interacting with friends or just trying to stay motivated throughout the day. Because of this screentime, the amount of advertisements I see is higher than the average person, but I don't recognize it when looking back. This is because Meta hides advertisements behind influencers and brand placement. When an ad appears on my for-you page, I immediately scroll past it because I don't want to see advertisements ever. The advertisers understand this and place their products in the hands of influencers, where they can deliver the product placement behind the viewers' suspicions.

There are several ways that a brand can get an influencer to use their products: compensation, free products, and general good business.

Compensation

Oftentimes, a brand will reach out to a very popular influencer and offer them a certain amount of money to show off their products. The influencer can use it in their videos in the background, or they can actively talk about it, all depending on the agreement set up by the brand.

Free Products

For smaller creators, brands might offer a free product to use in their content. This is usually catered to smaller creators who don't own a lot of product, and can use a "free sample" to talk about the product. This is popular on TikTok Shop, where they regularly hand out these free items for promotion.

General Good Business

This is not necessarily an advertisement technique, but more so a benefit of doing good business. These advertisements come from the placement of products in the background of influencers' videos for the sole purpose that they use the product in their free time. This is popular among streamers who show whole days of their lives on the internet. They often use everyday products on camera just for convenience, and this unintentionally draws awareness to the product.

All of these techniques are very effective methods of increasing brand awareness without using traditional advertising that usually drives people away. If you're planning to go into social media advertising, it's important to understand these methods and utilize influencers to increase brand attention.