The Pros and Cons of Influencer Marketing: An Honest Look

Brands want to reach out to their customers using the most innovative ways possible. It helps improve brand recall.

Influencer marketing is now a well-known marketing strategy that many brands leverage to reach out to their customers and engage them.

More and more brands are choosing to incorporate influencers into their marketing strategy. In fact, 71% of marketers feel that influencer marketing is more effective at driving quality traffic and leads.

But still, there are experts who feel that influencer marketing is at a downturn. A major setback of influencer marketing is the irrevocable damage that it does to a brand if it is not done right.

It becomes difficult to recover from the damage caused by bad influencer marketing.

The influencer marketing industry was worth $13.8 billion in 2021 and it's predicted that it will become a $16.4 billion market in 2022.

And there has already been a substantial growth in influencer marketing ad spend from 2018, when it was somewhere between $3.2-$6.3 billion.

Pro Tip: Leverage influencer marketing tools to find genuine influencers to avoid falling for fake influencers. You really need to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. It does require a discerning approach.

I recommend using Fourstarzz Media for it.

The attitude of companies towards using this marketing strategy has changed phenomenally. Big companies with huge budgets are opting to work with celebrity influencers.

However, micro-influencers can be equally effective for influencer marketing as well. Primarily if they are an established Instagram influencer.

Image Via: Whosay

Like every coin, this marketing strategy also has two sides to it, both good and bad, pros and cons.

So before you invest your time and money into influencer marketing, it is important to learn about the pros and cons of influencer marketing.

In this post, I’ll discuss some of the major advantages and disadvantages of using influencer marketing for your brand.

Let’s take a look at the pros first.

Disclosure: This content has a few affiliate links, which means if you click on them, I will get a commission (without any extra cost to you).

What are the Pros of Influencer Marketing?

Let’s take a closer look at the advantages influencer marketing can provide.

1. It Helps You Reach a Relevant Audience

Collaborating with the right influencers for your brand can help you reach relevant audiences through social media marketing.

You need to carefully choose influencers who are relevant to your niche and industry.

“Influencers have built their own trusted communities. By tapping into these communities, brands can attract potential new buyers more effectively than with branded content”, says Daniel Troesch, Co-Founder of Fourstarzz Media, a micro-influencer marketing platform.

“We ask our clients to think about their audience first: demographics, what content do they like, on which social media platforms do they spend most of their time. Finding influencers, who are mostly talking to that exact audience is more important than reach.”

You can approach influencers who endorse brands similar to yours. This makes it easier for you to identify influencers who have an audience that you are trying to target.

For example, if you want to promote your hotel or restaurant, then you need to look for a successful travel or food blogger on social media.

Popular travel or food bloggers can help you engage their followers using beautiful images backed by genuine recommendations.

Finding the right influencer can be challenging, especially if you are new to the world of influencer marketing.

If you want to cut down on your time and effort, you can work with influencer marketing agencies.

Apart from influencer discovery, they can also help you with social media marketing campaign strategizing and execution.

2. It Helps You Build Trust and Credibility

Trust takes time to develop and people trust the influencers they follow on social media. So, if an influencer talks positively about a brand, then their followers are more likely to believe them.

Therefore, one of the biggest pros of influencer marketing is that it helps you build people’s trust in your brand and enhance your brand’s credibility.

However, to build credibility and trust, it’s crucial to partner with genuine influencers who are authorities in their respective niches. Especially on social media.

For this, you can use platforms like Fourstarzz Media. Using it, you can easily find influencers from its database of 750K+ influencers. You can also filter influencers based on their niche, reach, engagement rate, location, and more.

The post below is an example of how influencers get their social media audiences to trust a brand through positive endorsements.

Social media posts like these by Instagram influencers can help you get their followers to try your product as the influencer vouches for it.

Image via Instagram

Amazed by the power of influencers on social media?

Keep reading to learn more reasons for working with influencers as part of your social media marketing efforts.

3. It Broadens Your Brand’s Reach

You can reach hundreds of thousands, even millions of the followers of influencers, whom you could not have reached on your own.

According to a survey conducted in 2016, which polled 22,000 women, 45% of women will buy a product recommended by an influencer. In particular when recommended by Instagram influencers.

Regardless of the social media platform you choose, influencers can help you add new potential customers to your basket.

Consumers today consider influencers as people they can trust, and they really value the opinions of the influencers they follow.

Influencers often post questions and engage their followers to forge friend-like relationships. This makes it easier for them to influence the buying decisions of their followers.

The post displayed below shows how a customer asked for an opinion from the influencer.

Image via Instagram

4. It is Comparatively Less Expensive

If you are targeting micro-influencers, you don’t need a huge budget. These kinds of collaborations are economical when compared to collaborations with celebrity influencers.

Sometimes, influencers new to the industry also agree to work for free products or services.

Though the standard cost of a sponsored post on Instagram is $250, you can also find micro-influencers who charge even less.

Working with a number of relevant micro-influencers can be an effective way to promote a recently-launched brand or other niche-specific business.

How can you find them?

To find genuine micro-influencers, I recommend using influencer marketing platforms. There are many influencers out there who buy fake followers to boost their follower count.

Collaborating with such influencers won’t really help your cause. Instead, it can damage your reputation.

To ensure that you work with credible influencers, I recommend that you use Fourstarzz Media for influencer research.

This platform lets you search for influencers based on the number of followers that they have and you can seamlessly filter your search to look for micro-influencers.

It’s also possible to look for influencers based on their rates so that you can choose influencers who charge affordable fees.

5. The Cycle of Sales Gets Reduced

Influencers spend a lot of time and effort to build their audiences. That’s why most legit influencers have highly engaged audiences who trust them.

What’s more, you ask?

 

When an influencer endorses your brand, their audience is more likely to trust their recommendation.

Many of their followers may end up buying the product a lot quicker than another customer who learns about your product through other channels.

6. Marketers Can Save Time

When working with an influencer, you don’t have to worry about creating great content.

A good influencer knows the best ways to create content that can help them engage their followers. They know how to develop content that best appeals to their followers.

In fact, influencer-created content tends to be more engaging than the content created by brands. And the content they create can make your brand look more trustworthy.

Still not convinced?

Let’s look at an example:

Below is an example of how influencers create content that appeals to their followers while endorsing products.

Image via Instagram

What are the Cons of Influencer Marketing?

Now, let’s take a look at the potential drawbacks of influencer marketing.

1. Working with the Wrong Influencers Can Do More Harm than Good

It takes a lot of time and effort for brands to find the right influencer for their campaigns. If you don’t collaborate with the right influencers, it can cause great damage to the reputation of your brand.

According to a survey, 61% of marketers find it difficult to identify the right influencers for their campaigns. It becomes difficult to evaluate if an influencer has genuine followers.

So, what can you do to avoid it?

To avoid partnering with the wrong influencers, I recommend using Fourstarzz Media.

This platform has a database of over 750K genuine influencers from which you can choose the ones that are fit for your brand.

You can filter the influencers based on their location, niches, reach, and more. It’s also possible to search for them based on hashtags, handles, and names.

For example, Sunny Co. Clothing received severe backlash from consumers for giving free swimsuits to whoever posted pictures in a red bikini.

Image via Instagram

2. Influencer Marketing Mistakes Can Cost Your Brand

Influencer marketing is still a relatively new strategy, so marketers are bound to make mistakes.

There is no handbook to a successful influencer marketing strategy, so most of the time, brands learn from their hits and misses.

Some common mistakes that influencers make, which can affect the brand, include:

• Not disclosing that a post is sponsored
• Posting content that does not resonate with their target audience
• Ignoring the FTC endorsement guidelines
• Inflating followings and engagements using bots

3. It is Difficult to Measure Results

You put a lot of effort into finding the right influencers and launching a campaign. But your efforts can be in vain if you can’t track and monitor the performance of your campaign.

You need to analyze if an influencer is able to deliver the desired results. If not, you need to stop working with them.

However, measuring results, like how many people responded positively to your influencer marketing, can be a bit tricky when it comes to influencer marketing.

4. High Risk Involved

If an influencer lacks the ability to create impressive content, they might fail to resonate with your target consumers. In such cases, the time and money you invest will be in vain.

FAQs

Q1. What are the pros and cons of influence marketing?

A. The following are the pros of influencer marketing:

• Reach a relevant audience.
• Build audience trust and credibility.
• Broaden your reach.
• It’s affordable.
• It helps reduce your sales cycle length.
• It enables you to save time.

The following are the cons of influencer marketing:

• Partnering with the wrong influencers can harm your brand.
• Influencer mistakes can cost your brand time and money.
• Measuring results can be a challenge.
• High risk involved.

Q2. What are the advantages of influencer marketing?

A. Advantages of influencer marketing include:

• Builds credibility and shows authority.
• Drives purchase decisions.
• Helps cut through ad blindness.
• Allows you to connect with audiences on their preferred platforms.
• Greatly improves your ROI.
• Boosts your reach.
• Gives you access to quality content.

Q3. Why is influencer marketing bad?

A. Influencer marketing can be bad when not done right.

In most cases, it happens when your brand partners with the wrong influencer or fails to track the results of their efforts.

Q4. Are influencers trustworthy?

A. It depends on whether or not you partner with the right influencer.

Trustworthy influencers build strong relationships with their audiences through actions like offering insights into their personal lives. They also genuinely interact with their audiences and give their opinions on products.

These actions then help them build trust with their audiences, who then start to look to them for recommendations, advice, and tips.

An influencer like this in your niche and whose values align with your brand can then be considered trustworthy.

Q5. What are the pros and cons of being a social media influencer?

A. The pros of being a social media influencer include:

• Flexibility in terms of topics you can explore, location, and hours of work.
• Opportunities to partner with fantastic brands.
• Earn money from your passion.
• Inspire and influence people.
• Free invites to events and products/services.

The cons of being an influencer include:

• Lots of competition.
• Taking time off from posting can lead to decreased engagement and fewer chances of collaborations.
• Bullying from haters.

Is Influencer Marketing Right for You?

These are some of the biggest pros and cons of influencer marketing that you should be aware of. If you’re confused about whether you should use influencer marketing or not, they can help you make up your mind.

Are there any other pros and cons or advantages and disadvantages of influencer marketing that you think should be included here? Let us know in the comments below.

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Infographic design by Easelly

Disclosure: This content has a few affiliate links, which means if you click on them, I will get a commission (without any extra cost to you).