For years, word-of-mouth marketing has been the most trusted form of advertising. In a Nielsen study across 58 countries, 84 percent of recipients said they put the greatest trust in recommendations from friends and family.

Social media hasn’t changed that. But what the proliferation of blogs and social platforms has done is create a megaphone of sorts for word-of-mouth advertising. Now, when we’re looking for our next vacation, we don’t visit a travel agent or ask the neighbors — we check out our favorite blogs. If we want to get dinner out, we no longer turn to the phonebook to scroll through lists of restaurants — we visit Yelp and read users’ reviews.

Word-of-mouth marketing isn’t disappearing as we become more attached to our screens. If anything, it’s escalating. Influencer marketing is the art of harnessing that online narrative to spread positive words about your brand, boosting influence and cultivating trust among your target customers.

Read the full article here: 3 Ways to Integrate Influencer Marketing Into Today’s Campaigns