It’s becoming increasingly difficult for advertisers to effectively engage audiences and convert online customers through digital advertising and content marketing. With social platforms, countless blogs and digital-first media properties, advertisers must compete in a complex ecosystem for views, attention spans and, ultimately, engagement. At the same time, web users are becoming savvier — they can, almost instantaneously, filter out irrelevant, low-quality and overly promotional content that does not satisfy their unquenchable thirsts for information, inspiration and entertainment. Influencers solve this problem for brands. Influencers have the ability to naturally tap into large pools of audiences in an authentic and meaningful way. When a brand tells an audience to buy its product, it is regarded as a sales ploy. When an influencer shares a positive experience they’ve had with a product or service, it is seen as a value-add, and their followers are more naturally inclined to follow suit and test the product or service for themselves. In many ways, influencer marketing is 21st Century evolution of word-of-mouth marketing. Influencers are real people, and the opinions of real people are inherently more trusted than the promotions of brands.

Recognizing the value that influencer marketing provides is an important first step, but executing an influencer marketing campaign can still seem daunting to those who have yet to embark on an influencer campaign. However, if you are armed with the right tools and resources, there is nothing intimidating about influencer marketing.

With myriad bloggers and social media influencers leading today’s digital landscape, the prospect of sifting through their properties to find the perfect fit for your campaign’s goals is daunting. In fact, 75% of marketers believe finding the right influencer to be their biggest challenge. To effectively find the right influencers for campaigns, marketers not only have to consider relevance, but they also must factor in individual influencer’s engagement rates, reach and audience demographics. The amount of data needed to find the right fit is overwhelming. However, utilizing an influencer platform like Socialix can eliminate that headache.

Influencer marketing platforms leverage cutting-edge technology to transform what was once a painstaking and, often, inaccurate search into an effective and automated one. Hours once spent sifting through search engine results and combing through blogs are instantaneously replaced automated discovery of influencers who meet your brand’s specific criteria.  Using these platforms, you can input the keywords most relevant to your brand to discover the influencers who will most naturally align with your content initiatives. Armed with relevant keywords and specific influencer criteria like engagement, reach and traffic,  influencer search technologies takes into account millions of pieces of unique social signals and content to pinpoint the most relevant influencers for individual brands.  For example, your brand may be looking to partner with beauty influencers to promote the launch of a new lip color line. To find the right influencers to promote this product launch, you would enter the keyword “lipstick,” along with your specific metric criteria. Instantaneously, you’ll be served with a multitude of quality influencers who specialize in  beauty and lip color-related content.

Establishing lasting relationships with audiences can be difficult, but connecting with the right influencers to promote your brand doesn’t have to be. Through utilizing the industry’s latest technology and platforms, your brand’s message can easily be amplified by the voices of engaging and highly creative influencers.