As a small business owner, you undoubtedly spend ample time trying to figure out the most effective ways to market your brand to your audience. While old-school advertising methods fell by the wayside under the pressure of the growing digital environment, new techniques emerged, including creating a strong online presence for your company and utilizing popular influencers to help drive user traffic your way. If you’re struggling to come up with a clever strategy that embraces the power of influencer marketing, here are some tips for finding the right connections and why they’re important for the success of your brand.

Just as famous celebrities used to be the go-to sponsors for big-name companies, social media influencers have now become the prime target of ambitious business owners everywhere, and for good reason. After all, each influencer has made a name for themselves by amassing a large group of followers that share a common interest, which is exactly the audience you should be angling for when marketing your own particular product or service. However, choosing the right one requires some further insight. Whereas companies used to only look for large numbers of loyal followers when picking the right candidate for their influencer marketing campaign, it was determined that the size of the audience didn’t always ring true when some of the followers were fake profiles. This led to overpriced offers for sponsorships when businesses weren’t even getting the return on their investment from real, active users. Therefore, it has now become crucial to consider the actual engagement of the influencer’s audience, ensuring that you get the consistent attention you need for your brand to guarantee more potential leads for future sales.

Meanwhile, just as a large, active fan base is important for lead generation from your influencer, so to is the content that the influencer shares on their social media pages. If a candidate’s interests and values don’t match with your brand’s mission, committing to that influencer can become more detrimental to your image than helpful. With that in mind, it’s essential to align with someone who shares your company’s values and motives, ensuring that he or she is going to be loyal to your brand, as well as offer your company the ideal audience you need to succeed in your marketing campaign efforts. This remains important to your brand since a consistent flow of valuable, personable content is the key factor that’s going to keep your target users engaged.

Influencer marketing is the modern answer to any growing company’s advertising needs. Keep these tips in mind to find the right connection you and your business deserve.