When people think about influencers, they always seem to think about the Kardashians. Ok, not just the Kardashians, but most people think that influencers are a small group of people who have amassed millions of followers (and charge accordingly for sponsored posts) and live glamorous lives bouncing from LA to Ibiza and then Bali for a detox. So who exactly are everyday influencers?
Nothing could be further from the truth!
There are millions of everyday influencers who live normal lives but, thanks to passion, have built a genuine community that cares and listens. Everyday influencers are the hidden gems of Instagram, and they are much different than the familiar macro-influencers.
So first, let’s talk about who exactly are everyday influencers.
The simple answer? Anyone can be everyday influencers, at least from time to time. After all, we listen to our friends’ recommendations for food, music, travel destinations, and so much more.
We all have everyday influencers in our daily lives. And it doesn’t have to be people we personally know. How many accounts do you follow on Instagram because you have similar interests or find their content to be really captivating? Probably quite a few.
Basically, anyone who has built an online community where people follow them to stay up to date with their life and what they’re doing is an everyday influencer.
Why do everyday influencers matter?
Leading, forward-thinking companies increasingly understand that building connections with these everyday influencers are an essential component of their marketing efforts and long-term success as a brand.
Today’s hyper-aware and connected consumers are educated and do their research when deciding where to spend their money, be if for a new pair of shoes or even what neighborhood to buy a home in.
Traditional, in-house ads full of over-the-top promises and polished, PR-approved language are no longer an effective way to connect with consumers. More specifically, 96% of consumers no longer trust traditional advertising.
Even worse, they can actually damage your brand as consumers react negatively to what they perceive as phony and disingenuous claims.
This is terrible since building trust is essential for a business to succeed.
So, how exactly do you build trust on a large scale? By converting your consumers into everyday influencers that will advocate for your brand. They have something crucial that works: authenticity and authentic content.
To turn consumers into your army of everyday influencers, you need to deliver an unparalleled experience, be it a unique product, outstanding customer service, or beautiful design.
When you do this, you create a brand. And consumers who have positive, memorable experiences with brands will talk about it, post about, tweet about, and more.
Take Tesla for example. Tesla has never run traditional advertising. Instead, they focused on creating a brand and let everyday influencers do the work of letting others know about their cars.
As mentioned earlier, the secret weapon of an everyday influencer is authenticity.
They live normal lives, which makes them highly relatable, but they have a specific passion that post about, such as baking, fashion, the best restaurants around town - you name it.
As a result, they have built an audience that is interested and trusts them when it comes to that specific niche.
This credibility is worth its weight in gold. When they recommend a brand, you can be sure that their followers will check it out.
And let’s be clear here - just because these are everyday influencers, they are by no means just ordinary people. They’re incredibly knowledgeable about their specific niche, spend a lot of time and energy creating beautiful, high-quality content, and have thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of followers.
They’re small enough that their followers find them very relatable and can be approached by brands, but large enough to still generate impact. Just like Goldilocks - not too big, not too small.
Just right!
Working with everyday influencers
Clearly, there’s a lot of value in working with an everyday influencer. So, how do you work with one?
Well, to start, you have to go out and find them. After that, there’s usually a protracted period of negotiating as both parties go back and forward determining how much will be paid, what the guidelines will be, where to send the product to, and so many more pesky, but super important, details.
And then after that, a brand sends them product and hopes they post. Even in 2019, it can be a surprisingly manual and outdated system.
Of course, there are other options and that's ok.
For instance, you can higher an agency to go figure it out for you, but that’s insanely expensive and a lot of times they don’t really have a clue either since they mostly adhere to the traditional model that’s going out of date (the truth hurts).
Of course, you can always use a curated network like Trend. After all, everyday influencers are kind of our specialty.
Here at Trend we first screen each profile that requests to join our community to ensure they have a real following based in the US and a minimum threshold of followers. We then manually crawl through a profile to ensure the content the profile posts is consistently high-quality.
Essentially, we’ve already done the influencer discovery process for you and provide you consistent access to a talented pool of thousands of influencers.
While we do have a broad range of accounts, including several with follower counts well over 100k, our real sweet spot is everyday influencers.
These influencers apply to work with you, meaning you get a pool of applications from people that are actually interested in your product and feel it resonates with their profile.
This is crucial, because it allows them to post sponsored content while still maintaining credibility and a tight connection with their audience - a connection that will in turn encourage the followers to check your brand out.
And the beauty of a platform like Trend is that we allow you to scale these efforts up as quickly as you need.
Oh, and you’re going to love this - remember those pesky but super important details I mentioned, like negotiating payment and figuring out where to send product to? We’ve gone ahead and taken care of those for you! Literally all you have to do is select who you would like to work with.
