Social Media Influencers Vs Brands: Whom Are The Consumers Trusting?

Social media platforms have created many job opportunities. Even the millennials are pursuing work on such platforms not only to earn their pocket money but also to pick professional careers for themselves. Social media platforms are important not only for the users who are creating opportunities for themselves but also for the brands to advertise themselves. With billions of users and customers using social media platforms on a daily basis, social media marketing has become an integral part of a business. Promoting one's business on social media platforms is mostly carried out in two ways. Firstly, the brand promotes their products and services themselves and secondly, they approach social media influencers to promote their products and services. In such a scenario, one might wonder who the customers trust: the social media influencers or the brand themselves?

Social Media Influencers Are Influencing The View Of Customers 

According to a study by Oracle and Brent Leary, the customers mostly trust social media influencers when it comes to forming an opinion about any particular product or service of a brand. This is particularly true for Gen Z who use the views of social media influencers for making a purchase decision. 

Also, the recommendations carried out by social media influencers play a key role in converting the potential customers of a brand to real customers. According to the study, 37% of the consumers trust social media influencers and this percentage is even higher for the Gen Z and millennials. Therefore, if a brand is particularly targeting the young population, it becomes exceedingly important to use the help of social media influencers to promote their brand. In addition to that, many consumers end up discovering new brands through these social media influencers. 

Many brands including UnitedWiFi are now using WhatsApp Business accounts with their logo as the profile picture to handle the queries of the customers and update them about the shipment status. Many times, they also promote their products and services through WhatsApp, this is particularly true for small businesses. With only 13% of consumers discovering a brand through traditional television advertising, one can easily ignore the need for advertising on television, if they are only targeting the young population. Marketing through traditional television advertising makes sense only when the target demography is middle or old aged people. In addition to social media influencers, social media ads also can help potential customers to make informed purchasing decisions. 

Where Are The Consumers Following The Social Media Influencers?

There is not one single social media platform but multiple social media platforms. Therefore, the question is where are these consumers following the social media influencers. When it comes to promoting a brand by a social media influencer, the most popular platforms are YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

However, which social media platform to use depends upon the niche of the company. For instance, if someone is selling makeup, YouTube is the ideal platform for promoting the product as it allows one to give a detailed review of each and every makeup product used. On the other hand, if one is promoting a fashion brand, Instagram is the best platform where the social media influencers can easily tag the fashion brand and this allows the social media influencers to directly divert their followers to a new fashion brand. 

It can also be said that the power of social media influencers is more in comparison to the power of the brand because of their work ethics. Most of the time, social media influencers promote only the products and services that they have really enjoyed. Their honest reviews make them trustworthy to the customers. Therefore, it is important for a brand to choose social media influencers who are considered trustworthy by the customers. Both the positive and negative reviews of the social media influencers can have a huge impact on the sales of the brand and therefore, it is always wise to maintain a healthy relationship with them. 

Not only are the brands promoting their products on social media platforms but also, they are providing customer care service through. The traditional customer service channels are no longer entertained by the customers. They now generally prefer to drop a query on the direct message box of the brand's inbox to solve it. When it comes to customer service channels for DeltaWiFi, Twitter is extremely popular. 

The power of social media platforms and the people working on them have touched the sky. It is therefore important for the brands to stay in touch with these changing marketing strategies to ensure that they are able to promote their best to the best of their ability.