The Fundamentals of Influencer Marketing

As the top influencer marketing agency in Canada and the USA, the Peersway team is uniquely qualified to explain the ins and outs of this technique. Our quick guide lays it all out for you in simple terms, as easy as ABC.

What is Influencer Marketing?

First, let’s talk about endorsement marketing. Many traditional print ads and commercials on TV rely on celebrity endorsements to capture your attention.

SkipTheDishes has Mad Man star Jon Hamm as their spokesperson, comedian Sarah Silverman is the voice of Uber One Spotify ads, and forever-young Jennifer Aniston lends her face for Aveeno commercials. These ads rely on celebrities to showcase and validate the brands in question to their fans.

At its core, influencer marketing achieves the same thing as celebrity endorsements, just without the movie and TV stars.

Instead, influencer marketing relies on popular social media content creators to endorse your brand, products, or services on their accounts.

These content creators may have followings on any number of social media platforms. While most of our influencers are popular on Instagram, TikTok is surging in popularity. You can also work with influencers who post on YouTube, Twitter, and even Facebook.

Why Do We Partner with Influencers?

So why would an endorsement from an influencer trump a celebrity? Influencers influence — it’s just that simple.

According to the Digital Marketing Institute, nearly half of all consumers (49%) rely on influencers for recommendations on products and services. Forty percent say they’ve bought something after seeing it on social media.

Let’s put those numbers into perspective. Almost all consumers (96%) don’t trust traditional ads.

Influencers are good at what they do because they’ve devoted countless hours to building relationships online. Post by post, they’ve established themselves as a respected voice or authority.

An influencer is often a highly specialized content creator known for one or two overlapping topics. Maybe they’re a mommy blogger specializing in meal prep for toddlers, or perhaps they’re a foodie traveler sharing their top picks for good eats at home and abroad.

That laser focus helps them build an engaged audience who cares about what they post. More importantly, their followers trust what they have to say.

Whatever their platform, influencers lend this social cachet to a campaign, using their reputation to promote brands and businesses.

By partnering with a content creator whose voice resonates with your brand, you can reach a targeted audience poised to become your next customer.

Why We’re a Nano Influencer Marketing Agency

We’re proud to be a nano influencer marketing agency. This means we work with a specific type of content creator, specifically someone who has 1,000 to 10,000 followers.

While these numbers may pale in comparison to Kylie Jenner’s 372 million follower count, we like to remind you that it’s quality, not quantity, that matters.

Here’s the kind of quality you can expect from nano influencer marketing:

1. Relatability

Unlike Kylie Jenner and other mega influencers, nanos are everyday people. They’re more like an online friend you can trust to show up on your screen every day.

2. Authenticity

Nanos haven’t bought followers like some people or gained them simply by being famous. They’re everyday people who have earned their audience, one follower at a time, through genuine interactions.

Unlike the biggest stars on Instagram, nanos interact with their followers, answering individual mentions, comments, and DMs. This authentic engagement encourages their followers to interact even more.

3. Trust

Nanos have hand-built their empire by cultivating a unique brand and producing engaging content. Each hard-earned follower means more to them, so they aren’t willing to throw it all away by posting out-of-touch advertising.

They won’t threaten this brand with the wrong partnership, so they wind up working with companies who closely align with their content and personality. Their followers know this, so they’re more willing to take their endorsements at face value.

4. Affordability

Some of the biggest brands in the world invest serious marketing dollars in influencer marketing. Your small business may have a fraction of this budget, but don’t worry — you don’t need to drop millions of dollars to get started.

With four pricing options, we offer cost-effective solutions that partner you with the right influencers for your small business.

All told, these four perks come together to deliver impressive engagement rates. While 1–2% may be the industry norm, Peersway-led campaigns consistently deliver higher engagement rates thanks to our managers and nano influencers. Our work with Burnbrae Farms, for example, snagged a 9.67% engagement rate in a single campaign.

How Does an Influencer Marketing Campaign Work?

As the top influencer agency in Canada, we understand authenticity, trust, and relatability are a recipe for a successful influencer marketing campaign. That’s why we scout the top talent across Canada and the USA, packing our rosters with experienced nano content creators.

We’ll put you in touch with hand-picked influencers who are perfect for your brand and campaign. From there, we let the influencers do what they do best: create engaging content.

Meanwhile, our team provides a fully-managed experience where we liaise with creators and track campaigns on your behalf.

By the end, we’ll deliver a report on performance, where we’ll be measuring KPIs like referral traffic, sentiment, frequency, and engagement rate per post.

In other words, you can sit back and relax until the content goes live and you see the engagements roll in.