Now that most of the world has officially shifted to social media and understands the strong benefits, consumers are now dependent on other consumers to become more directly informed about their purchasing decisions. Instead relying on out of date advertising techniques where results are not truly all the way clear, why not follow a well-known marketing trend that gains positive results and strong ROI without a doubt? Utilizing “Influencers” has been a proven method to help brands attain a slew of sales in a short amount of time by providing the product or service to a popular individual with a large and influential following. Genius right?

The rise of the social media influencers creates a world of possibilities within the marketing arena. It allows brands to connect with consumers organically and directly on a level that it is entertaining for your consumer but also highly informative. However, influencer marketing is slightly still new which makes some marketers a bit hesitant on diving in the deep end on this approach. To help you make the most of influencer based marketing, we’ve outlined 10 reasons why influencer marketing is important for the growth of your business.

1. Consumers are tired of paid Ads
The average American is exposed to 5,000 advertisements a day. We see so many ads that we are constantly unconsciously tuning them out, AKA “banner blindness.” Traditional advertising has become so common in our everyday lives for the past 40 years that it’s unlikely that people can actually identify or remember what was being promoted after seeing an ad.

2. Consumers Intentionally Follower Influencers
Digital advertising is known to work, however Millennials often block most ads. Therefore you’re probably spending a lot without knowing if anyone is actually seeing it. However, when it comes to influencers, people are intentionally following them on several popular social media platforms because they are inspirations to them.

3. Influencers Help Settle Your SEO
The more people talk about your brand on social media, the more popular you will be on Google via your brand’s SEO ranking. Having an influencer promote your products/service on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, or etc. improves your search engine ranking because user generated social posts account for as much as25 percent of search results for the world’s top 20 brands. Who knew?

4. The notion of “cool kids” translates to transactions
It’s only classic human nature that we want to know what the “cool kids” within our industry or interests are doing and be just like them right? Who the cool kid is, what the cool kid wears, and what the cool kid does constantly goes viral. Having a influencer promote your product, allows potential customers to see what’s in right now and what is a must have based on the product placement set forth by your business.

5. It’s social
Everyone knows that the world has officially shifted to social media, therefore your business needs to shift as well in order to survive. Purchasing decisions used to be based on the advertisements they saw are heard. However, today it’s not that simple. People don’t just expect brands to sell to them, but to entertain and inform them as well.

6. Presenting… a Targetable and Trackable Market
For decades, the advertising industry always had unforeseen and unpredictable outcomes, since they only had access to traditional strategies that yielded unclear results about their audience reach, sales, and branding impact. However, today with the digital world, every website visit, social like, and picture posted can be stored and analyzed for valuable insights about your advertising performance. Using a custom sale code or hashtag is a sure way to assure how well your outreach and efforts performed within a campaign.

7. Influencers build authentic relationships
While working with influencers, you build meaningful relationships over time while classic techniques like brand advocates can only be a short-term solution. Taking the opportunity to understand your influencer’s opinions, needs, expectations, and how your brand fits within certain lifestyle will benefit your brand in the long run. Having a happy and authentic influencer that genuinely loves your brand will make their content more engaging to a consumer audience as they channel their passion towards your products via their own creative light.

8. It’s powerful
Consumer-to-consumer word of mouth generates approximately more than twice the sales of paid advertising. Influencer marketing presents an opportunity for brands to leverage the power of word of mouth through popular personalities social accounts that consumers already follow and admire – making it feel more authentic and trusting.