Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is the collaboration of a brand and an online public figure to market products or services. Though it has been mainly used as a buzzword, it has transcended over the last decade into now being a mainstream form of online marketing. Many brands can benefit from utilizing influencers to enhance awareness, reach target audiences, and connect to a broader market due to the trust that influencers have developed through their following. Additionally, influencer marketing is expected to grow to $13.8 billion in 2021. Overall, it allows the brand to be humanized, showing potential customers a product in action by a person they trust.
Many different social media influencers exist, but based on their social media popularity and following; they are categorized from top to bottom as mega, macro, mid-tier, micro, nano, and niche. Taking a look at a possible influencer collaboration between the brand ManiMe Co. and macro social media figure Thalia Crawford — known as @thaliabree, I will break down why the brand would benefit from working with this influencer.
The Brand
ManiMe is a first-ever custom-fit stick-on gel allowing one to get salon-style nails without the time-consuming and damaging treatments of ritual salon techniques. Each of their products are uniquely designed, colorful, and adds a pop of fun to any outfit. Their target audience reaches youth and young adults between the ages of 15 and 30. Additionally, they pride themselves on being 10-free, toxin-free, and cruelty-free while also having an inclusive presence.
In only two years after launching, the company has generated about 80k in Instagram followers and has had features in Time Magazine, The Today Show, Teen Vogue, Entertainment Magazine, and won an Allure 2020 Best of Beauty Award. Currently, the brand is paired with various levels of influencers such as mega influencer Johnathan Van Ness, Mid-Tier influencer Nails by Mei, and a variety of nano influencers.
The Influencer
Thalia Crawford is a 21-year-old Macro influencer who started her career as a YouTube vlogger with a channel called “HeyitsThalia,” making videos on topics of makeup and fashion. Since starting her Instagram page in 2013, she has accumulated over 500k in Instagram followers, appealing to youth and young adults. Much of Thalia’s content is inspirational, happy, and colorful and heavily surrounds fashion, beauty, makeup, and mental health. Thalia has launched two of her own businesses being TalClothing and mad cute co., with such a supported and trusted fan base.
When examining Thalia Crawford’s following and Instagram content, I see many shared characteristics with the brand ManiMe that follow the three components of relevance, reach, and resonance.
Relevance
Though they are not a company, influencers have a brand that they want to follow consistently and remain authentic too. When pairing with an influencer, It’s essential to give up creative control to tailor the content to appeal to their followers. ManiMe and Thalia Crawford share many similarities within their content through their photos, aesthetics, and target market. Both the brand and influencer have almost identical content on their platforms, making them a great match. Much of Thalia Crawford’s Instagram posts include photos of her nails done in various patterns and colors, similar to those provided on ManiMe. This demonstrates that the influencer fits right into ManiMe’s target demographic and customer persona while also attracting followers that ManiMe can market to. This is extremely important as it will be easier for the Influencer to adopt and integrate content that is on-brand for the nail company and on-brand for the influencer herself.
Additionally, Thalia Crawford has made countless Youtube vlogs on her vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle, which aligns with ManiMe’s initiative in being a cruelty-free brand. Having beliefs aligned with the influencer will ultimately align with their fan base. If it’s something the influencer supports and uses, then her followers will most likely try the product themselves.
Reach
Influencers are known to build strong relationships with their fans by establishing trust and credibility. Many users look up to influencers and respect their recommendations. According to the Digital Marketing Institute, 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations to lead to sales. With Thalia Crawford’s dedicated following of 500k, ManiMe will have the potential to reach over 6x their target audience and do so in a way that is based on that trust in Thalia’s brand. Additionally, Thalia Crawford has only partaken in one social media marketing campaign for an eyelash company named Velour, making her content nowhere near over-saturated for sponsorships. This will allow for a smaller and newer brand like ManiMe to benefit from being highlighted on the influencers’ social media platform in a more authentic, less spam-like way.
Resonance
It’s essential to examine the possible level of engagement influencers can generate with their audience that is relevant to the brand. In this case, as mentioned before, Thalia Crawford already shares various images on the platform of her nails freshly done from the salon. Therefore, creating a social media post using ManiMe’s products wouldn’t look out of the ordinary; it would be on-brand, and it would appeal to her current audience. Posts can be based on her showing the different types of nail designs ManiMe has to offer. It can also be a promotion where Thalia’s followers can use a personalized promo code to try out the product themselves. Additionally, there can even be video content where the influencer demonstrates how easy, fun, and fast ManiMe’s products are. Further, any content created by the influencer can then be recycled onto the brand’s page.
Overall, ManiMe can significantly benefit from conducting campaign efforts with Thalia Bree because she is relevant, has a massive reach, and resonates with the brand. Being at the influencer status that she is, there is still room for growing brands such as ManiMe to generate engagement and leads through Thalia Crawford. A brand aligning their business with trendsetting influencers will show that they are pioneering leaders, highlighting products and services in a meaningful way that drives sales.
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