Influencers, also known as content creators, are generally people with significant followings on social media. This makes them very attractive to brands as they can access a large number of people and make relevant videos or take photos that promote their products and services. The cost per post for brands can be in the thousands (this depends on lots of factors but follower number is a big one) but it can also deliver really good return on investment.
Brand ambassadors are usually influencers who have some loyalty to a specific brand. They might receive products each month to create videos and photos with. Generally, you wouldn’t expect a brand ambassador to work with another brand that’s a direct competitor.
Whenever anyone using social media promotes a brand or product that they have been incentivised to promote (this could be paid to promote or given the product for free) this should be declared as an advert as per the Advertising Standards Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority. The full guide about this is here
Social media facts and figures
- Over 2.9 billion people use Facebook each month
- People have Profiles and interact with friends, companies have Pages where they can share news and interact with followers, and people or companies can have Groups where everyone is equal and these are usually connected around shared ideas and causes.
- Facebook is one of the products in the Meta family- Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger are also part of the same company.
- People can post images, videos and can also go Live on Facebook where they can share video in real time and interact with followers as comments appear.
- Although some people don’t ‘like’ Facebook, it’s still the most popular platform by some margin and can be hugely valuable in developing brands and businesses. It also allows brands to advertise at low cost to help grow their business.
- Over 2 billion people use Instagram each month
- Businesses and people have accounts
- Images are popular on Instagram, but Reels (short videos often set to popular music) have become very popular on this platform too. You can also go Live on Instagram as per Facebook.
- Instagram also has something called Stories. These are videos or images that the person shares, but they disappear after 24 hours. People can share anything they want on Stories but it’s a good place for behind the scenes and less edited content.
TikTok
- Over 1 billion people use TikTok each month
- Businesses and people can use TikTok.
- TikTok is all about short videos set to catchy tunes. There have been many (many) trends that started on TikTok that have infiltrated real life. People have learnt dances, lip-synched to songs and more.
- TikTok is a very fast-growing platform with many people able to grow huge follower numbers in the hundreds of thousands in a short space of time.
- People can also go live through TikTok, and it has a Stories style function too.
- Around 450 million people use Twitter each month, so it’s one of the smaller platforms.
- That said, it can be very useful for certain industries.
- When Twitter started, it was all about short text posts (or tweets) of up to 140 characters. That then extended to 280 characters. People can also post images and videos on Twitter.
YouTube
- It’s not a ‘traditional’ social media platform, but with 2.1 billion monthly active users worldwide, it is a place where people can get huge exposure for themselves and for brands.
- Many influencers use YouTube to share their videos.
- Long videos are popular on YouTube although they have recently added something called Shorts which encourages the sharing of really short videos.
- There is also the ability to go live on YouTube.
- YouTube is owned by Google and is said to be the second largest search engine in the world.
There are other social media platforms as well, such as LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc, but in the context of the day and when talking about influencers and brand ambassadors, those listed above have the most impact.
Supplied by Rhea Freeman, Rhea Freeman PR.