Brand Advocacy: The Crucial Role of Influencers
A 2018 Survey

Creating compelling, relevant content is important for brand effectiveness. However as markets become saturated, your brand's story can get lost in the shuffle. Your efforts can exponentially be improved by inviting an influencer to comment or review your brand. There are two ways to do this, either pay someone to review your brand or product or build a solid relationship with the influencer 

The best influencer marketing does not involve financial compensation. Instead, it requires understanding that influencers want to be recognized, have access to information and be the first to know of any news in their space -- they need this to strengthen their influence.

Good influencer marketing is centered on building sincere personal relationships with influencers and sharing useful, unique, exclusive or early information. The good news is that influencers are curious. A marketer with an interesting, useful product should have no problem finding information and knowledge of value to influencers.

The goal of influencer marketing is advocacy.

Influencer marketing should be honest and authentic. An influencer speaks about your product not because they are being paid to do so, but because they want to -- because they find your company interesting and the information useful to their readers.

• Methods brands use for attracting social media followers worldwide 2015
• Social media platforms used by social influencers as of January 2018
• Leading challenges of influence marketing in the U.S. 2017