Influencers are everywhere, in the media, in sports, they’re gamers, fashionistas, beauty gurus but most of all – they’re YouTubers.
The rise of YouTube Influencers has steadily increased as YouTube has gone on to dominate the video-sharing and indeed entertainment industry – now challenging the old order with their collated a mass of one billion registered users and growing. YouTube influencers are now some of the most well-paid in the influencing industry, working with major companies such as Disney, LG & Asus.
YouTube Influencers are video creators with a big audience (or subscriber base, as it would be known on YouTube) of whom achieve a high engagement rate from their audience, normally of whom focus on specific niches such as sport, technology or cooking. These influencers have the power to promote a product into stardom, with some even writing and creating their own products – like John Green the YouTuber-come-storywriter of The Fault in Our Stars.
YouTube influencers, unlike regular influencers, are able to use video to promote a product/service through many different avenues. An influencer on YouTube usually features products they receive in their mail opening segment of their show, or in a solely dedicated “product review”. Others may opt to innocently name dropping the service in conversation (although they must mention somewhere that there is an ad if they’re being paid to do so), or to use the service themselves within the video; spiking interest from their audience who may be interested in finding out more.
Although monetary-thinking YouTube influencers prefer to only work for the big beasts of the marketing world, with others strictly ensuring they don’t promote anything at all to their subscriber base, there is still an amazing potential to promote your product/service through this new generation of online video influencers in comparison to major celebrities who charge hundreds of thousands, if not millions for such promotion.
Advertisers and digital marketers alike can go about by contacting YouTube influencers by either sending them a product or information to their P.O box, in a hope that the influencer will pick up upon your delivery and if a product; begin to use it in their videos. If that fails, contacting them directly through their email or any other means of communication that they suggest can too prove wise. It is important to mention however that some YouTuber influencers will charge various prices for the promotion of your product or service.
Why brands are opting for working with YouTube influencers:
- Connecting with a target market made up of a majority of millennials (around 85% use the service).
- Ability to get your product or service in front of a massive audience full of actively engaged viewers.
- The potential to save a lot of money with YouTube influencers than you would if you were to use old-gen influencers.
- TV viewership figures are dwindling, ancient banner advertising near extinct.
- Social media sites like YouTube are big and ever-growing.
- 60% of YouTube viewers have made a purchase based on a YouTuber’s advice
Undoubtedly, the old guard is changing in this fast-paced technological society: old influencers of past-time no longer achieve as much ROI as they would’ve back in their heyday, with marketers increasingly looking towards the internet for their next big successes.
