Influencer Marketing on a slim budget — A Hack for Twitter Businesses

Influencer marketing is no doubt, one of the most effective form of marketing. Social media has made it easy for people to idolise one another. With each idol’s power, mostly proportional to the amount of following he possesses. Even with the large intersection of users on different social media networks, each platform has a unique approach to influencing its users.

For example, unlike Instagram, Twitter is a less visual platform. With a few hashtags and attractive images, businesses can easily increase their Instagram impressions and double their reach. But things are not that straightforward with Twitter.

Rather than just adding trending hashtags to tweets, brands either jump on one or create their own hashtag, then get it to trend. The easiest way to get this done is by paying a few influencers to trend their hashtag for some time. This could range from a few hours to a few days.

But what happens when you can’t afford to pay these influencers?

Twitter influencers charge as much as $100 or more per post. And trending a hashtag requires simultaneously having multiple posts from various influencers. This may not be affordable for a small business, that is why I have curated some cheap and effective influencer marketing strategies I learnt on Twitter.

1. Dear @***,

“Anon" has been a lot generous lately. Buying things from birthday presents to a random gift just to show love.

But...

Is Anon that generous, or are Twitter marketers getting more creative?

I am not insinuating anything. But the way Anon has been getting people gifts lately, especially from brands with very small amount of followers begs the question. Whatever it is, here is a cheap way to get influencers to retweet your posts (and increase your reach) without paying them for it.

Business: Dear @ATwitterInfluencer, Anon got you this. See your DM for details on how you can receive your gift.

*Twitter Influencer quotes Tweet* : Thanks for the random gift Anon😁

Maybe not ethical. But, Goal achieved😉

2. What’s trending = Influencer

You probably haven’t heard this before. But sometimes, influencers are not people, but what’s trending.

Zikoko is my favourite magazine in Nigeria right now and I love what they did here. With this post, they were able to increase their average reach by over 1000%.

PS: If you care a lot about brand identity, stay away from controversial topics. Or you can learn a thing or two from Sterling Bank about creating your own controversy.

3. Content is King

You can strategise your way into effective marketing, but nothing beats authentic and great content.

Remember the hyper realism pencil artist who got Kevin Hart’s attention earlier this year? He wouldn’t have done that without great content. And this is just one out of many from Twitter. The hack is to create great content and these influencers will evangelise your brand like it’s the gospel.

And the most interesting thing is, once you get the endorsement of one major influencer, you automatically gain the attention of the rest.

If you were able to gain a thing or two from this post, kindly encourage me with a clap and a click on the follow button. I will dropping more tips as time goes by.