Strategies for Collaborating with Local Social Media Influencers

Entering new international markets can be both challenging and rewarding. Spreading a message to your target audience requires well-prepared marketing campaigns across multiple social media platforms, which can be difficult to establish without a local team or consultant from the target market. Successful international marketing often requires building relationships with local influencers and earning their trust. To achieve this, businesses must understand the local culture, regulatory environment, and competitive landscape. 

Using demographics and psychographics, businesses can gather information on potential new markets. Defining the ideal customer persona is essential for the influencer finder search. Businesses should look for local social media influencers who can help establish a large social media following and whose audience matches the consumer profile. Brands should aim to find micro-influencers who speak to the target audience so that consumers will trust their recommendations. Want to learn more about social media influencers and ways to incorporate them into your global expansion plans? Keep reading!

What’s a Social Media Influencer?

A social media influencer is a social media user who establishes an online following based on expertise or knowledge on a particular topic to build their online reputation and persona. Based on this knowledge, they use social media platforms to share and promote brands’ products and services and persuade their audience to use them.

A social media influencer can belong to one of four different categories:

• Nano-influencers (up to 1,000 followers)
• Micro-influencers (1,000 – 100,000 followers)
• Macro-influencers (100,000 – 1,000,000 followers)
• Mega-influencers (over 1,000,000 followers)

We can also group influencers based on the platforms and types of content they use, such as:

• Instagram influencers
• TikTok influencers 
• YouTubers
• Bloggers
• Podcasters
• Social media posts only

Celebrities are considered the original influencers to largely impact trends and people’s purchasing decisions. Large brands still use them today to promote and endorse their products. But paying celebrities millions of dollars isn’t attainable for most businesses (even global ones). That’s why social media influencers are so powerful. They allow the smallest of brands to grow in any target market if they play their cards right. 

There is also another group of influencers called key opinion leaders. These are industry experts, journalists, and professional advisors with extensive knowledge in their field. These influencers can be relevant in establishing credibility for more specialized industries, such as the medical, legal, and financial fields. 

The Power of Local Influencers

Collaborating with an international influencer can be an amazing strategy, but never underestimate the power of local influencers. A brand’s marketing strategy should consider working with local influencers with influential voices within the local target community. Consumers expect brand endorsements from large international influencers, but seeing a smaller local influencer promote the same brand might be an even more effective strategy to gain trust in unfamiliar markets.

Influencer marketing is increasing in popularity each day, making it the leading global marketing strategy among companies. Surveys show that 80% of companies admit to working with micro-influencers, and only 16% work with celebrities with over a million followers.

These numbers show that working with local influencers can help create powerful marketing campaigns. The influencer’s endorsement of products and services will increase the traffic on the company’s social media, leading to a higher engagement rate. It’s cost-effective, less expensive, and perfect for long-term partnerships.

This relationship between a company and the influencer creates an opportunity to grow together. This is especially true if the target audiences overlap. Having a lot of local influencers supporting the company’s product spreads brand awareness and guarantees a bigger community outreach.

Cultural Relevance and Authenticity

Reaching out to a local micro-influencer with an average number of social media followers can significantly contribute to increasing awareness of the brand in a specific market. These influencers establish a deep connection with their followers and understand the regional culture and trends. All this translates into trust, which all companies must achieve with their customers.

Finding a local influencer to support a marketing campaign can boost brand visibility, drive foot traffic, and increase sales. Endorsing a restaurant or a community event by an influencer resonates with their followers on a personal level. 

Companies should work with a social media influencer who shares the same values and interests with their brand. Media influencers need to be authentic to who they are while they are promoting company products or services for better credibility and success. This makes cultural relevance and authenticity super important to increasing the engagement rate.

Localized Content Creation

Adapting content for foreign markets is essential to a successful global expansion strategy. If you want your brand to feel local to foreign consumers, creating content that relates to your target audience’s culture, language, and lifestyle is key. Actually creating unique content for multiple markets, though, requires many resources and is likely unrealistic. This is where local influencers come in. 

Local social media influencers usually have tight-knit communities that are very active and engaged with the type of content the influencer posts. Working with someone who speaks the target audience’s language allows companies to be confident when taking over a new market.  Content localization is essential if you want to win over customers, establish trust, and turn them into loyal customers.

Increased Reach and Market Penetration

As we touched on before, working with local media influencers can result in increased market penetration and wider audience reach. This ultimately helps achieve a larger engagement rate and increased sales. Local media influencers, including ones with only a small number of media followers, have close niche communities where their opinions and choices are heard loud and clear. Finding influencer media followers in international waters may be challenging, but it’s not impossible. 

The same content can have a different following in different markets and target audiences across various social media platforms. Understanding how to localize a marketing campaign can help achieve a wider reach and market penetration, ensuring a successful brand story.

Overcoming Language and Regulatory Barriers

Language, culture, and regulatory barriers are the first things every company faces when entering a new market. The local influencer speaks the target language, knows the cultural background, and is likely aware of rules and regulations. Although they may not have knowledge of everything a company needs, they are an excellent starting point for expanding into a new market. Based on a study, influencer activities have the greatest effect on transferring information about a service or product while increasing brand awareness. 

What about safeguarding consumers and ensuring transparent promotional activities? Well, governments take special care to prevent misleading advertising content, and the laws differ between countries. For example, the US Federal Trade Commission prepared specific guidelines that companies should follow when they decide to work with influencers.

The Challenges of Finding Local Influencers

Undoubtedly, companies have to face quite a few challenges when searching for local influencers that share their brand’s attributes and values. This can become a daunting task without using some available influencer finder options.

Manual searches for social media influencers should start on various platforms, depending on the industry. This is done by searching for relevant hashtags and keywords or by location and similar profiles. Looking through local competitors’ content, marketing campaigns, and reviews provides a window into understanding their customers. Another good idea is to join local communities or search for an influencer marketplace. Even the usage of other influencer finder options to find local influencers could prove useful. 

Identifying the Right Platform

Considering a person’s wide spectrum of interests, different platforms have different target audiences. The company must have a well-prepared customer persona to help put together a good influencer marketing campaign. 

Identify social media platforms where your local audience spends time and where influencers excel in your industry. Local influencers can do well on Instagram in some countries, while this may not be true for other countries. 

Overcoming Language Barriers

Language is a delicate matter that influences how a brand or its product will be perceived. Be sure that social media influencers understand your product, brand, and expectations. Be very clear and specific about what you are expecting because any misunderstanding can reflect negatively on your campaign. If necessary, engage translation and interpretation experts to ensure accurate localization of your message. 

Consider Varying Popularity Levels

Identify the popularity level of the social media influencer you are targeting. The first thought would be to go for mega or macro influencers, but it will surely take a lot of time and resources to reach them. Do your due diligence on the local media influencers. We all know that the big sharks can do it, but how about going for a micro-influencer? 

Look for an influencer that is a good match business-wise. Sometimes, the micro-influencers can achieve the goal faster than anyone. This is especially true if you are looking to take over a smaller market. It will also save time and resources, which can be put into creating the perfect localized influencer marketing campaign.

Be Wary of Inconsistent Metrics

Maintaining brand consistency is a crucial element in influencer marketing. This is how brands build trust among customers. Inconsistency is not an option. Ensure you find an influencer who appreciates the brands and work with them to be sure they fully understand the message you are trying to communicate.

Continuously monitoring the influencer’s metrics on the marketing platform and looking out for fake followers and inaccurate data are good practices to keep in mind. Check the content produced by the local influencers to ensure they comply with the provided guidelines on brand consistency. 

Having transparent and efficient communication with a local influencer is a key aspect of having a successful business marketing campaign.

Strive for Authenticity 

Getting across a genuine product placement from an Instagram influencer is crucial to how well the target audience reacts to the product. The more authentic and genuine product appreciation the influencer shares on the influencer marketing platform, the better the audience is going to respond to the marketing strategy.

An unenthusiastic and out-of-place influencer marketing campaign will not sell despite the influencer having a huge following on their social media platforms. If influencers are dishonest and insincere in their recommendation of a certain product or service, they risk losing their influence and credibility among their followers. A lack of authenticity means customers will not trust the influencer’s recommendations.

BLEND: Your Global Expansion Partner

BLEND is an innovative localization technology platform that helps companies effectively localize their business from A to Z. Our professional text translation, voice-overs, and localization experts can help your brand accelerate your global expansion and make it easier to work with local social media influencers. 

Securing global success today means establishing a relatable native presence on social media platforms. BLEND believes that when you truly blend in, you will stand out. Our easy-to-use, cost-effective platform is equipped with professional human translators and voice talent in over 120 languages worldwide.

With 14 years of experience under our belt, BLEND offers endless global growth opportunities. Our mix-and-match services provide localization in any sense of the word, local regulatory services, voice and content localization and transformation, as well as translation services. 

Voice-overs for All Social Media Content

At BLEND, we provide voice-overs for all the necessary social media content on any platform, including YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitch, and more. Use it to optimize the outreach and engagement rates, whether you decide to team up with a local social media influencer or not.

YouTube Videos

Localize your YouTube videos with the help of professional voice-over talent and quality transcription services. BLEND can help you achieve amazing localization voice-over results with accurate timing on any YouTube video content you want to share in 120+ languages.

Instagram Reels

Share your company’s brand with localized voice-overs in the target language of your demographic. Find Instagram influencer talent that can help you reach your target audience with BLEND’s help.

TikTok Videos

As one of the most popular social media platforms, be sure to leverage TikTok to raise brand awareness. We offer TikTok video localization services for over 120+ different countries worldwide. 

Facebook Videos

Get hold of Facebook’s broad audience and cater to the needs of your target demographic by speaking to them in their mother tongue with our marketing translation services. 

Twitch Videos

Localize Twitch streams and video games with the help of 1,300 voice actors in over 120 different languages. Build your brand and personalize your multimedia to suit your gaming needs.

Secondary & Alternate Social Media Channels

BLEND offers localization and voice-overs on any secondary and alternate social media channels you might have.

How to Get Started with Local Influencers

The power of local media influencers shouldn’t be diminished. Working alongside native social media influencers will help companies broaden their horizons and outreach. Global marketing strategies benefit from localized media campaigns that feel organic and authentic. Overcoming language barriers with authentic product placement in your audience’s native language can make a profound impact on your brand’s multimarket success. 

Brands reach out to BLEND to help them overcome language obstacles worldwide. Discover all the possibilities by collaborating with BLEND’s professional local talent in 120 different countries. Leverage our high-end innovative localization technology and expert help to localize your marketing content and find the right local influencers for your business.

Corinne Sharabi

Corinne is the Social Media and Content Lead at BLEND. She is dedicated to keeping global business professionals up to date on all things localization, translation, language and culture.

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