Influencer Marketing and Using Web Scraping to Find Your Influencers
There are many different tools that go into an effective marketing campaign, and influencers are one of the best ways to spread the word about your brand and products. However, when it comes to finding the right influencer to represent your brand, it becomes a challenge. So, how can you find the best influencers to use to promote your business?
In this article, we’ll be looking at influencer marketing and how it can benefit your business. We’ll also look at how you can use web scraping to find the best influencers within your niche. We’ll also explain why it’s important to use residential proxies while scraping to avoid a Facebook or Instagram IP ban. Keep reading to discover more about this marketing strategy to implement it in your own business.
What Is An Influencer?
Before we can start looking for influencers, we need to understand what they are. Influencers are individuals or accounts on social media with a large and loyal following. Influencers have built up a solid relationship with their followers based on trust.
The influencer holds a certain amount of sway with their followers. This means if the influencer recommends a brand, product or service, their followers will be more likely to buy it themselves. Influencers can cover many different industries, including some less well-known niches. Depending on the industry of your business, you want to make sure to use an influencer that also produces content within that niche and that both brands are compatible with each other.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is when a brand or business partners with an influencer with the goal of promoting their products or services. The business then gets access to a vast number of followers, meaning that the brand gets more views, recognition and conversions. On the other hand, the influencer is usually paid compensation for promoting the brand.
Based on statistics from 2021, 80% of marketers feel that influencer marketing is an effective strategy. From this amount, 89% believe it’s just as or more effective than other marketing channels. With statistics like these, businesses can’t afford to overlook the benefits of influencer marketing.
There are a few different ways that influencers receive compensation. They could receive a commission on every sale made through their recommendation or a commission on every click the business receives from their promotions. Alternatively, they can be paid a flat fee for a certain number of posts or promotions. The type of arrangement will depend on the business’s budget and needs and the influencer’s requests.
Benefits Of Influencer Marketing
Let’s take a quick look at some of the benefits of influencer marketing:
- Increase brand awareness
- Improves brand reach
- Builds credibility and trust
- Enriches your content strategy
- Improves SEO
- Boosts ROI and bottom line
- Drives purchase decisions
- Increases sales
- Cost-effective marketing strategy
How Does Scraping Social Media Accounts Help You Discover Influencers?
Using web scraping tools on public social media accounts is one of the easiest ways to discover influencers – especially if you’re looking for micro-influencers. You can start by setting your scraping tool to collect any users or accounts that mention your brand positively. Finding individuals who already like your brand makes it easier to start a negotiation with them. Alternatively, you can look for high profile users and accounts within your niche – this is a good idea if your business is still quite new.
When setting your scraper to collect these accounts, also make sure that they collect other relevant information such as the number of followers, posting frequencies, bio and anything else you may need to know when deciding on an influencer.
The web scrapers can automatically crawl through all the public accounts on these social media platforms and collect the requested data. Once you’ve got your data, you can start shortlisting potential influencers. Ask yourself the following questions when shortlisting candidates:
- Does the influencer view match that of your brand?
- Does the influencer have a large and loyal following?
- Is the influencer regarded as an expert in their niche?
Why Should You Use A Residential Proxy To Scrape Social Media?
Using a residential proxy alongside your web scraper is essential. Not only does a web scraper add more protection and anonymity to your online activities, but it can also hide your IP address and keep automation tools such as scrapers from being blocked. Whether you’re gathering market data for business planning or looking for your next influencer, running a web scraper without protection will negatively impact your results. If you don’t use a residential proxy for web scraping, you’re bound to get a message that your IP has been banned.
A residential proxy is linked to a real device with a legitimate IP address, so when they’re paired with your web scraper, they’ll look like real users. This means you’ll no longer worry that your IP has been banned. Having your IP banned will mean that you can no longer collect the data you need to make important decisions. The data you collect will be inaccurate or incomplete.
Final Thoughts
Influencer marketing is an incredibly valuable marketing strategy that businesses can use to promote their brand, attract new consumers and increase conversions and sales. Therefore finding the best influencers to promote your brand is an important step. You want to make sure they have a decent-sized following and that their views match your brand to ensure a successful long-term partnership.