When you boil down marketing to its core, you’ll realize that it’s all about getting as much attention as possible. After all, the more people that see your products and services, the more likely you’ll increase your business revenue and grow your audience. However, that mentality isn’t exactly new and people are starting to do all sorts of things in order to get into the limelight. As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Sadly, that saying doesn’t really work in the modern age with social media. Bad publicity is, for all intents and purposes, bad. If one person on the internet decides to release a controversial statement about your products and services, it’s going to spread, they’re going to be featured in the news and they’re going to be hailed as a hero because they’re standing up to the big bad corporations that are ripping them off. The internet loves a bit of drama and the last thing you want is to be at the centre of a drama storm regarding your products, even if those claims aren’t true.

Fortunately, this mob mentality can also be used in your advantage, especially if it’s a niche industry like cycling.

Much like how a single person could put your company into hot water if they have the right connections, you could also promote your brand and watch it grow if you know the right people. In the marketing world, we refer to this as social media influencer marketing.

What exactly is a social media influencer?

Simply put, a social media influencer (or rather, an influencer in general) is someone that has influence over others, mainly their audience. They tend to be active on social media and build followers in a variety of different ways. Their audience essentially listens and converses with them over social media, meaning that they also share similar opinions and can be persuaded to give something a try or check something out with the right push.

Influencers are usually experts in their respective fields. For example, some cycling social media influencers include Francis Cade, Liam Yates and Gareth Winter. They range in followers from 21.7 thousand to 3 thousand, they all have their style of social media presence and they all have active audiences that listen to and interact with them. They’re either hobbyists, content creators or even make a cycling a part of their professional lives.

Why social media influencers over other advertising methods?

There are plenty of advantages for using a cycling influencer over a typical marketing campaign.

• They can help to grow your cycling brand, even if you’re a smaller business. Influencers are a much bigger driving force than typical advertisements because they engage directly with their audience.
• They can offer cheaper advertising alternatives compared. Some influencers are willing to bring sponsors and brands on board for a price, but others just love to create content and will gladly work with you if it gives them something to create content about.
• You can reach your intended audience more easily. You no longer need to worry about relevancy if you use cyclist influencers to help market your brand. Their audience is your audience and there’s a higher chance you’ll convert those leads into sales.
• They’re more reliable than other marketing methods. Social media marketing is far more reliable than other marketing methods because of the way it’s executed.
• They’re much easier to speak to. Influencers are far easier to communicate with and be transparent with than marketing firms.
• You can work together to create great content and products. It should come as no surprise at an influencer could offer feedback regarding your products. It’s a relationship that you both benefit from; your influencer has more content opportunities and you can improve your product and also get it noticed.

As you can see, social media influencers bring a whole new level of marketing to the cycling industry. You no longer need to consider yourself a niche industry because there are ways to directly tap into those niches. This means no more wasted advertising space trying to convince non-cyclists to get interested in your brand and it means more focused goals.

Finding the right social media influencer for your cycling brand

There are a couple of things to think about before you decide to jump into the deep end with social media influencers.

For starters, think about how relevant the influencer is. If you’re selling cycling products such as parts and spares, then you may want to speak to influencers that make content about building and repairing bikes. If your offer some kind of service to cyclists, then look for influencers on social media that have used something similar or have spoken about it first. It’s all about doing your research to improve the relevancy of the influencer to your brand.

Next, make sure you inspect the influencer themselves and consider how much reach they have. Don’t just look at follower and post counts, look at the interaction they get from their followers and other influencers that also follow them. This is all about picking influencers that engage with their followers on a regular basis or have a platform (such as a blog or a podcast) where they can express their opinion and create content for a wider audience.

Lastly, make sure you’re consistent with your advertising. Don’t match with influencers that don’t share the same opinion as you on certain aspects of cycling and make sure you pick someone that you could see as an ambassador for your brand, not someone that could rebel against it and cause marketing issues further down the road.

Summary

Social media influencers are a fantastic source of exposure for your company. No matter how niche you think your cycling brand is, there’s always an audience if you find a relevant social media influencer and find your own way to approach and speak to them. Do your research on cycling social media influencers and it will pay off.