If you want to promote your product or service to as many people as possible, social media is an innovative and cost-effective way to do this.

Over 3.8 billion people across the world have at least one social media account, with most celebrities having a presence across many social media platforms.

Take footballer Cristiano Ronaldo for example. He is one of the most famous people on social media, with 153 million followers on Instagram and 122 million likes on Facebook! 

That’s potentially a lot of eyes on your brand!

Using a celebrity to help promote your brand on social media is known as influencer marketing. More and more companies are using influencer marketing as part of their marketing mix, with 17% of businesses spending over 50% of their marketing budgets on influencer marketing this year alone!

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Join us as we rewind back to the 1980s‍

f you were a big international brand back then, the best way to sell your wares was to spend millions and millions of pounds on a superstar celebrity. Think Michael Jackson endorsing Pepsi and Michael Jordan wearing Nike trainers in flashy television advertisements and billboards.

Now nearly forty years later, the landscape surrounding celebrity endorsement has changed dramatically. It’s not only easier to get celebrities on board to sell your products and services through social media, but a brand-new genre of superstars on social have emerged too.

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What are the benefits of promoting your brand on social media using celebrities?

• Using a celebrity to promote a product or service on a social media post (especially if they are already a fan) can come across as more genuine

• A ready-made fan base: Many celebrities have hundreds of thousands, even millions of loyal followers. This means you will get a lot of likes, shares and comments from your post

• A great example of a powerful campaign was when Khloe Kardashian partnered with Amazon to help her prepare for her baby shower, providing a link to Amazon where fans could buy a range of products curated by Khloe. The two posts resulted in a staggering 5.5 million likes and a 7.6% engagement rate
• The great thing about social media is you can track this engagement, so you can see how successful your campaign has been

• A broad demographic of potential customers: People from all walks of life follow celebrities on social media. For example, take comedian and television host Jimmy Fallon. According to Zoomph, he has an almost equal split of male and female followers as well as significant reach amongst Millennials and Gen X-ers

• What does this mean for your business? It means you can promote your product or service to an entirely new audience and find new markets to sell to

The issues with using celebrities to promote your brand

Although there are advantages to using celebrities to promote your product or service, there can be some disadvantages too.

The main issue is that of cost. Generally, the more followers a celebrity has, the bigger the bill for your business will be. 

Popular celebrity and make-up entrepreneur Kylie Jenner currently has 198 million followers on Instagram. She commands a very heft price tag of nearly $1.3 million for one post! This means unless a celebrity really loves your product or service and is willing to cut a deal, only the largest companies have the luxury of working with superstar celebrities.

There is also the issue of authenticity. A celebrity with experience of influencer marketing will be able to create a genuine and authentic post, even If they haven’t used your product or service before. If your celebrity of choice is new to the world of influencer marketing, there can be missteps.

For example, take UFC fighter Conor McGregor, who has nearly 40 million followers on Instagram. He promoted a teeth whitening system on one of his posts. Followers were bamboozled by the sheer randomness of the video, especially compared to the rest of his posts. A lot of comments were by followers accusing him of selling out.

The alternative to using celebrities… influencers!

If using celebrities to market your product or service doesn’t tick your boxes, there is another option.

Over the past few years, the popularity of influencers has grown on social media.

An influencer is someone who doesn’t quite have celebrity status, but has a loyal following on social media, usually in a specific niche. They are a trusted voice to many people.

What are the advantages of choosing an influencer to market your brand over a celebrity?

• They are a more cost-effective option: Influencers are much cheaper than celebrities. For example, lifestyle influencer Lele Pons has 41 million followers on Instagram and charges $143,000 per post. This means for one Kylie Jenner post; you could get nine posts with change to spare!

• Some smaller influencers will do a post for a few hundred dollars, meaning you could use multiple influencers on one campaign
• You never know… if an influencer really likes your product or service, they may even promote it for free!

• They are more trusted: While celebrities can sometimes come across as insincere, influencers are held in higher regard and are more invested in the products and services they promote

• In fact, 60% of social media followers would buy from their favorite YouTube star over a celebrity

• They are more niche: While celebrities are great for promoting your brand to a wide range of people, influencers can introduce your product or service to a specific demographic. This is because influencers build up their followings in a particular industry, be that lifestyle, fitness, cooking or video gaming

We hope this guide has given you valuable insight into using celebrities and influencers in your campaign. Influencer marketing can be an extremely powerful tool; all you need to do is choose the right person to promote your brand!