Influencer marketing and influencer mentions are popular strategies for professionals using social media to enhance their brand image.

Whether you're a newbie to influencer strategies or a professional looking to refine your approach, read on to discover more about influencer marketing and influencer mentions.

Get ready! media update's Joreke Kleynhans breaks down the difference between influencer marketing and influencer mentions.

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is a paid collaboration between social media creators and brands to market a product, service or label. The brand has a certain level of control over the content the influencer posts and needs to approve it beforehand.

This approach can result in increased:
  • brand exposure 
  • relevance, and
  • engagement.
These collaborations are initiated by either the brand or the influencer. Specifics like rates and terms are negotiated and agreed upon before the collaboration takes place. 

In addition to monetary compensation, the brand usually sends influencers free products or merchandise to feature in their social media content. 

Influencer mentions

Influencer mentions are usually casual, short inclusions of a brand on popular creators' social media. These can range from coincidental visual features or a product being tagged to clear endorsements of the brand.

Influencer mentions:
  • enhance consumers' trust in your brand
  • help your brand reach a larger target audience, and 
  • foster an aspirational lifestyle association with your brand.
Influencer mentions are unsolicited and the brand exercises no control over the published content. Because they are fully authentic, not all influencer mentions have a positive sentiment.

Sometimes influencers will discover a brand organically, and other times brands will send them PR packages in hopes of receiving some free publicity. The point is that influencers are never required to make a post about a brand — they have the choice to tag the brand if they wish to. 

Do you use influencer mentions or paid partnerships? Let us know in the comment section below.

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Influencer-lingo can be hard to decipher. Check out A stellar guide to influencers for your new cheat sheet!

*Image courtesy of Canva