How Can Brick And Mortar Stores Use Social Media To Drive In-Store Visitors With Hyper Local Micro Influencers?

Navigation:

• What is a hyper-local micro influencer?
• When should we use them?
• Bonus tip for greater results

What is a hyper-local micro influencer?

A micro influencer is someone with an ultra-specific niche of interest. If their influence is centered around a certain location, then they are considered to be hyper-local. It is basically word-of-mouth influence for the age of social media.

How can you identify a hyper-local micro influencer and how can you leverage them to drive in-store visitors to your brick and mortar business like Dressbarn?

A hyper-local social media influencer may have a following of a few thousand people, but don’t scoff at someone that has 700-800 loyal followers. It’s the amount of trust that people put into them rather than the number of followers that counts.

Social listening, which is the monitoring of social media channels for customer feedback and mentions of your brand or products, can be used to identify community influencers talking about your area of interest. You can identify and then invite these influencers to try your product and share their impressions. This will act as a sort of testimonial and motivate people to visit your store. Check out a list of free social listening tools you can use here.

Hyper-local influencers can be bloggers, YouTubers, or just local moms and dads that have gained a loyal Twitter following in their area. They are considered trusted voices in their communities and people value their opinions. You can tell just how much their internet presence is valued by the amount and quality of interaction and feedback they receive from their followers.

When should we use them?

Use hyper-local influencers to promote your brand in your local area. Let the locals know about your location, your products, and any specials or sales that you are running by contacting an influencer. Events or co-promotions are also great for this type of exposure. This strategy has been benefiting so many stores like Bon Worth.

Bonus tip for greater results

If you want to be able to track the effectiveness of using a hyper-local micro influencer, you need to determine where the in-store visitors come from. Large corporations use detailed tracking to test different promotional methods and decide which one works best. If you have a social media influencer mention that you are having a sale, you may want to know how many visitors you got to your store from that mention.

One way to do this is to offer some type of savings or gift to those that visit your store from that specific post on social media or simply offer a way for them to leave feedback as to how they heard about you. This could be as simple as asking them upon checkout where they found out about you. This way, you can gauge the effectiveness of using a social influencer and compare it to other methods of promotion and marketing you use.

If you find the right influencer to match your store, it can be an inexpensive way to drive in-store visitors to your brick and mortar business. Spend some time doing a little research and you’ll be surprised to find that there are likely people in your local area that can help make your business popular in the local community.