To help come up with unique ways to promote a business, my COMM 464 class’ discussion has suggested to try approaching influencers to promote your business to their fans/followers. The type of influencers one can engage with is very diverse. Ranging from celebrities to local community group leaders to even the mom who is most active in engaging the neighborhood mothers. I am personally quite interested in the growing presence of some YouTube users who have successfully built a strong follower base with the YouTube channel.

Most of these YouTubers started their channel for fun and mainly posts videos discussing their perspective on areas they are passionate about. But over time, those who liked their video creation and identified with their comments’ values and perspective started to become an avid follower of these YouTube stars which gave rise to their celebrity status. The fact that most YouTubers started posting videos from when they were still ordinary people also allows fans to relate to them much easier as they feel that these ‘celebrities’ are very similar to the people who they would meet in real life.

Noticing the huge fan base that some of these YouTube celebrities are having, many brands have started to take advantage of their status and collaborated in promoting their business products. For example, TheFineBros, which posts videos on the reaction of different demographic group sample as they are exposed to a trending topic. Jumping on their strong fan base, Ford and ComedyCentral have sponsored them.

 

Aside from sponsorship, I have also seen many videos where a business sends free samples of their products or give free access to their exclusive events and asked the YouTuber to review them and post it on their YouTube channel. This tends to help give businesses better, loyal new customers as followers from these YouTube stars tend to trust their comments as they have identified with them over long period of time.

All in all, I would highly recommend businesses to start jumping on the YouTube bandwagon and collaborate with these YouTube stars to get exposure to a strong community of followers. So go ahead, get your products reviewed by YouTubers and watch your customer base grow!

 

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/top-20-most-popular-youtube-stars-2014-11?op=1