What is influencer marketing and how does it work?

Influencer marketing is a brand promoting its product or service through content creators who have trust and influence with a particular audience. The message comes from someone viewers already follow and whose opinion they value, so a well matched partnership carries a sincerity classic advertising rarely achieves.

The market is significant. In Turkey, for example, IAB Turkey's 2024 report put the volume of influencer campaigns and content work at 6.75 billion lira.

Follower count is the most misleading metric. Look at these first:

• Does their audience match your customers? Age, city and interests.
• Is engagement real? Are comments about the content, or short repeated phrases? Sudden follower spikes can point to bought followers.
• Does their content fit your brand? Recommendations from accounts that praise a different brand every week are less convincing.
• Size or relevance? A small but relevant audience is usually worth more than a large, unrelated one.

Most markets require paid posts to be labeled. In Turkey, the Ministry of Trade's Advertising Board adopted its Guide on Commercial Advertising by Social Media Influencers on May 4, 2021. Any post where the influencer received money, free products or discounts from an advertiser must say so clearly, with tags such as #Ad or #Collaboration or a statement such as "This video contains advertising for ...". In short lived content such as stories, the disclosure must stay visible for the whole post.

Responsibility does not sit with the creator alone: advertisers, agencies and platforms are each responsible for compliance, and advertisers must brief the influencers they work with and act against violations.

"Nice content" is not a result. Give each partnership its own discount code and a UTM tagged link so you can track sales and site traffic by source. Divide reach and engagement by budget to compare campaigns. Boosting well performing posts with ad spend is a proven way past the limits of organic reach.

Setting up social media ads and measurement together is part of our Meta ads service. For the bigger picture, see our social media marketing explainer.