How to Work with Influencers
Influencer marketing has become a popular form of marketing for brands over the recent years, especially as a way to reach new audiences. A lot of brands of are sceptical about working with influencers and continually ask, is it worth it? Do you get a return on investment for their services? We are here to guide you through the influencer world and what to keep in mind when working with influencers.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is when a company engages a social media influencer to work together to promote either a particular brand, product, service or message. Typically, the business will pay the influencer to promote their brand, and then the influencer will create content to share with their audience.
Are There Different Types of Influencers?
Yes! There are various types and categories that influencers can fall under on social media. From micro-influencers to major content creators and celebrities, there is a range of individuals that can promote your brand. Furthermore, many influencers focus on particular industries that their audience is interested in, from fitness to fashion, beauty, or a specific niche, there will be an influencer that has a following that is also the target audience of a brand.
Celebrities
Celebrities are known to be the original influencers, the ones that started it all. Typically, celebrities have millions of followers and generally don’t work with many brands for promotional content. Instead, they will have 1-3 partnerships with brands and become ambassadors for the organisation, rather than promoting singular posts and one-time deals. If a company has the budget to work with a celebrity, they can be spending anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single post (or if you’re Kylie Jenner, one million dollars)! It can be an obscene amount of money for one post, but the ROI can skyrocket and be highly beneficial for your company. A lot of celebrities within the sporting industry will work with companies for sponsorship deals. A successful athlete, for example, will work with Nike throughout their career and have a contract to only use and wear their products when competing and on social media.
Bloggers/Content Creators
Social media can be a content creator’s full-time job earning them a full-time wage. Digital influencers are today’s trendsetters, with audiences looking for their recommendations of particular products and services. Content creators can fall into various types of niches, influencing a specific audience. It’s vital for organisations to partner with influencers connecting to the same audience as your brand. Content creator’s rates per post can vary depending on their following and engagement rates. It can vary on how many posts you are after, how much effort goes into creating the content, agency fees and how many people it will reach. Once again, depending on the influencer, it can cost a few hundred dollars to a few thousand.
Micro-influencers
Micro-influencers typically have the highest level of engagement and have a much smaller following. They are becoming popular for smaller companies to partner with as they do not charge as much per post. Their followers trust what they are promoting as they can connect deeper with their audience. Micro-influencers starting with a few thousand followers may not even charge for posts but instead, ask for complimentary products or services in exchange for a post. Lastly, micro-influencers can narrow down even further into their target audience, focusing heavily on a particular niche, which is extremely valuable to an organisation.
How to Start Influencer Marketing for a Company or Business
There are five significant steps to consider when wanting to work with influencers.
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Understand Your Target Audience and Budget
Before you even start connecting with influencers, it is essential to understand your audience. Who is your brand targeting? Consider the age group, demographic, industry/niche your brand falls into, and what you want the influencer to promote. Is it the whole brand, or do you have a new product launching or event that you wish to gain traction? Further to this, do you want a one-time partnership or to work with the influencer regularly? Finally, which social media platform do you want the content creator to promote your brand on, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, or a blog?
In addition, setting a budget is crucial to staying on track. This will assist you when searching for a content creator to work with, as you can search for individuals with a particular follower count and engagement rate. Also remember, influencers have spent years of time and effort in creating a following, so you should expect to compensate influencers appropriately.
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Search for Influencers and Watch Them
This is the fun part, searching for influencers that you believe will best represent your brand. You may already have a few in mind that your marketing team has been forming a relationship with, but another way to look for influencers is to consider your competitors. Who are they partnering with, and why? Remember don’t just think big celebrities or big following, this is a waste of efforts and you will see little ROI. Particular customers purchase or use your products or are interested in your brand, it’s the same with influencers.
Hashtags are a popular way to narrow down influencers. Your target market will use specific hashtags, search for content creators using these hashtags, and targeting the same audience as you.
Are you focusing on growing your brand within your state or wanting to expand to different countries? Finding influencers in a specific demographic region will assist your company in developing your brand.
Once you have found a handful of content creators, follow them for some time and engage with them before connecting with them. It is important to see what type of content they create, how consistent they are, and how much they engage with their followers. From there, you can narrow it down to which influencers you visualise will be most successful for your brand and align with your marketing strategy.
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How to Contact an Influencer
The most effective and professional way to connect with an influencer is via email. Most influencers will have their email attached to their social platform, whether that be a personal one or one that connects you to their management. If you cannot find an email, a direct message on Instagram is the next best option.
What to include in the email?
- A brief explaining your brand and your interest in a partnership
- What you expect from them, be specific on what you are asking. E.g., how many posts/stories, video or photo content, haul or giveaway.
- Explain your budget allocation and how much you are willing to pay for their services.
- Finally, ask what their rates are and what they could offer to the potential partnership.
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Finalising the collaboration
Once you have gone back and forth a few times deciding on the final payment and content they will create, you will need to brief them on guidelines to adhere to when promoting your business. Some organisations like to send specific captions or if it is video, instructions on what to say. However, it is essential to give the influencer creative direction, as they know what content engages their audience the most. If they post content that their followers aren’t used to seeing, it will not perform and target who you originally intended. It doesn’t help to tell the influencer unique selling points, points of difference, why customers love this product etc., but trust the influencer when it comes to creating content.
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Analyse the ROI
It can be challenging to analyse the ROI for influencer marketing. Giving influencers an affiliate link to shop through or a small discount code they can promote for consumers to use at checkout can benefit an organisation. It is common to see sales jump after an influencer promotes your brand online, then a sudden decrease. Thus, continued partnerships with the same influencer can increase consumers’ purchasing behaviour and create more brand awareness amongst the community. After working with various influencers, you can gradually set a benchmark and decide whether to continue working with creators helping grow your business or end partnerships that are not performing well. Gathering as much information as possible is vital to increasing your influencer marketing success rates. You can analyse what content performs best, what audience engages the most, and what type of influencers bring you the most customers.
Does Influencer Marketing Work?
Influencer marketing can be successful for an organisation if done correctly. It allows brands to find authentic ways to promote their brand and products by using real people to create results. The main objectives of influencer marketing is for brand awareness and to help increase trust-worthiness in a brand or product. It will enable an organisation to reach its target audience on a large scale, creating brand awareness amongst individuals that were initially hard to reach. Influencer marketing can also help grow your following on social media, boost sales, drive website traffic, and increase profit overall – but again, make sure your expectations are realistic, working with influencers doesn’t guarantees you all of this, and surely not in a short time frame. Remember, on the other side of this, the same amount of budget can be used for Facebook advertising, and can more times than not, reach more people and be 100 times more transparent with data i.e. traffic to your site, purchases etc, but with Facebook advertising you are missing the advocacy of the influencer.
List of Ways an Influencer Can Promote Your Brand on Social Media
- Product giveaways
- Product hauls and reviews
- Unboxing video
- Sponsored posts & product promotion
- YouTube feature/dedicated video
- Brand ambassador
- Promoting upcoming events or new products launching
- Promoting a code that will give consumers a discount
- Product placement in creative content without direct mention of the brand
- Using influencers to create content for your company to use in marketing
Influencer marketing is sure to stay in the future mix of marketing, proving itself daily with insane amounts of brand awareness as well as reach through content creators. No matter what size your brand is, there will be influencers to fit your budget and promote your brand successfully. If you’re interested in influencer marketing, reach out and we can talk to you about how to effectively use influencers for your brand.
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