HOW TO COLLABORATE WITH INFLUENCERS
SIMPLIFIED IN 3 STEPS
With influencer marketing becoming a winning strategy for brands globally, it gives the creator economy a clear edge in bargaining power along with incentive to upskill. Finding the right creators for your brand type is not rocket science, but influencer discovery is the vital first step that can decide the success of the brand campaign from the start.
If you want to know how to find the best creators for your growing start-up, we got you covered. You can learn about all the details through our blog for all factors you should take care of during the pursuit of influencer marketing — whether the creators match your brand’s core values, or if their audience matches your target group, etc.
Are you interested in influencer marketing services but have no idea where to start? We recommend INFLUENCER MARKETING IN 2022 EXPLAINED, a comprehensive guide to understanding the most efficient marketing strategies present today.
Before carrying over to how to reach your chosen influencer group, let us see what the creators themselves had to say about brands reaching out for collabs. Around mid-march, renowned creators, social media influencers, and brand managers gathered at SXSW — an amalgamation of tech, film, music, education, and culture that happens every year at Austin, Texas.
They remarked that one of the biggest mistakes brands make while reaching out to creators is not knowing about the kind of content they create, and consequently what audience they attract. YouTuber and co-founder of creator economy newsletter The Publish Press Samir Chaudry critically said “..being authentic fans of the creators that you’re working with, or being a part of the community, or just being very aware of the type of content they make, will make for a more authentic integration.”
Healthy professional relationships where both parties can stand on a common strategic ground should be encouraged. And even though brand collaborations contribute to the biggest slice of revenue for influencers, marketers should not force their marketing plan on the creators. Real creators have spent ample time and effort in carefully cultivating their social media followers — they know their audience better than any big-name brand ever would.
If you work with an influencer marketing agency, you won’t have to worry about influencer outreach. But as we saw earlier, the process of building genuine relationships with your potential brand advocates is vital to creating a healthy business partnership.
Try to resist quick turnaround processes; influencer outreach may be a slow process, but if the creator and brand see a win-win in the tie-up, then you may have created a successful long-term collaboration.
So how should brands go about with their influencer outreach?
Step 1: Research & follow
Basically, you’ll need to do thorough research and catch their attention without giving them a sales pitch about your brand. This way, you’ll find out about the kind of content they make and actually engage with the community. When you follow their social media channels or subscribe to their newsletter, the brand marketers will slowly (but surely) understand why the creator has such a loyal following in their niche — and how well they would match with their own brand’s target audience.
If you feel their content resonates with your audience, you could like and share their posts on your channel while @mentioning them. A few months after undertaking these activities, they’d be able to recognize you from the crowd. And you can connect with them for collaboration while taking care to be clear on how the collaboration could be beneficial to the creator and their audience.
Remember, the marketer is the one who is reaching out to them. Creators are already engaged in multiple social media platforms, they don’t want more work — they want to help their community grow and give them giveaways that they’d like.
Step 2: Collaborate don’t dictate
Secondly, let them be a part of the influencer marketing strategy. While you may know your own brand and what you want from the exercise, the creator knows best what their audience would like. You should be clear on the deliverables you need from them, but brands should work together to find the best-fit campaign for that creator.
Step 3: Set your expectations beforehand
Last but not the least, always have a realistic deadline, as per the KPIs. This gives both the brand and the creator a specific time frame where creation, sorting, execution, and optimization need to happen. Influencers work with multiple brands simultaneously, all while taking care of their content creation and editing.
A genuine creator will always think of how their audience will perceive a particular brand collaboration. As long as brand marketers can convince them that the partnership will give more value to their followers, influencers would be happy to execute influencer marketing campaigns with them. But building a genuine relationship with creators is very important.
