Influencer marketing is a form of viral marketing that’s rapidly growing in popularity. It uses influencers to spread the word about products and services for companies. By tapping influencers with substantial followings, influencer “marketing” expands a company’s reach exponentially, leading more potential customers to learn about its offerings.
In influencer marketing, companies can benefit from influencers’ unique talents as motivational speakers or trusted advisers. The challenge is finding the right ones willing to join their team. But once you do find them, influencers are worth their weight in gold – or at least worth thousands of dollars per post. They’re known for producing high quality content that attracts high numbers of organic views and shares. This is why it would make complete sense for brands like yours to get involved with them.
But where to start?
You need influencers as much as influencers need brands. Influencers are looking for opportunities that will let them utilize their talents, expand their network and add value to the world in more ways than they’re already doing by building their personal brand. How do you make influencer marketing work for your brand’s interests? Here are some tips:
Although influencer marketing is relatively new, it’s picking up momentum quickly with big name businesses such as Red Bull, GoPro and Dove jumping on board. Influencers have established strong communication channels and loyal fan bases who trust their opinions and advice when making purchasing decisions.
Pick a Specific Niche That You Are Comfortable With
For you to get involved with the right influencers, you have to narrow the list down to the niches that you are familiar with. For instance, if you are a new gamer who has just started playing mobile games, influencers from that niche will be more than willing to work with you.
Chances are; they will know your personal interests and you will have an easier time getting involved in influencer marketing activities such as game reviews or product giveaways.
The influencers that I follow on YouTube are usually active participants in the online gaming community. They love writing about their favorite games and sharing them with other like minded gamers. The best part of it all is; most influencers do not mind offering free copies of their games for giveaway purposes.
Start Small and Build Your Network
Just like any business venture out there, influencer marketing needs a lot of networking. Communicating with influencers may not be easy at first but as you start to build relationships with influencers, they would be able to provide more opportunities for reviews.
The most important thing that influencer marketing requires is networking skills. Having influencers as your contacts exposes you to the inner workings of influencer marketing. The influencer contacts could also provide the platform where influencers and advertisers meet up in order to create amazing gaming related ads, articles and videos. So have some good influencer contacts ready before getting started in the business.
Let Everyone Know Your Involvement with Influencers
Aside from coming to them, another trick that you can try is to actually get influencers to come to you by announcing that your brand is looking to partner with the right influencers. You can do this by making an announcement on your website, and in all influencers’ inboxes.
Once you have announced that your brand is looking to partner with influencers, the influencer will naturally approach you because they will want to know what they have to gain from partnering up with your brand.
Learn How Influencers Get Paid for Their Work
You should also consider finding out how influencers get paid for their work so that the two of you can agree on payment terms when it comes time to make a deal. If influencers usually get paid per post or every time a certain milestone is reached, then just be aware of that when setting the payment terms for your business partnership. Your influencer can set up his or her own rates or you can choose influencers that offer services at a price you’re comfortable with.
It’s important to make sure your influencer is working for the right reasons. Influencers are people too and they want to be paid, so it’s understandable that some influencers will take on any job available if offered money but still provide quality work along the way. However, there are also influencers who have high expectations when it comes to payment because they put in a lot of hard work and time into their craft.
Ensure You Know Everything About Social Media That Influencers Do
Get to know your influencer’s preferred social media platforms so that you can promote your products or services there as well. If possible, find out what kind of content the influencers you are targeting like to post. It is better to use influencers who are passionate about the same things you are passionate about, if you can find influencers like that!
Perform Information Research Beforehand
The influencer marketing community stays up-to-date with what’s happening in the business world. If you want to work with influencers, it means that you have to be aware of current trends as well. While this doesn’t mean that influencers always stay updated on everything they post, it does set a good example for marketers and influencer managers everywhere. As much as possible, know your stuff when working with influencers; otherwise, your collaboration might not be effective at all! This due diligence on your part is important since
Influencers often work with influencer managers because of the clients that influencers can bring to your brand.
You know how influencers are always seeking out new opportunities? They’ll probably be quite happy about the idea of working on something new and different, so make sure you can offer them that kind of opportunity. After all, influencers like to show that they’re versatile and can take on many roles in their own line of work. If influencer marketing is a relatively new concept for your business, it might seem hard to do it properly; but as long as you’ve got the attitude right and act professional when you’re around influencers, chances are you’ll get pretty far!
Be Ready For Teamwork!
Lastly, it is important that you know that the influencer that you are working with is your partner, not your employee and you both should work collaboratively. After all, influencer marketing is influencers and influencer marketing professionals working together to make something happen that brands want to achieve.
This is how influencers get involved with influencers – be ready to give in order to receive, understand that influencer marketing is a partnership and if you’re not willing to work together as a team then this kind of marketing may not be for your business. Not only will influencers help bring more traffic and awareness to your brand or business, they’ll also offer independent opinions on things which can really add value when done right.
The key thing here is that you don’t try to manipulate the influencer’s opinion by telling what they should want out of your collaboration. If influencers feel that way about your business, you can rest assured they will make their opinions heard.
Of course, all of this can be streamlined if you just find the right service like influencer mailers and the right platform like UpFluence. Keep these tips in mind and watch your brand take off in no time!
