Note: This was featured as part of our Web Wednesday segment on Charleston’s 105.5 The Bridge with Box in the Morning. You can catch us every Wednesday morning at 8:20 am ET for your dose of social media & digital marketing news. You can listen to the segment below:
Influencer marketing is an extremely effective way to generate buzz about your business, as long as you do it authentically.What is influencer marketing?
It’s a marketing strategy that involves partnering with other brands or users that have large followings on social media to increase awareness about your product or service. Sometimes businesses and brands collaborate with other businesses and brands. Sometimes they collaborate with publishers. Other times they collaborate with bloggers or users who use social media strategically to grow their following and recommend products and services that they’ve tried in exchange for a freebie or a paycheck.
In order to really get the best results for your business, it’s important to be authentic in your own influencer marketing. Take the time to research each potential influencer that you’re thinking about partnering with. What types of businesses do they usually work with? Do they represent your target audience? Are their followers your potential customers?
Here are a few key tips for really getting the most out of your influencer marketing.
1. Know your goals.
What are you trying to accomplish with the help of these influencers? If it’s just brand awareness, then photos of the influencer using your product/service might fill that quota. If you’re trying to increase sales, allow them to offer their followers a discount code. If you’re trying to drive traffic, consider partnering with an influencer to orchestrate a giveaway that starts on a landing page on your website. Gather emails from each entry to help generate leads.
There are many different ways to partner with an influencer, so it’s important to know exactly what you want to accomplish.
2. Choose the right influencers.
Just because a certain brand or blogger has a lot of followers does not mean they’re the best influencer to work with. It’s important to find influencers whose audience matches your target audience. Even if you’re only reaching 10,000 people instead of 50,000 people, it’s better to reach your people than a larger audience of people who aren’t interested in your product or service.
This is why it’s so essential to research your influencers before reaching out to them. You want to look at the demographic they appeal to and ask yourself if it’s similar to the demographic you serve, or if it’s one you want to branch out into.
3. Set the stage.
Many businesses starting out with influencer marketing are unsure how to get on an influencer’s radar. Many influencers receive so many PR requests that it can be easy for yours to get lost in the mix. This is why setting the stage is a necessary piece of the puzzle when reaching out to influencers. Start connecting with the influencers that you’re interested in working with on each of their platforms and build a relationship with them. Interact with their posts and have conversations so that they start to know who you are. Once you’ve set the stage, you’ll be able to move forward in your request to partner up.
Influencer marketing can be an extremely effective method for increasing exposure to your business and bringing in new customers, but it needs to be done right. Done incorrectly, you can actually cause more harm than good to your business image and relationships with these influencers. If you’re interested in learning more about how influencer marketing can help grow your business, fill out our free consultation form or call us at (800) 759-7996.
