Golden Rules for Working With Social Media Influencers (+ a Checklist!)
Influencer marketing is worth considering when you try to scale up your digital marketing campaign or looking for a way to engage more potential customers with your product. Even though some people still question the efficiency of this advertisement, nowadays it is more popular than ever! And don’t roll your eyes – we know that you were on TikTok just a few minutes ago.
So whether you like to watch beauty tips on Instagram or are looking to buy some Christmas presents this month, influencers can help you with both of these tasks… and many more.
If there is one thing that an effective social media ad should be, it is relatable. The feeling of closeness and similarity that an influencer can cause is almost impossible to recreate with standard advertising features. In a world where you can easily find and buy anything, it is more complicated than ever to make an impression or influence your audience’s purchasing behaviour. But an influencer can help you with that.
Here are some examples of how working with an influencer can benefit your digital marketing strategy.
According to recent studies, a person needs to have at least 1000 followers to be considered an influencer. In most cases, influencers have many more and put lots of effort into growing their audience every day. And that means more potential reach for your brand.
Remember how you are always more inclined to buy something if a friend recommends it? Apply the same rule to the scale of influencer marketing, and you have got the idea. Influencers not only deliver the message to your target audience, but they also convince them to buy or at least consider your product. This is why an influencer campaign is an excellent way to generate potential leads or even drive direct sales to your website. But it is not that easy.
To be influential, a person must be seen as authentic. This is an essential factor to consider when choosing an influencer with whom you would want to partner. The right choice, in our opinion, would be to work with an influencer who actively needs or uses your product. This way, you will receive an honest opinion and representation from a real customer, who influences others by simply enjoying your product. Your audience will notice and appreciate that feeling of authenticity and realness.
Influencers often start as customers passionate about a product, a hobby, or some other interest they have. They are usually self-starters, driven by the desire to create meaningful content for their audience.
As a result, these social media enthusiasts are incredibly creative, innovative, and mindful of their content. Your digital marketing strategy can benefit from that, especially if you give the influencer some freedom to play out different advertising formats and opportunities. Believe us when we say this, but you don’t know your target audience the way they do. So trust them in finding the best way to present your brand and support their efforts to achieve better results for you.
Covering multiple advertising channels can be difficult sometimes, especially if you try to fine-tune all of them. Building a partnership with an influencer is a great way to develop your new or existing social media profiles. Not only that they know every little trick there is to know on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest, but they also can upgrade your creatives and overall look of your page or profile.
At Blue Ocean, we recently started our first influencer campaign for a client on top of their already amazing social media campaigns! Building up that partnership and making sure that we have got the whole process covered, we learned some valuable things about influencer marketing.
We compiled them in a cheeky little checklist for you to use and plan your influencer campaigns:
For this campaign, we chose to work with Rubyyy Jones. We like her authenticity, positivity, and creative approach, and we believe they will be of great value to our clients.
When looking for an influence, the tricky part was choosing a person who needs, likes, or frequently uses our client’s products. We found Rubyyy in an active search for a new mattress, following them moving back to Canada from the UK. In fact, they were actively manifesting for a mattress. You don’t believe us? See for yourself.
We provided Rubyyy with the opportunity not to choose any mattress but to get the one that suits their needs. They have an amazing list of high-quality mattresses to choose from, so we can add value to their customer experience with our client’s products.
In addition, we provided Rubyyy with an exclusive promo code that their followers can use.
The main goal is usually an obvious one – it could be sales, calls, website visits. However, we advise you not to focus only on this one big goal that everybody knows about without talking about it but discuss with the influencer what are your long-term goals. This way, you give them a context to base their work on. As someone who has built their follower base for a long time, an influencer can surely help with creative ideas, knowledge, and experience.
This step can be crucial for your whole campaign, so better not skip it. Setting a timeline is your lifejacket when unexpected circumstances occur. With Rubyyy, we created a detailed plan for the upcoming weeks, so we can be as prepared as possible and keep things organized.
From copyrights to living room lights – discuss every little detail with the influencer. Make sure to have everything written down, so they can get back to the specifics if having doubts about their content.
We have some more tips up our sleeves for working with influencers, managing social media channels, and even creating unique SEO content for your website. So check out our web design and content services, and let’s chat about what your brand needs and how we can help.
