Marketing with a social media influencer
Social Media influencers are everywhere and marketing through those influencers is incredibly popular. It can be a great way to reach an audience with even American Presidents asking YouTube Influencers to come to the White House in recent years.
Approach
There are a couple of ways you can do this –
You can approach someone directly and cut out a middleman/woman
- Choose someone you already follow and like
- Send them a message or email about your proposal
- Come to an agreement, make payment and see what results
You can approach via an influencer platform
- Choose via audience type
- See other brands they use
- Measure previous results
- Measure future results
There must be a disclosure of the partnership between yourself and the influencer. Even if there is not a dollar amount, the goods have value so must be disclosed. It is as simple as having #ad or #sponsored in the post or #yourbusinessnamepartner. And now Instagram has come to the party to allow Branded Content. The paid partnership can easily now be disclosed on a post.
Remember that while Instagram is one of the most popular there are Influencers on all the different platforms. These other platforms may still provide excellent exposure to your ideal clients for a fraction of what an Instagram post may cost you.
Awareness and Return on investment
You may want to create awareness of your business/product via the influencer, you may want sales and you may want both.
Tracking the return is essential and you can use the tools on an influencer platform if available. Or you can generate a specific discount code to track sales or market a specific hashtag to show awareness.
Using your brand
You want the influencer to look as natural as possible when they are using your brand/product. A simple picture of the influencer holding your product is just not going to cut it.
- The food you want to be eaten
- Products you want to be demonstrated or put together
- Videos are a great way to see products in action
- Follower your influencer and what they are doing
- Get suggestions from your chosen influencer
- Remember that the influencer will know their audience who will also be your audience – choose wisely and listen to what they have to say.
- Consider a partnership with longer-term marketing potential, this makes it far easier for you influencer to get excited about your product.
Just as with any type of marketing – there are no guarantees out there. Take the time to learn about your influencer and test the water.
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