Content remains to be the most important aspect of digital marketing. It’s what you provide your audience to keep them interested. Good content attracts new people to check out your brand. Generating content is hard enough. What’s disheartening is when you learn churning content isn’t everything.
Two problems plague content marketers.
One is lack of engagement. You can write the most informative blog post or upload the most artistically creative video, but if you don’t have a lot of followers, you will only get trickles of likes and shares, if at all.
Another problem is loss of motivation and inspiration. Maybe people are paying attention. Maybe a good number of them share your posts or write comments. Then you hit that creative block, and you don’t know where to go from there.
Both harm your content marketing strategy.
In fact, either problem can harm your brand’s presence.
Luckily, there’s one way to get around these hickups and build a fresh perspective.
There’s a reason content and influencer marketing overlap and work hand in hand. When two of the best forms of marketing fuse, you can’t go wrong.
When you allow influencers to create content on your behalf, you’re taking advantage of the following:
- Proof that a trusted person on social media considers your brand
- Attention of the influencer’s audience
- The audience’s trust in the influencer that then transfers to your brand
- Brand mentions that drive traffic to your social media pages and website
But how do you bring influencers into the fold?
Know the influencers your potential buyers are following on social media?
If you’ve started creating content, you most likely have an idea who your audience is.
If not, then your first task should be to identify who they are. After all, all your marketing strategies are geared to them. Once you’ve identified them, it’s time to know who they’re paying attention to. The influencers they’re following are the very people that you should tap. But don’t reach out to these influencers yet.
Create a list of influencers
One way to identify the right people to find them through your audience. Another way is to do a manual search. This is when the keywords that you use to optimize your content matters. You will use the same keywords when searching for influencers in your niche. Don’t limit yourself to search engines. Explore sites like Instagram and YouTube, two of the most important platforms for influencer marketing. Remember, content isn’t just blog posts and Instagram posts.
On a spreadsheet, make a list of influencers you’ve identified and include details about them, like their website url, Instagram profile url, Instagram name, YouTube channel, number of followers or subscribers, email addresses, contact information, and so on.
A quicker way to do this is by using influencer marketing automation, wherein you can identify relevant content creators after creating a campaign brief.
A great tip here is to not focus on the big names. The micro-influencers, those with less than a hundred thousand followers, are essential components of today’s content and influencer marketing strategies.
Do something to be noticed by your target influencers
You don’t wait for influencers to notice you. Usually, brands have to reach out in creative ways to get noticed by content creators they want to work with. It sounds intimidating, but it’s easier than you think.
Start by commenting on their posts. Don’t just say “I love this.” Tell them how you feel about their recent video or upload. Show genuine appreciation. Talk about how you’re able to relate to their content. Let them feel how fantastic or moving their post is.
Don’t do this just once. Be a regular fan or an active subscriber. Keep posting comments on their posts. Respond to other comments as well. Throw in your 2 cents. Be a dedicated part of their virtual community.
Another way to get noticed is to share their posts with a well thought out caption, and tag them in it. Influencers, even the famous ones, aren’t snobs. They like it when someone appreciates their content.
This process is slow, however. You will have to wait for weeks, maybe even months, of making that connection and building that rapport until you can knock on their door and ask some favor.
Outline your campaign details
Here is where things become interesting. This is also the part where marketers make mistakes. Before you approach an influencer, you should have the campaign details, including descriptions, instructions, and goals, are laid out. The last thing you want to do is call an influencer without any idea what you should work on.
The campaign brief should include the following details:
Goal
Target audience
Time frame
Type of content you want to be produced
Social media platforms where the campaign will appear
Number of posts
Budget
Normally, you don’t worry about these things when you or your dedicated team are doing content marketing. But once you collaborate with content marketing influencers, you need to have specific guidelines.
There are different types of projects you can embark on, and if you’re having trouble getting started, you can check out linkr’s powerful campaign templates. Keep in mind, however, that influencers are looking for three things when collaborating with brands:
Projects that resonate well with them
Specific and actionable goals
Reasonable compensation
Ask for a collaboration
It’s easy to collaborate with an influencer once you’ve built a relationship with them. The common reason an influencer refuses to work with brands is they don’t trust that brand yet. That’s why you can’t just ask them to feature your brand on their upcoming YouTube video the first time you call them.
But once you have been communicating with your target influencers and you have laid out the groundwork, there’s no reason to hesitate. Send that email. Give that call. Talk to the influencers. Show them your proposal.
Make it easy to work with you
Aside from making sure every key detail about the project is well outlined, be friendly, pleasant, and accommodating. Don’t be magisterial and obnoxious. Remember, an influencer can give you a good or bad publicity depending on how you treat them.
When it comes to making campaign guidelines, leave the creative process to the content creators.
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How they want to talk to their audience is their prerogative. Don’t micro-manage everything.
Lastly, be grateful
Once an influencer has successfully accomplished a campaign, send them an email thanking them for the creative effort. Or maybe give them a call. Everyone loves to be appreciated even after being compensated. This is an important way of keeping a good relationship with an influencer and increasing the likelihood of future cooperations.
Understanding the steep challenge
Turning relevant content creators into your branded content influencers can be challenging, especially when you consider working with 15, 20, or 25 of them. But keeping track of every content marketing partner and monitoring every aspect of the collaboration doesn´t need to be tough with a reliable influencer marketing platform.
