The Dos and Don’ts of Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Blogger Campaigns 

If you’ve ven­tured into the world of social media mar­ket­ing, you’ve seen the pro­file of influ­encers who cater to between 1,000 and 1 mil­lion (or more) fol­low­ers. These plat­form elites hold pow­er with their audi­ences, influ­enc­ing what images they see, what brands they endorse and how to inter­act with or believe in the influencer’s top­ic of choice. 

Most of these accounts grew organ­i­cal­ly, cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the grass­roots begin­ning of social plat­forms such as Insta­gram. Users quick­ly rose to promi­nence, some fame, and now they speak to huge audi­ences in every post. 

Need­less to say, influ­encers hold the mar­ket­ing pow­er on social media, and can make a worth­while and fruit­ful part­ner­ship for your brand. 

How Influencer Marketing Campaigns Work

Pair­ing with influ­encers is a fast and reli­able way to get the word out about your brand to cre­ate last­ing part­ner­ships with gen­er­ous ROI.

Take a look at the ways a blog­ging part­ner can help boost your brand’s mar­ket­ing influence:

• Rel­e­vant niche part­ner­ships with indus­try lead­ers: Part­ner­ships with indus­try voic­es means climb­ing the ranks to increased voice author­i­ty and sit­ting in the com­pa­ny of your market’s most trust­ed profiles. 
• Enhance brand aware­ness: Increase brand aware­ness by hav­ing influ­encers spread the word about your brand and mis­sion. You can cre­ate big waves just by start­ing with a few rip­ples in the waters of social media. 
• Boost traf­fic: Cre­at­ing part­ner­ships can lead to increased traf­fic to your web­site, to your event land­ing page, or to your own brand’s social media pro­file. Work with your influ­encer to con­tin­u­al­ly tag your page or link to your site where you want increased traffic. 
• Pro­mote brand mes­sage: Influ­encers help reit­er­ate your brand mes­sage to fol­low­ers, and they do so in new and cre­ative ways. Ask your influ­encer to get cre­ative with new ways to share your brand’s mes­sage with followers. 
• Grow audi­ence and fol­low­ers: By tag­ging your account and pro­mot­ing your brand, you can gain new and loy­al fol­low­ers, too. If this is a goal, be sure to set met­rics that you can assess quar­ter­ly or monthly. 
• Share con­tent around events and growth: Influ­encers will help you pro­mote all the excit­ing news you have as a brand, whether it is a prod­uct launch, a new event, or con­tin­ued suc­cess­ful growth as a company. 

Now that you know the basic ben­e­fits of part­ner­ing with an influ­encer, let’s turn our atten­tion to one of the most pop­u­lar plat­forms: Instagram. 

Using Instagram

Your pres­ence on Insta­gram can be authen­tic and per­son­al, but it should also be care­ful­ly curat­ed to make the most of your brand expres­sion online. Below, we look into guid­ing prin­ci­ples around what to do (or what not to do) on Instagram. 

Instagram Dos and Don’Ts

The do’s and don’ts of the pop­u­lar social plat­form are straight-for­ward and meant to guide busi­ness pro­files into suc­cess. If you have any ques­tions on the do’s and don’ts pre­sent­ed, be sure to leave a note in the com­ment sec­tion at the end of the post. Now, let’s dive into the best prac­tices for Instagram.

Do:

• Estab­lish part­ner­ship goals: Cre­ate a sense of pur­pose to the part­ner­ship by cre­at­ing and revis­it­ing shared part­ner­ship goals. Goals hold both par­ties account­able and keep the momen­tum of cam­paigns dri­ving forward. 

Some exam­ples of part­ner­ship goals might include: 

• • Increased traf­fic
  • New leads
  • More con­tent to us
  • Social foot­print

• Be brave and encour­age cre­ative expres­sion: Encour­age your influ­encers to cre­ate con­tent they see as the more advan­ta­geous to your shared goals. Your influ­encers have been online for a long time; they know what con­sumers like, how they’ll respond, and for when they’ll lis­ten. When work­ing with influ­encers, it is best to:

• • Let the influ­encer take the reins on cre­ative content 
  • Set a goal and para­me­ters togeth­er, then trust the influ­encer to deliver
  • Make sug­ges­tions about a cam­paign, and then take two steps back

• Be patient and picky when pair­ing: The part­ner­ship pair­ing process is excit­ing, but it’s not some­thing you want to rush into. With so many pop­u­lar and well-received influ­encers on social media plat­forms, it can be tempt­ing to reach out to every­one who seems like a good fit. 

How­ev­er, it is in your bet­ter inter­est to spend time on social media to watch influ­encers behave and inter­act before strik­ing up a poten­tial rela­tion­ship. You might con­sid­er run­ning a pro­fes­sion­al search for an influ­encer, too. 

What Is an Influencer Search?

An influ­encer search allows you to search a direc­to­ry of influ­encers for the one that best suits your tone, brand per­son­al­i­ty, and part­ner­ship goals. You can always search organ­i­cal­ly by check­ing out rel­e­vant hash­tags or fol­lowed accounts. 

When search­ing for the per­fect influ­encer pair, keep an eye on the fol­low­ing details:

• • Tar­get audi­ence: Do you share the same tar­get audi­ence? Ulti­mate­ly, you want new fol­low­ers to gen­er­ate leads and con­vert to sales. 
  • Active on the plat­form: Choose an influ­encer who is active­ly post­ing and avid­ly mon­i­tor­ing interactions.
  • Engaged, atten­tive audi­ence: An engaged audi­ence is most like­ly to believe and buy into what an influ­encer has to say. 
  • Match­ing tone and com­pli­men­ta­ry style: Find an influ­encer who shares your brand tone and sen­ti­ments. Ide­al­ly, they’ll have a style that is not a mir­ror of yours, but com­ple­men­tary to your brand goals and values. 

Along­side the list of actions to take, there is a list of actions to avoid: ‘the Insta­gram don’ts’. Take a look:

Don’t:

• Micro-man­age: What­ev­er you do in a social media part­ner­ship, stray from micro­manag­ing. While your brand is your baby, a pro­file is the influencer’s pride and liveli­hood. They’ve worked hard to gen­er­ate a fol­low­ing, find a voice in a crowd­ed mar­ket­place and to stand out in the crowd. As you assem­ble a rela­tion­ship, be dis­cern­ing in your man­age­ment, veer­ing on the side of faith and trust. 

When work­ing close­ly with influ­encers, be sure to avoid:

• • Giv­ing direct copy for con­tent: give an idea, but let the influ­encer create
  • Deter­mine inter­ac­tions: the influ­encer knows their audi­ence best

• Sole­ly focus on macro-influ­encers: Influ­encers with the biggest fol­low­ings cer­tain­ly have voice author­i­ty and speak­ing pow­er, but they also come at some of the high­est prices and with the most scruti­ny over part­ner­ship objec­tiv­i­ty. Micro-influ­encers, on the oth­er hand, are acces­si­ble to work with and often have an even more engaged audience. 

Some of the ben­e­fits of work­ing with micro-influ­encers include:

• • Afford­abil­i­ty
  • Avail­abil­i­ty
  • Cre­ativ­i­ty
  • Audi­ence Attentiveness 

• Treat influ­encers with­out respect: Your influ­encer is the mega­phone for your voice and brand expres­sion on social media. You are part­ners in a cohe­sive mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, help­ing to get the word out of your prod­ucts and ser­vices. Work with your influencer(s), not against them. The more you treat your influ­encers with trust, patience and respect, the more organ­i­cal­ly the rela­tion­ship can grow. Here are a few ways to estab­lish and grow respect in your social media partnerships:

• • Co-cre­ate con­tent: work togeth­er to curate, cre­ate or con­ceive of posts, series, videos and campaigns.
  • Estab­lish mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial goals: strate­gize on how each post or cam­paign can also ben­e­fit the influ­encers and their audiences. 
  • Work togeth­er on strat­e­gy: cre­ate strate­gies that work toward goals and con­tin­u­al­ly revis­it them togeth­er to stay on track toward a suc­cess­ful long-term relationship.

• Rush into it: Take your influ­encer rela­tion­ships slow­ly and be most patient in the pair­ing process. Suc­cess­ful part­ner­ships can last a long time and have great rewards, so it’s worth it to wait for the right one. Before approach­ing an influ­encer for a part­ner­ship, con­sid­er tak­ing the fol­low­ing steps:

• • Fol­low influencers 
  • Engage with influencers
  • Inter­act before proposing
  • This way, when you approach a poten­tial part­ner, you already have a foun­da­tion and the pro­pos­al is more intentional.

Comment Below

Have you had expe­ri­ence with influ­encer mar­ket­ing? We’d love to hear about it! Our com­ment sec­tion is a space for mar­keters and busi­ness own­ers to dis­cuss and reflect on the var­i­ous strate­gies they’ve tried out, with or with­out suc­cess. Togeth­er, our blog read­ers can deter­mine the best approach­es for their busi­ness type and enlight­en the intri­cate (some­times com­plex!) world of mar­ket­ing. Leave us a note in the com­ments or respond to a fel­low reader’s request. 

Conclusion

Rosy Strate­gies can help guide you through your first influ­encer mar­ket­ing part­ner­ship. Our team of savvy mar­ket­ing experts will eval­u­ate your cur­rent strat­e­gy and help iden­ti­fy the best way for­ward to achieve your long-term busi­ness and mar­ket­ing goals. Once your strat­e­gy is in place, we have all the resources nec­es­sary to ensure a high-qual­i­ty and high­ly effec­tive cam­paign with the blog­ger that suits your influ­encer needs and pref­er­ences. Reach out to us to get start­ed, today!