How can influencers help promote your business?
Social media can help a business reach people, but results depend on the audience and its engagement. Working with bloggers and other creators is one way to introduce a product to a relevant community. The first step is choosing creators whose audience, content and approach suit your business.
Unsure whether advertising with influencers is a good use of your budget?
This article sets out 5 principles for promotion through content creators to help you plan collaborations and assess their results.
Principle 1. Start small.
A small business does not need to begin with the largest influencers. Consider an emerging creator with a relevant audience and develop the relationship over time. A mutually agreed exchange of products or services may be an option. Compare the work involved and the value of the collaboration with your available budget.
Principle 2. Choose carefully.
Creators cover many different subjects and attract different audiences.
For example, a travel agency should assess whether a parenting creator’s audience is interested in the trips it offers. A travel creator may be a better fit, but the decision should depend on the audience and its needs rather than the account’s label alone.
Review the creator’s account. Are the subjects relevant? Does the audience match yours? Is the content format suitable for your product? If the answers are yes, consider a small collaboration to evaluate the fit.
Principle 3. Check the evidence.
Interesting, well-produced content does not tell you everything about reach. Ask for account statistics and evidence from previous advertising collaborations.
- Post reach and clicks to previous advertisers’ websites.
- The relationship between engagement and follower count. Low engagement is a reason to investigate further, but it does not by itself prove that followers were purchased.
- Overall account reach and interactions over time. Ask about sudden changes in the figures. A giveaway, for example, may create a temporary increase that does not reflect the audience likely to respond to your offer.
Principle 4. Build familiarity with the audience.
A single post or story may not give people enough time to understand a product or assess the creator’s experience with it.
Where the collaboration is a good fit, a series of relevant posts can explain the product and its benefits in more depth than a one-off mention.
Principle 5. Keep track of changes.
Creators’ reach and popularity can change. Review audience activity, recent content and relevant trends when planning a collaboration, and reassess the account before repeating a campaign.
Conclusion
Remember that an unsuccessful test can still provide useful experience. No influencer can promise 100% effectiveness. Review what happened, adjust the approach and use the principles above to make the next test better informed.
For help planning and managing advertising, contact our agency. Influencer collaborations can be one part of a broader marketing strategy.
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