Learn about the dos and don’ts of forming relationships with social media influencers.
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If you’re a business looking to expand your social media profile, chances are you’ve considered turning to influencers to help funnel some more traffic to your website. If you’re not familiar with the term, a social media influencer is a person who uses a variety of social media platforms to express their opinions to a large audience, thereby influencing their purchasing decisions.
Proceed with strategic caution. While forming relationships with social media influencers can help you increase your visibility and audience, it’s important to keep the following tips in mind so that your efforts don’t cause more problems than they solve.
#1: Do find the right influencer
It’s important to build a relationship with influencers who fit your brand, style, tone and /voice. In addition to making sure an influencer’s tone and presentation are what you want to be associated with your company, you need to make sure they are involved and that their audience is engaged with the content they release.
A large audience base is not enough. The influencer needs to have a follower base that is engaged and paying attention to what the influencer is saying. An easy way to check the engagement of their followers is to see what sort of likes, shares, comments, etc. an influencer’s posts are receiving from their own audience. The more consistent that attention is, the better the chances that the influencer can help impact your business.
#2: Don’t tell an influencer how to do their job
They know their crowd, and they know how to play to their followers to get them to sit up and pay attention. One of the best ways to sabotage that operation is to put a bunch of restraints and rules on an influencer when they try to promote your product. Social media influencers built their platform by creating certain kinds of content for a specific audience. You want their opinions and content to look and feel organic and natural because that’s what an audience responds to. If you force an influencer to suddenly change, it will feel wrong, and the audience will react negatively . . . if they even agree to work with you in the first place.
#3: Do build relationships with influencers
Influencers are individuals you need to build relationships with, and that means you need to have both some give and take. Getting an influencer to act on your behalf isn’t as simple as just cutting them a check or sponsoring their channel (though that can be part of the formula).
So, reach out to them and help boost their signal using your own social media presence. Make charitable donations on their behalf. Invite them to be part of your campaigns and events. Much like how an influencer builds rapport with their audience, you need to build rapport with influencers to get them on your team.
#4: Don’t expect the influencer to do everything
You must stay involved with your influencer, boost their signal, and ask how you can help them help you. Additionally, set realistic expectations. You want to make a conservative estimate of the expected results of using an influencer. Influencers are not silver bullets when it comes to marketing. Just because they’re trying to help you get the word out, doesn’t mean you can kick up your heels and wait for the sales to roll in.
#5: Do compensate your influencers
Pay for play/influence is a given, and when you have an influencer willing to work on your behalf, compensate them for it. Whether it’s free products, sponsorship, or some other form of payment, make sure you show them you appreciate their work and that you don’t expect them to create content for you free of charge. The more generous you are, the happier your influencer will be with you, and the more likely they are to work with you going forward.
#6: Don’t ignore micro-influencers
Micro does not mean no value. In fact, working with several of them simultaneously, gives your message a wider spread. Too often, businesses focus entirely on the audience size, and as such, they’ll ignore micro-influencers (those with 5,000 to 50,000 followers). However, if the audience is engaged, you can often get a lot more from these smaller influencers if you reach out to them. For more on social media tactics, contact Talon Media.
