Influencer marketing

How to team up with authentic influencers

Author

Christa Schwandtner

Content management & editor

Influencers are today’s advertisers

Can you remember the last TV commercial that made you think: “Hey, the dress this up-and-coming actress is wearing is cool! I think it would look really good on me too – I absolutely need to go to the shops tomorrow and buy one just like it!”

First of all, you probably wouldn’t wait for the shops to open the next day. You’d simply grab your smartphone and order the dress online. What’s more, you’d be much more likely to find advertising on the internet these days – more precisely, on social media. Plus, you don’t have to be a celebrity anymore to promote a product. Today, this job is done by influencers.

How to spot an influencer

Influencers are brand ambassadors who generate creative content and who are willing to collaborate with companies. They create promotional content in the form of posts, reels, reviews, stories and blog articles.

Fans regularly share their posts, which further boosts the reach of these brand ambassadors. And your brand or company can benefit from this effect too!

There are four types of influencers:

nano influencers: 1,000 – 10,000 followers
micro influencers: 10,000 – 100,000 followers
macro influencers: 100,000 – 1,000,000 followers
mega influencers: more than one million followers

Depending on the objective of your marketing campaign, the number of followers will be more or less important for you. After all, nano or micro influencers with smaller follower numbers can achieve big successes with small budgets – for instance, increased visibility, more clicks or new customers. And did you know that many people are more likely to trust brand ambassadors with fewer followers? That’s because they appear more authentic to them.

Our tip: With lesser-known creators, barter collaboration agreements are also a good idea. As part of a barter collaboration, you provide the influencer with free products and in return expect them to give you good promotion on social media.

Their community is your target group

Creators produce creative content tailored to their followership. They are the ones who know their community – aka your target group – best. That’s why it makes sense to listen to them and rely on their creativity and knowledge.

Trying to tell them how they should promote your product is not a good idea. After all, their authenticity and credibility are just what their followers love about them.

The pros and cons of collaborations

We already mentioned some of the benefits of influencer collaborations. However, there are also some downsides you should be aware of:

Pros:

credible and authentic content
a boost for your reach
Top influencers can cause a veritable hype.
During long-term collaborations, influencers can turn into brand advocates.
They open up new perspectives and can boost your marketing strategy.

Cons:

Influencer relations require time and effort.
Working with influencers – especially those with larger accounts – can be expensive.
Influencers usually have collaborations with other brands as well.

Some ideas for influencer collaborations

send out product samples and do unboxing videos
make use of the co-author feature
do meet & greets
do raffles
provide the community with temporary discount codes
initiate “Question & Answer” features for your products

How do you find influencers that fit your brand?

The social media inboxes of many companies are bursting with “collaboration requests”, or rather “collaboration pleas”. However, it can be difficult to find brand ambassadors that really fit your brand. That’s why it makes sense for companies to actively contact those influencers they would like to work with. But how do you find people that are authentic, reliable and a good fit for your brand?

Step 1

Define your objectives

Take the time to define what you want to achieve with your influencer marketing campaign. Determine your target group with the help of personas and set yourself achievable and measurable goals. Set a defined budget for the campaign. Think about which tasks you actually want the creator to take on as part of your marketing campaign.

Step 2

Do your research and pick an influencer that’s right for your brand

Based on your pre-defined objectives, you can now start looking for creators that suit your needs. For some tips, check out our blog article on finding influencers that fit your brand! Online platforms such as grin or upfluence can also be useful.

When you have found some influencers you like, take the time to have a closer look at what they do. This helps you to get a feel for them and to find out whether they might work for your brand.

Particularly pay attention to the following:

Are there similarities between their fans and your target group?
Do they already promote products that are similar to yours? Are they maybe working with your competitors?
Are there regular interactions between the influencers and their followers? Online tools help you to determine their engagement rate and to get an idea of their community’s quality.
Are they authentic or more “promotional”?

Step 3

It’s all about the briefing

You have found one or several creators you would like to collaborate with? That’s great! The first step will be to provide them with a detailed briefing outlining the cornerstones of your collaboration. This also helps to prevent potential misunderstandings and disagreements in the future.

These guidelines should contain the benefits of your products as well as your brand’s USPs and areas of application. You might also want to add a list of words the influencer should or shouldn’t use to describe your product. However, you should leave it to the influencer how he or she wants to present your product. After all, they know best what their community wants!

Conclusion

If you follow the abovementioned steps and have a clear goal in mind, you’ll surely find influencers that fit your brand. Ideally, your collaboration will turn into a long-term partnership that benefits both parties. Some creators even design and implement their own products together with their collaboration partners. Of course, this requires mutual trust.

Now it’s your turn to boost your marketing strategy with some hand-picked influencer collaborations – with our guidelines, you’re all set!

You’re not quite sure which influencers fit your brand or how to approach them? The social media experts of punkt & komma are happy to help you!