Put The ‘Collab’ Into Your Collaborations: 3 Ways To Excel At Influencer Marketing

It’s no secret that influencer marketing is on the rise. It’s a marketing strategy that has been around for a good while but that lots of brands and businesses are only just starting to think about. Not only are they a little late to the party, but they’re also turning up with gone-off food and talking to everyone about how much they miss their ex.

Translation? Too many brands are taking the fun out of influencer campaigns and overruling the influencer’s values and creativity.

I’m going to give you 3 important tips on how to put the ‘collab’ into your collaborations and be the best influencer marketer at the party.

Understand their audience better

Believe it or not, the influencer you want to work with is an influencer for a reason. They have built their platform from the ground up and have acquired hundreds and thousands of followers in the process. Whether they are on Instagram, YouTube or writing their own blog, they know their audience and their audience knows when they have sold out.

Take the time to ask them about their audience. Do you think they would be the right fit for your brand? Don’t just work with an influencer because they have thousands of followers – your ideal audience, values and aims need to align.

Have a look at their social profiles to see who is interacting with them the most. Click on some of their followers and get a good look at what they are posting too. Do you think these are the type of people who would be interested in what you have to offer? If not, it’s probably not worth collaborating with the influencer unless the influencer can provide you with some reassuring evidence that, in fact, your audiences do match up.

Action: When reaching out to an influencer, ask them how they would describe their audience before pitching a collaboration idea. This shows the influencer that you care about their followers and that you’re not willing to throw money at a dead end.

Let the influencer suggest ideas

Like I said, these guys and gals are influential for a reason. They have created content that their audiences love and they won’t be willing to taint that with sponsored content that doesn’t fit in with their platform.

Let the influencer take the lead on the creative ideas. I’ve worked with Viners who have suggested two or three ideas for me to choose from and YouTubers who tweak my original idea to better suit their channel. Go with the flow and see what content they want to create for you.

If the influencer suggests an idea they love, they’ll be happy creating the content for you and it will feel like a partnership instead of just a business transaction. If you refuse to budge from your original idea, the influencer could do a half-assed job that will perform badly and put your brand in a bad light. It’s awful but it happens.

Action: Think of a few ideas you’d like your influencer to create. Take a look at their platform and see if these ideas will naturally fit in with the rest of their content. If not, don’t be afraid to pitch your ideas anyway but preface them with the suggestion that you are happy for them to be adapted. Some influencers will turn down a bad idea if they see one without discussing a different idea first, so be open and honest about accepting their ideas!

Amplify the sponsored content

Once the influencer’s content has gone live, you’ll probably be refreshing the page to see how many comments, views, or likes it’s got. Don’t stop there – get in on the action!

Push the content onto your own brand’s social channels and show that you are proud of your collaboration. This will tell the influencer how happy you were with their content and could be the first step to more of a long-term partnership.

Also, when the comments and likes do start to come in, don’t watch from afar! Login to your brand accounts and interact with their audience. Whatever the reason for your collaboration, you can’t just forget people who engaged with your sponsored content. Try not to come across as ‘desperate for replies’ – just mosey on in and answer questions, respond to positive feedback, and ignore the rest!

On some platforms, like Twitter and Instagram, you can click to see who liked the content and follow their accounts. This will show them that you are interested in what they have to say – you could even comment on a few of their posts too! Just made sure it all feels natural and not ‘forced conversation’. Consumers can pick up on this and it could deter them from your brand if they get a ‘spammy’ vibe.

Action: If you have content from an influencer collaboration, schedule to share it across your social channels. Don’t forget to tag the influencer so they can share too! Also, take a look at who is interacting with the sponsored post – can you leverage this in any way?

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I really hope these tips have helped you be super collaborative in your influencer marketing campaigns. Collaborative relationships really stand out to influencers and can hopefully lead to long-term partnerships. Keep up the great work!

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