5 Methods on How To Find & Collaborate with Influencers

In addition to knowledge of a particular topic, an influencer exposes himself. He shows his opinions and opinions that can go to “influence” a large number of followers and users. Thanks to the correct personal branding, this person is able to improve their reputation. This is given by authority, by its ability to communicate and interact. An influencer is therefore a mediator between those who produce a product and those who want to try it.

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How to Collaborate with an Influencer: 5 Proven Methods

Marketing strategies involving Bloggers and Influencers are increasingly being used, and the most common social platform of reference is definitely Instagram. Users trust messages from influential people more than traditional forms of advertising. That’s why it’s important to analyze the most useful ways to collaborate with influencers and give more value to your brand.

Follow these 5 effective ways to collaborate with an influencer and see what you can do right away!

1. Sponsored Content: One good way to promote your products or your company is to involve, through an agreement, one or more influencers. With sponsored content, they will enhance the visibility of your products through their social profiles. In this case, it will be necessary to provide them with the guidelines, train them, and propose a program on the material they will have to devise. Sponsored content could be a post with photos or other types of formats, such as videos, which is one of the most commonly used.

You may have noticed the wording of sponsored posts on social media. Several influencers use the win-win situation technique, which is a way of sponsoring a product. For instance, an influencer in the fashion field could sponsor a bag and provide a discount code to encourage users to buy. The influencer offers an advantage to their followers, while the company uses this promotional move to its advantage.

1. Send Gifts: Another way to establish a collaboration with influencers is by sending gifts, better when unexpected, that are in line with the influencer’s preferences. In this way, it is very likely that the influencer can talk about it on his/her social profiles. It is also possible that he/she reviews it with a post.

It must be considered, however, that since there is no agreement and remuneration in the form of money, the influencer can also decide not to give visibility to your product as he/she is not obliged. It could also happen that the agency managing the influencer, or the influencer themselves, may request a fee to advertise the product that has been sent to them. Even worse, they could even negatively review the product they received as a gift if it does not meet their expectations.

1. Leverage Guest Posts: A guest post is an article published as a guest on another’s blog. It is another type of collaboration that can be implemented with an influencer. Writing on the blog, by collaboration, can be done in two ways:

2. You can ask the blogger/influencer to write an entire article about your product

3. Put it in a series of quotes along with other brands

For example, a cooking blog, within its recipe, can use products of well-known brands. Consider that posts can be shared on various social networks to generate more traffic.

Some points to keep in mind:

• It is important that, in searching for an influencer, you look for someone suitable for your niche and who shares the values of your brand.
• Writing an article takes time, so schedule everything in time
• Agree on the images to be used, or provide good quality photos yourself
• To generate conversion, you can propose to insert a direct link to your site

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1. Schedule Takeover: With the term takeover (in the context of social media), we mean a widespread practice abroad, which sees companies entrusting their social account, such as Instagram, to an influencer. For a short period, or for an event, the influencer will have to produce content on behalf of the brand.

The influencer will produce the content directly and show the audience his/her point of view. The action must also be expressed both on the company’s account and on that of the influencer who will manage the takeover.

When a brand decides to take over, it’s not by chance. The choice of the influencer will fall on a profile suitable to convey the values of the brand, and that through his/her personality, he/she can give added value to social communication.

1. Brand Ambassador: Another path of collaboration can be to get an influencer become your brand ambassador.

What do I mean?

A brand ambassador is a lasting testimonial of the brand. In short, the values and aesthetics of the company are embodied in the figure of an influencer, who becomes the testimonial of your product or service for a long period of time. As an ambassador, the chosen influencer will not only post content from your product regularly but will represent the brand at events and promotional initiatives.

In addition, once the influencer has been chosen, the company can ask for exclusivity. This means that the ambassador will not make any collaboration with other companies during the contract period. Also, in this case, it is important to choose an influencer whose attitude and personality are in line with the values of your company to become a spokesperson for its audience.

How to Relate and Manage an Influencer: Methods for a Successful Collaboration

One of the most important factors in collaborating with an influencer is relating to them. Influencers, whether more or less famous, are constantly loaded with requests for collaborations. This is why an influencer will not accept the first proposal presented to them and will not be easily persuaded to collaborate with your company.

What will make the difference in getting the influencer will surely be the way in which you “sell” your brand to convince them to collaborate with your campaign. If you thought this aspect would be one of the simplest, well, you were wrong! It sounds easy, but not everyone is equally likely to be considered by an influencer.

But don’t worry, below I will show you some useful suggestions!

What to Write to Propose Yourself

How to approach an influencer is crucial. The best and professional means of communication to contact an influencer remains to be the email. The first impression is also crucial when you get in touch for the first time. So you don’t have to fall into banality and present an email where you only talk about the product to be reviewed by writing huge chunks of words or, worse, approaching them with a: “Do you want to sponsor my product?”. We must encourage him.

My recommendations:

• Be concise, give essential information but in a few lines
• Explain why their profile aligns with your company’s values
• Think of a motivation that could push the influencer to collaborate with you
• It’s a job for them, you’re not doing them a favor. Reflect and make the offer productive for both
• Make budget, project, and timeline clear right away

How to Pay an Influencer

There are essentially 6 methods to pay an influencer:

• Pay per post – The pay per post (PPP) model is the most popular way to pay for marketing campaigns. Agreements (PPPs) allow businesses to pay a flat fee for one or more posts.
• Pay per campaign – This model allows you to pay influencers through a flat campaign fee. Agencies typically work through a per-campaign payment model, while MCNs sometimes also adopt the pricing method.
• Pay-per-click – This is a different payment method from the previous two and is based on views, combined with an affiliate marketing program.
• Pay-per-acquisition – Often referred to as cost-per-acquisition (CPA), brands make payment when an influencer’s efforts bring in a new customer, often through an affiliate link.
• Subscription – Often associated with buying and selling marketing platforms, brands are charged subscription fees for accessing various solutions.
• Non-monetary – Influencers are sometimes compensated with products, services, travel, or other experiences (e.g. dinners, events, etc.). This payment method is often limited to micro-influencers.

The cost of collaboration with influencers does not have precise rules as it depends on many factors. There is a cost of managing the influencer marketing strategy to be considered as a fixed cost. In addition, the tools for finding the most suitable profile and the Digital PR activity.

But how much does the influencer ask to carry out their business?

Each influencer can decide which companies to partner with and which prices to set. The value of an influencer varies from person to person. Among the factors that determine the cost of an influencer are:

• The number of followers on the various social channels – this is a vanity-metrics value that can be artificially inflated and does not always determine the effectiveness of the influencer.
• Engagement rate – the engagement rate is calculated by dividing the number of interactions of a post by the number of fans on its profile.
• Quality of content – it is an element that is not quite measurable and is very subjective but has great importance for those who decide to entrust the communication of their company in the hands of third parties.

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Influencer Marketing Strategy: What Are the Advantages?

Among the activities to be undertaken to increase your business, influencer marketing is one of the most used and fast-growing strategies today. By putting the right actions into practice, it is possible to launch targeted advertising campaigns towards a specific audience that is easy to find.

But what is influencer marketing?

We can define the term influencer marketing or influencer marketing as a type of marketing based on the ability to “influence” the vision of a company and the purchase intent of a specific audience.

The individuals who give rise to this action are the so-called “influencers”. Influencer Marketing is a sort of word of mouth, a bit like what happens in everyday life, we feel good in a certain store, restaurant, hotel and we tell our friends and relatives.

With the advent of social media and web marketing, things have changed. Today you don’t just tell your experience to the people closest to you, but you do it directly on social media. For example, reviewing a restaurant on google, or posting a story on Instagram.

There are many competitive advantages that an influencer marketing strategy can bring, but among the most important are:

• Effectiveness – Influencer marketing is an innovative promotional strategy based on content, relevance, and a non-invasive approach that exploits the value of word of mouth that can generate more than double the sales of traditional advertising.
• Convenience – Influencer marketing is one of the least expensive strategies. In fact, although it cannot be defined as totally at no cost, it can adapt to a budget of any size and the investment can result in cost optimization.
• Credibility – An influencer marketing strategy can help increase the credibility of a company as partnerships with appropriately selected influencers contribute to acquiring new market segments. They also consolidate a communication channel based on the creation of content in line with the interests of the target audience.

To achieve these goals, it is good to keep in mind that as influencer marketing consists of a strategy aimed at finding the perfect representative of your brand, the power of it still lies in consumer trust so the approach must be authentic and honest. Honesty and credibility are two essential elements that make influencer marketing, if well used, a much more powerful tool than traditional advertising.

Is it Better to Work with Influencers or Micro-Influencers?

When deciding who to turn to for product sponsorship, we are faced with questions such as: How do I choose the right influencer? Which one’s better, a macro or a micro? And what is the difference between the two? Those approaching this world for the first time may think that, to identify the right influencer, you have to look at the number of followers. But are you sure that more followers equate to better results for your brand?

Let’s start, first of all, by making a distinction between Macro and Micro influencers:

• Macro-influencers are “social media celebrities”. These are people with a very large following (over 100,000 followers) and, consequently, with a wide reach. Involving a macro-influencer in a marketing campaign undoubtedly has positive implications in terms of visibility and brand awareness, but there are negative aspects not to be overlooked. First of all, the high costs: macro-influencers, generally, have an average high cost for sponsoring content, which varies according to their popularity. In addition, macro-influencers struggle to gain the trust of the public, which questions the credibility of a product sponsored by a celebrity and bases the purchase decision on other, more reliable sources.
• Micro-influencers, on the other hand, are ordinary people (or almost) with a number of followers, more contained than macros, between 10,000 and 100,000 followers, and a very high level of engagement. Micro-influencers will also have a smaller audience, but collaborating with them has many advantages. One of the main advantages is that micro-influencers are able to establish more personal relationships with their audience (compared to macros), who feel more engaged and are more likely to support both the influencer and the products they promote. In addition, in terms of budget, working with a micro-influencer requires a smaller investment, becoming accessible to most brands and companies. Another strong point is authenticity. Consumers want to build authentic relationships on social media, which is why micro-influencers are the perfect link between a brand and its audience.

In conclusion, if you are looking for a way to increase conversions and brand awareness without spending a fortune, try to involve a micro-influencer in your marketing strategy. But be careful because the choice should not be random. Choosing the right influencer is essential also because a wrong choice would result in losses both in terms of reputation and money. The advice is to rely on a professional who knows how to direct you to the best.

Are you ready to partner with influencers to create an effective marketing campaign for your business?

Influencer Marketing is a strategy that companies, especially nowadays, do and must cope with. If you’re going to increase your brand exposure, generate awareness, and connect with a new set of audiences (directing them to your site), you need to use this tool. There are advantages, but it can be a confusing and complicated strategy to set up and manage. And it’s a project that takes time. To help you overcome the main obstacles and understand how to collaborate effectively with influencers, I recommend our Master in Web Marketing and Social Media, as it will provide you with the main skills to implement your strategy.

If you want to learn more information about our innovative courses, do not hesitate to contact us!

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