How to Work with Influencers on Social Media
Influencer Marketing (IM) is a mixture of old and new marketing tools. It takes the idea of celebrity endorsement (which has been around forever) and puts it in a modern day setting — usually Instagram.
The main difference between IM and the traditional approach is that a modern campaign is usually a collaboration between the brand and the the influencer. Traditionally, the celebrity would just get paid for turning up and having their picture taken with a particular brand of toothpaste or face cream. These days, the brand (your business) will expect the influencer to be closely involved in actively marketing to their reach (their number of fans and followers), and the Influencer will expect you to do the same on their behalf. The outcome therefore is a campaign from which both parties benefit.
Why use an Influencer?
Very simply they are usually regarded as experts in their field, and can sprinkle a bit of their particular ‘fairy dust’ onto your brand! False Lash queen, Naomi Giannopoulos (@vegas_nay) has 7.3m followers on her Instagram. Just think for a moment of the kind of exposure your business could achieve if you had someone with that kind of following actively promoting your service?
But you don’t necessarily need someone with Naomi’s massive following. A ‘micro-influencer’ with a smaller but very engaged following can be just as beneficial, particularly if you yourself are just starting out. A micro-influencer is usually locally based (i.e. in the same country as your business) and will promote your beauty business and services to their followers in exchange for a small fee or possibly free treatments or products. A micro-influencer is usually defined as someone with between 1,000 and 100,000 followers (see the graphic I have posted). That’s still a pretty good reach, right?
Does Influencer Marketing work?
Yes! It does. 92% of marketers who used influencer marketing found it to be effective (source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/instagram-influencers)
How do I begin working with Influencers?
Here are some steps you could start considering:
First of all, work out what it is you actually want to achieve. This might sound obvious (“I want more clients and more money.”) but you need to be specific. How much more money do you want — i.e. how many more treatments will you need to sell to achieve that figure? How many more new clients will you need — and how many more can you cope with if you’re working by yourself? If 50 potential new clients all call up wanting a two hour appointment this week, can you provide these?
Think about your budget. If you are already struggling a little as all new businesses do, maybe now is not the right time to think about spending more on marketing. Though do bear in mind that some micro-influencers may be open to working with you in exchange for discounted or free treatments only.
How to Research Influencers
Now is the time to do your research. It cannot be overstated how important this step is, and to put some time aside to do it properly! It’s a good idea to keep notes — maybe even a spreadsheet if you’re going to be super-super-efficient!
The best place to start is with your own following. Look through them and see if any of your existing clients or acquaintances have a good following of 1000+. Have any of them ever tagged you in a post? Maybe some of these may be open to working with you?
Now do a wider Instagram search for particular #s e.g. #beautylondon or #PetShopDoncaster (or where-ever you are based), #books #bookslondon #restaurants and so on.
When you have narrowed your list down to about 20 people, go back and look at their engagement. How many people like and comment on their pictures? Do they respond? Is their any real discussion? This is important as some wannabe influencers will buy followers to bump up their numbers. You don’t want to waste your hard earned money working with someone whose followers are ‘bots’ (i.e. computer generated followers). You can usually tell if this is the case by the comments. Lots of ‘amazing!’, ‘Love this!’, and ‘Loving your pictures!’ types posts and nothing else can strongly indicate bots. Proper comments specific to the post which generate specific responses are usually real.
Look at the quality of the photos the Influencer posts. Do you like them? Would you like your brand to be seen in this way? Read their captions and see if they have worked with a business before (their captions should make this obvious and they should also use #ad or #sponsored in the post). If they have, then you know they will probably be open to an enquiry from you about this.
How many followers should an influencer have?
Good question! There isn’t really a right answer to this one. Most of us would probably say that an influencer with 2,000 highly engaged followers, may be more valuable than one with an unengaged audience of 40,000, but it’s up to you. Bear in mind also that the more followers an influencer has, the more they are likely to charge.
How do I contact an Influencer on Instagram?
Once you have decided who you would like to work with, now is the time to contact them. Not everyone will be open to working with you (don’t take this personally — sometimes people are just busy!) so have a few potential options if one or two say ‘no’. The easiest way to make contact is through their IG or if they have a website link through that.
Keep your first message simple, and please don’t discuss money at this stage! It’s just not appropriate. A couple of short friendy polite sentences explaining who you are, that you like their feed and think you could both be a good fit for each other’s brand, and would they be open to discussing this further with you, is all you need.
It can help to establish a connection if you begin to follow your influencer a few days before you make contact. Look at their pics, like and comment on them, so that by the time you make contact there will be some familiarly.
You should also make sure your own IG is looking its best. Remember — that’s the first thing that they’re going to look at, and will usually use it to decide if they want to work with you.
What do I say when I speak to an Influencer?
You can prepare by researching different types of partnerships on IG using the #sponsored and #ad hashtags.
Look back on the notes you originally made and think about what you want to achieve from any campaign and, importantly, how you want your brand to be presented.
Remember that IM is a two-way street. The Influencer is going to have their own ideas and will expect you to be open and flexible to these. Listen to them, and try not to immediately reject something just because it doesn’t sound totally right. Sometimes genius comes out of compromise!
Here are some things you could ask them:
- Explain what you want to achieve from the campaign and what your vision is. Have some good examples to show them. What do they think? For example, if you want to demonstrate a great spray-tanning or sunbed service, maybe your influencer hasn’t done a full swimwear shoot before — is she or he happy to do this now? If they are not, could you work around this or is it a dealbreaker?
- Have they worked with brands before? Can they show you the pictures?What was the experience like? If they had what sounds like a very negative experience before you may wish to explore this in greater detail.
- How were they paid? With cash or with services? Now is the point to be very clear about what you can offer in terms of payment. Are you offering money, or discounted or free treatments.
- Who will write the IG captions? You or the influencer?
- And who will own the pictures (this is really important!)?
What happens after I meet my Influencer?
After your meeting you should have a clear idea of whether you want to go ahead and work with that Influencer. Obviously this is a mutual decision as they will need to feel that they can work with you too. Don’t ignore your gut instinct with this one. Even if your influencer has said all the right things, ultimately they are going to be an ambassador for YOUR business and your brand, so it’s important that you feel happy and confident that they respect you and what you want to achieve, and vice versa.
Follow up with a full email saying that you would love to work with them and, if they’re happy to go ahead, what sort of timeline could they commit to.
Hopefully you will get an email back saying, ‘yes, I’d love to work with you too!” and you can go forward from there!
Did you find this helpful? Would you like to know more about the business side of working with influencers? Let me know!
