Did you know that 63% of marketers today work with ten or more influencers on every campaign? Why do you think brands and marketers rely heavily on influencers for marketing?
It’s because customers trust social proof and recommendations from real people way more than advertisements from brands.
Influencers are trusted by their followers immensely. They can help you convert people into your loyal customers.
That’s one of the many reasons behind the increasing popularity of influencer marketing among brands across all industries.
To succeed with influencer marketing, the first step is to find the right influencers.
It’s a good idea to collaborate with an influencer who believes in the same values as your brand. That way, the collaboration seems authentic.
Once you’ve found your match, what kind of content should you ask them to create?
In this article, we’re going to talk about different ways in which you can create content with influencers.
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Are You Using These 6 Popular Influencer Collaboration Ideas?
Without further ado, let’s take a closer look at some of the most effective influencer collaboration ideas you can leverage.
1. Sponsored Social Media Content
Partnering with influencers in exchange for sponsored social media posts is the most common type of influencer marketing collaboration.
An influencer creates and posts content to promote your brand on their social media accounts.
What will the influencer need from you?
Your content guidelines and influencer marketing objectives to help them know what you expect from them. Accordingly, they’ll create content based on the brief you share in exchange for a fee.
Here is an example of a paid partnership between a social media influencer and a beauty brand.
Image via Instagram
Influencer marketing collaborations for sponsored content have become quite popular among brands.
You are most likely to come across them on Instagram. In fact, 59% of micro-influencers have reported that Instagram is the most effective social media platform to engage their followers.
When you collaborate with Instagram influencers, a good practice is to work with multiple influencers in a single influencer marketing campaign. This can create a lasting impression of your brand on Instagram.
Platforms like TRIBE or HYPR allow you to share your brief with multiple influencers at once. You can choose the ones you like and pay for them alone.
2. Gifting
Another way to collaborate with an influencer for a sponsored partnership is to gift your product samples to the influencer.
You can encourage them to use your products and create content around them for your brand.
Daniel Wellington often gifts their minimalistic and elegant watches to influencers to encourage them to create social media posts like these.
Image via Instagram
Gifting is a great influencer marketing strategy that works for books, clothing, makeup brands, and many others.
But, there is a catch:
If you are simply gifting your product to influencers (and not paying them), they’re not obligated to promote you.
Unless of course, you have a legally binding agreement in which the compensation is limited to free products.
If you don’t have any such agreement and are only gifting products hoping that influencers would promote them, it may go the other way too.
Influencers may share negative reviews if the product is not relevant to them or if it isn’t good enough for their liking. So, make sure to first build a connection with them.
Some influencers may also ask for monetary compensation to promote the products you have gifted.
3. Sponsored Blog Posts
Other than the popular social media platforms, consumers also turn to blogs as the most trusted sources of information online.
Brands are thus turning to influencer bloggers to leverage the trust of their target audience.
There are two types of posts in this category:
One is a dedicated post that revolves around your products or services. The content focuses on your brand and may also include an exclusive discount code for purchases or a custom giveaway.
You can also ask the blogger to mention your brand in a roundup post of products or services. In this case, the blog post will include a number of businesses including yours.
Away, a brand that offers quality luggage for the modern traveler, partnered with the fashion blog Man Repeller, to give away a luggage set.
Image via Man Repeller
Alternatively, you can also ask the blogger to mention your brand in a roundup post of products or services. In this case, the blog post will include a number of businesses including yours.
For sponsored blog posts, you can offer a fixed compensation for each post. You can also sweeten the deal with something extra.
Say, if you want them to promote your gym, you can offer them a 3-month free membership.
Points to remember:
- When you collaborate with bloggers, choose someone who resonates with your brand's values and aesthetics.
- Make sure that the proposed collaboration is relevant to the influencer. If you’re a fast-food chain, collaborating with a fashion blogger will certainly not make any sense.
- Make a generous offer.
- Writing a blog post takes time so don’t expect an immediate turnaround.
- Send them high-resolution images that they can use to promote your products or services.
- You can also provide them with a custom discount code to include in their post which can help to drive sales.
4. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a uniquely effective way of collaborating with influencers to promote your brand.
In this strategy, you need to identify a set of influencers who own blogs or websites that have a high Domain Authority. Make sure that they belong to your niche.
Next, reach out to them to check if they accept guest blog posts on their sites. Additionally, pitch them some ideas for guest post topics that they may be interested in.
If they agree, create some well-written, informative blog posts that they can publish on their blogs.
Also, include a link back to your website that doesn’t look spammy or overtly promotional. This can not only expose your brand to the influencer’s target audience but also drive traffic to your site.
Bryan Harris, the founder of VideoFruit, shared his experience with guest blogging in a post.
Within two days of his guest post on OkDork being published, he got 215 new subscribers and an overall conversion rate of 12%.
He replied to every comment on the guest blog to direct readers to his website, leading to a 523% increase in traffic.
Image via OkDork
5. Takeovers
Another popular format that brands use to collaborate with Instagram influencers is a takeover.
How does this benefit your campaigns?
Instead of constantly striving to create engaging social media content, you can collaborate with an influencer to do a takeover.
A takeover is a type of influencer collaboration where the influencer takes over your brand’s account and posts content on your behalf.
Takeovers are both interesting and beneficial to the brand since influencer content is more effective than your brand-created content.
Image via Instagram
Points to remember:
- You can either invite an influencer to do a full account takeover, where the influencer gets access to your company’s account. Or you can ask the influencer to send you the caption content along with the pictures so you can post on their behalf.
- For takeovers, it is important to choose an influencer that you have worked with and the one you trust.
- Takeovers happen for a fixed timeframe, be it a day, week, or longer. This totally depends on your campaign idea and the strategy behind your influencer collaboration.
6. Brand Ambassadors
Many brands are taking influencer collaborations to the next level by asking their trusted influencers to become brand ambassadors.
What do brand ambassadors do?
Brand ambassadors use the brand’s products on an ongoing basis and continually promote them online.
As a brand ambassador, the influencer shares posts about their day-to-day experiences of using the brand’s products.
They could also represent the brand at local events and share freebies with attendees.
Image via Instagram
Brands are making their trusted influencers the “faces of their company” for enhanced promotions.
However, there are a few points you should consider while establishing a brand ambassador relationship with an influencer:
- Suggest a brand ambassador relationship to any influencer only after you have had a successful influencer collaboration with them.
- Ensure that the influencer’s beliefs match your brand's values and aesthetics and they are ready to work with you on an ongoing basis. For a detailed background check, you can use Heepsy. For each influencer on their platform, they provide a detailed influencer report.
- Develop clear guidelines and expectations to avoid any confusion or arguments later.
- Carefully lay out a proper plan for both online and offline promotions and practice regular communications with each other.
- Send them the brand merchandise regularly, including free samples to share at local events or through social media platforms.
- Sending influencers to popular events can be a great move for brand promotions.
- Provide them a custom discount code to put it up on their social media platforms and channels.
Clear collaboration guidelines can help to build a smoother, healthier, and more beneficial brand ambassador relationship.
Some Dos and Don’ts for Influencer Collaborations:
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- Figure out a list of influencers who can help you grow your brand. Don’t just go by a huge following. Make sure you reach out to relevant influencers in your niche. As mentioned earlier, you can leverage platforms like Heepsy to make the influencer discovery process simpler.
- Don’t just send an email pitch directly. Focus on interacting with the influencer and building a connection with them. Establishing real connections with influencers will provide long-term benefits to your brand.
- While writing an email pitch, add a personal touch. Use their first name. Refer to their past work and show your appreciation of them. Also, keep it concise, short, and simple. Such emails work best.
- Many brands make the mistake of not offering adequate compensation to influencers. You need to offer fair compensation – this shows how much you value their efforts. The compensation would depend on your influencer’s follower count, overall reach, engagement, the number of posts, turnaround time, the complexity of the campaign, and the sales they drive.
- Be specific about brand guidelines and let the influencer know what you expect from them.
- Influencers value creative freedom. According to studies by TapInfluence and Crowdtap, influencers are more likely to partner with a brand that offers creative freedom. You should not put too many restrictions or strict editorial guidelines while working with influencers. Creative freedom ensures that their audiences can relate to the posts they create for your brand. And this will drive greater engagement.
- Don’t rush. Provide your influencers with adequate time to create the marketing campaign content. However, do have deadlines in place and communicate them clearly.
- Create an influencer collaboration agreement. It should provide the answers to who owns content rights, what are the expectations from the collaboration, and so on.
- Don’t expect an influencer collaboration to boost your sales overnight. Successful influencer collaborations take time to increase engagement and improve sales.
FAQs
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- Q1. What is an influencer collaboration?A. A brand-influencer collaboration is one where brands provide some incentives to influencers to create and post content for them.This could be a product review, recommendation, promotion, or simply a brand mention.
- Q2. How do you collaborate with an influencer?A. You can reach out to relevant influencers in your niche and ask them if they might be interested in partnering with your brand.
- If they agree, you need to set some payment terms and negotiate a contract to formalize the partnership.
- Always remember that collaborations should be mutually beneficial and you should nurture your influencer relationships even after the collaboration.
- Q3. Which brands work with influencers?
- A. Any brand that wants to get more from social media marketing can partner with influencers to boost their performance.
- Influencers can help you reach more people on social media and get them to try your products or services.
- Q4. Why do people collaborate with influencers?
- A. Brands collaborate with influencers to reach a new target audience, create brand awareness, generate leads, and achieve many other marketing goals.
- Influencers usually have loyal followers who trust their recommendations. So, if an influencer recommends your products, you can likely get some people to try them and even make a purchase.
- Moreover, a positive review from an influencer can significantly improve your brand image and credibility. So, influencer marketing is a great way to build your reputation.
- Q5. How should I approach an influencer for collaboration?
- A. You can first check their profile and see if they have mentioned ways to reach out to them. Most social media influencers mention the right channel and times to contact them in their bio.
- If not, you can directly try reaching them via social media messaging or email (if you have that information).
- Q6. How should I collaborate with influencers on Instagram?
- A. You can collaborate with influencers in numerous ways. The first and most common way is to pay them to create a sponsored social media post about your brand or product.
- You can also pay them or give them free products for review. Hosting live influencer interviews or Instagram account takeovers are also great ways to collaborate with influencers on Instagram.
- Q7. How should I email an influencer for collaboration?
- A. When you send an email to an influencer, make sure that you first introduce yourself. Then you can tell them that you appreciate their work and tell them why you like it.
- You can then go ahead and make your pitch. Be sure to include why you think it is a good idea for them to work with you.
- Also, do mention what is in it for them or what you are willing to pay and what you expect from them.
- Keep the channel of conversation open and ask them to feel free to ask any questions and give them the means to discuss this further.
- Q8. How much do influencers get for collaborations?
- A. There is no fixed formula for determining influencer compensation and it differs from brand to brand. Influencers can get anywhere from a few dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars per post.
- It ultimately depends on how popular the influencer is and how much they can benefit a brand.
- Determining an influencer’s potential is subjective and each brand can use different metrics to do so.
Ready to Get Started With Influencer Collabs?
Influencer collaborations can bring valuable rewards to your business. With meaningful collaborations, you can boost your brand’s exposure, build trust in your brand, and drive greater sales.
- Now that you are aware of the most effective types of influencer collaborations, go ahead and put them to use. Are there other types of influencer collaborations that you think are effective? If so, please share them in the comments section below. I look forward to reading more suggestions from you.
