About 60% of marketers work with influencers to improve customer reach. But why do they need an influencer’s help? According to research, people buy products when a friendly face recommends them. For instance, it may be a YouTuber you follow or a fashion blogger you like to listen to in your free time.
Since influencers are admired by their followers, they help convert fans into loyal customers for a specific product. However, choosing the right influencer is challenging as you must find the ones who can use your product in their daily routines so the collaboration looks natural. An influencer finding agency or an influencer finder can help you in this regard.
1. Social Media Sponsored Content
It is the most popular type of influencer collaboration. The influencer posts content about your product on their social media accounts for a price. You outline your requirements about the content, and the influencer carries it out.
Companies commonly contract with more than one influencer to work on a single campaign. In this way, the brand gets maximum exposure and engagement. However, you must let the influencer design the posts freely as they know their audiences better. Restricted post briefs may result in ineffective results.
2. Sponsored Blog Posts
Blogs are a trusted source of information, and their owners prove as valuable influencer collaborators. In sponsored blogs, you pay the influencer to write about your product. This influencer collab has two approaches—dedicated and collective sponsored blogs.
As the name specifies, the dedicated blog posts only discuss your product. However, the influencer also writes about similar products from other brands in the collective posts.
When working with bloggers, pick the ones that understand the value of your brand and align with the products you offer. For instance, if you sell kitchen accessories, you should pick someone with a recipe or kitchen-related blog.
3. Guest Posting
Guest posting requires your company to write posts matching the style and tone of the influencer’s blog. You select a set of influencers in your niche and find out which of them do guest postings. Then you work on competitive offers for better influencer attention.
Now comes the catch. When you write the post, you add some links linking to your website. When the influencer uploads the content, you can interact with the users, answer their questions and direct them to your site.
4. Giveaways
Providing social media influencers free products is an excellent way to boost your business. The influencers review and recommend your products.
However, sometimes giveaways can also backfire. The influencer may give a bad review if they don't like the product.
Since giveaways generate tremendous brand awareness, shares, comments, and likes, it's best to work with influencers you know, so the audience gets a positive brand image.
5. Takeovers
As the name explains, you hand over your social media to an influencer for a specified period. Although it doesn’t seem exceptional, it is surprisingly effective for boosting brand credibility and customer attraction. There are two kinds of takeovers, partial and complete.
In the partial takeover, the company posts the content the influencer sends. However, the influencers access your account and post content in complete takeovers.
Choosing trustable influencers for takeover collaborations is essential, as they may make or break your brand.
The Bottom Line
Influencers hold an influence over their audience and followers; that's why they are called so. Marketers use influencer collaboration to boost brand engagement and awareness. There are numerous ways to collaborate with influencers, like sponsored social media content, takeovers, giveaways, etc.
Regardless of the form of the collab, you must pick the influencers who align with your brand values and products. So, the collaboration looks natural.
Since your brand’s image depends upon the influencer's reviews, it's best to work with influencers you already know, so working out the issues is easy.