From the Creator: 3 Tips for Brands Wanting to Work With Social Media Influencers
Tags: Influencers, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Social Media

By: Andy Burgess

Hey! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Andy Burgess and I am a Vertical Filmmaker & Storyteller. I create daily stories that are shot like short films and highlight my daily adventures as I travel around the world.

On December 30th 2016, I moved to New York City to work alongside a ton of awesome brands including Forbes, Nasdaq, & Soulpancake to create engaging and entertaining Snapchat stories. During my time collaborating with brands, I’ve managed to find the best formula for successful campaigns. So, here are my top three tips for brands wanting to work with influencers.

Finding the right Influencer

There are thousands of influential people creating content online and it’s important you find the right person for your influencer marketing campaign. Sure, if you have the budget you could hire an A-list influencer with 10 million+ followers and get them to share a post about the product you’re trying to sell, but do they actually endorse or use it themselves?

In a 2017, people switch off when they are being sold something. They know what a sponsored post or tailored ad looks like. Just like commercials on TV, people phase them out and ignore the brand’s placement. It’s the same or in fact even more noticeable when someone of influence is promoting a random product that has nothing to do with their content or personal brand.

It’s vital to find an influencer whose values fall in line with your brand or product. It will make the collaboration process easier, their content will be authentic, and their audience trust their recommendations (and are this more likely to convert and check out your product $$$).

Compromise

Once you have found the right influencer for your campaign, it’s then time to discuss how they deliver your product to their audience. I’ve been fortunate to work with brands that appreciate my style of storytelling and are comfortable enough to trust my judgment on how best to tell a story. This flexibility will only make the final campaign better, you hired this influencer because your views are aligned but also you know the quality of their content. It’s important to give them that creative control and not have too many cooks in the kitchen!

It should be a balanced process for both parties, as the brand you will have a overarching goal you want to achieve and specific points you may want the influencer to share with their audience a hashtag, link, etc. It’s great to bounce multiple ideas, but you should let the influencer have a large input into how they share your message with their audience. After all, there is no one who knows their audience better and how to communicate with them in an authentic way than the creator him/herself.

Bring Value

Being an influencer means that you can influence a large amount of people and they look to you for your opinion and trust what you have to say. The most successful influencer marketing campaigns occur when the influencer is honest with their audience and tells them directly that this is an ad for ‘X’ brand.

As a creator, if I align myself with the right brand, then my audience will be accepting of this. Additionally, if I can bring my audience value by offering a free trial or giveaway, this lends to a sustainable relationship between myself, my audience, and the brand.