Social Media Influencer Marketing: 5 Steps you can take when reaching out to Influencers for your business

Influencer marketing is a big part of any social media marketing strategy.

This is a step-by-step guide any business can take to reach out and ultimately form a partnership with influencers to marketing their products or services.

But before we dive into the guide to social media influencer marketing, let’s learn:

What is Social Media Influencer Marketing?

Online influencers are the people who have gathered a large number of followers online that perceive them as experts in their field.

When businesses work these online influencers to market their products or services, it’s called influencer marketing.

There was a time when celebrities were the only influencers. But with the popularity of social media, thousands of people now have an audience that trusts them. Because of the growing number of influencers, more than 66% of North American retailers have used some kind of influencer marketing.

18% of daily Facebook users, 34% of daily Instagram users, and 29% of daily Twitter users have purchased something based on an influencer’s recommendation.

Now that we know what influencer marketing is, let’s dive into the guide to social media influencer marketing.

5-Step Guide to Social Media Influencer Marketing

Look for Relevance

Broaden your view and narrow your focus. Sponsoring with the relevant influencer is the key to social media influencer marketing. If you fail at this step, the remaining steps aren’t going to help you.

Let’s say that you sell products related to pet food. Sponsoring with a travel vlogger is not going to work even if they have millions of followers.

This does not mean we recommend ignoring the numbers. How many potential customers an influencer can provide is also important. But we are implying that working with relevant influencers who have 100k followers is far better for your brand than working with an irrelevant influencer with one million followers.

Paul Jordan is a fitness coach on Instagram whose entire fitness strategy is based on the Ketogenic diet. So if you’re a brand that sells supplements related to the Ketogenic diet, he is a perfect influencer for you.

Look for Trust

In the first step, we discussed the importance of relevance. Suppose you find a relevant influencer but if their audience doesn’t trust him/her, you’ll waste your money spent on them.

You might be wondering how this can happen. If someone has 100k followers, they must be trustworthy to their audience. Right?

That is not always true. Some people have the habit of following whoever they like on social media. This doesn’t mean they are going to consume their content daily. In fact, there are only a few people who actually have an impact on their audience.

So how can you know if their audience trusts them? The answer lies in their comment sections. These are a few questions you should ask when scrolling through their comment sections.

• How many people post thoughtful comments on their posts?
• How are those influencers replying to these comments?
• Do you sense that people see them as an authority?
• Are there people who’ve tried their methods and seen results?

Specifically, you are looking for leaders. Those leaders when they say something, people follow.

Filter out The Salesy Influencers

You don’t want to spend any money on an influencer who post too much sponsored content.

For example, the YouTube influencer Alpha M has over 6 million followers. But in almost every video, he talks about a sponsored product. Of course, he talks about relevant products but most of his followers tend to skip the ad part.

In fact, he’s notorious for having sponsored products in his video. His followers know that for sure and wait for him to start the ad so they can skip it. So look out for these kinds of influencers.

Instead, you should focus on those influencers who post sponsored content after at least 10 organic posts. That way their audience will know that if s/he is talking about your product, it’s actually worth checking out and is not another sales video.

Figure out What You Are Going to Pay

The first three steps help you figure out which influencer you should work with. In this step, we’ll guide you about what you should pay them so you don’t get ripped off.

If you’re partnering with someone like Kendell Jenner, then obviously you’ll have to pay her thousands of dollars even if it involves uploading a simple photo.

For normal influencers, you have to keep in mind the time, skills, effort, and production cost that goes in when they create your sponsored content. You can talk to previous brands who’ve worked with them to get an idea of how much money you are going to pay them. Neither over-pay nor under-pay. Pay what’s fair.

Approach them personally

You have researched about who your influencers are and what you are going to pay them. Now it’s time to approach them personally.

Approaching them personally does not mean that you have to get an appointment with them (Though it might be a good idea to arrange a meeting at a coffee shop or at a restaurant if you both are in the same town.).

You can start with a direct message. A personalized email would be much better. Let them know who you are, how much you know about their business, and how they can be the perfect fit for your brand. This will help in creating a long-term partnership with them.

Its all on you now!

Social media influencer marketing is all about finding the right influencers and communicating with them. With the 5 steps discussed above, you’ll be able to form a partnership with the right influencers for your business.

Which step do you think is the most important for influencer marketing?

Or do you want to share your experience with a sponsorship?

Either way, let us know in the comment section below!