Marketing experts are turning to the online influencers to launch, boost and spread word-of-mouth about their products and services. Influencer marketing is the new way to reach not only a target audience, but expand beyond the loyal clients that already exist. Finding the right influencers and pitching to them is a fine-tuned game of toss and catch. Both parties need to feel satisfied at the end of the marketing campaign. Check out these 5 tips to help you optimize your influencer marketing campaign:
1. Look for influencers high and low
Of course it’s important to find influencers in your niche market, but it’s also ok to find some that think outside of the box. This gives you the chance to not only win over a new customer, but win over that customer’s entire online network. Remember that the size of the influencer’s network doesn’t always correlate to their reach, so don’t rule out influencers with smaller networks.
2. Read and interact with their blogs and other social media accounts
It’s important to create a relationship with your influencers from the start. They want to feel part of something big and you want them to feel valued. Make sure to comment, like and get conversations started on their various online networks. Get to know who they are, what they like and how they reach out to their audience.
3. Value and reward influencers
Once the influencers are kind enough to promote your product in service it’s so important to show them that you appreciate and value them. Everyone likes to feel special and part of a community and influencers are no exception. Always have a reward system in play where they can win a variety of prizes and rewards for their efforts. They’ll most likely post about how excited they are about their reward, which in turn, is a reward for your business as well.
4. Never underestimate the power of “thank you”
Along with the rewards that they should obviously get for their hard work, the not always obvious is a personal thank you. Creating a cool graphic or gif that thanks your social media influencers is a cool way to say you appreciate what they’ve done for you. Share the post on your networks and tag them or share directly to them if you have that ability. Make sure they know that they are more than just part of your marketing strategy, that in fact, you couldn’t do it without them.
5. Give it time, see what works and repeat best practices.
It takes time and trial and error to reach the right influencers, begin to interact with them and eventually establish an online professional relationship with them where they trust and value you. Be patient with the process. The internet gives us a quick way to reach out to people, but it takes time to understand the thin line between being too pushy and not trying hard enough. In order to be successful, you’ll have to devote as much effort into your influencers as your clients.
As they say if you fail, try and try again. Once you’ve mastered the art of reaching out to the social media influencers that help you, success will be just around the corner.
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