It’s safe to say that 2018 is the year of Instagram influencer marketing. Only a few years ago influencer marketing was most utilized in blogs, then YouTube. Now, influencers are so widely known and useful that “Instagram influencer” is a common job title. Influencer marketing is successful in this digital age because people don’t want to be sold to. According to a recent article in Social Media Today, 90 percent of consumers trust peer recommendations but only 33 percent trust traditional advertisements. That same article also reported that 94 percent of marketers who use influencer marketing find it an effective practice, and influencer marketing can generate up to 11 times the return-on-investment (ROI) of traditional advertising. With statistics like these, it’s a no brainer why marketers are shifting their efforts to Instagram influencer marketing to promote their goods and services. So how do you market your brand and appeal to influencers to make them want to work with you? You can follow these simple steps to get started.
Establish Your Goals
It’s important to establish your goals BEFORE starting an Instagram influencer marketing campaign. Do you want to boost up your following? Increase brand awareness? Sell a specific product? Write down exactly what it is that you hope to get out of the campaign and how much you are willing to spend or give away to achieve that goal. You should also consider if you want to attract national influencers with large followings or micro-influencers in a niche market. . By communicating your wants and needs, you can help ensure that the influencers you are working with understand your expectations.
Provide Value
Influencer marketing is more than paying someone to post a photo or video on Instagram to promote your brand. As we stated previously, influencer marketing is successful because it feels natural to consumers and less like an advertisement. By connecting with influencers that share similar values and interests to your brand and align with your culture, you can expect that the influencer will likely want to work with you because their followers would also be interested in your brand. To provide extra value to the influencer, you can even offer them a discount code for their followers to use as part of an ambassador program.
Build Relationships
Instagram influencers are people, just like you and I. Treat them more like a friend and less like a transaction. Also, try creating long-term meaningful relationships with the influencers that you are working with. You’ll find that they may even fall in love with your brand and be an ambassador for you long after your campaign is over.
With the rise of influencer marketing, it shouldn’t be a question of “if” you are utilizing influencers for your brand, but rather “how”. If you are interested in learning more about how to market to Instagram influencers, subscribe or leave a comment below. I read every one!