Branded content or working with creators, also known as influencer marketing, is an excellent way to increase your brand's reach on social media.

Almost all businesses can achieve success with this strategy with the right planning and research, but there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Here are some tips to make your social media influencer program work.


What is influencer marketing?

Influencers are people who have the power to influence others. Influencer marketing involves collaborating with influential people to market a product. Influencer marketing originated with celebrity endorsements.

However, in today's digital age, social content creators with niche audiences are often more valuable to brands. Their social media followings are dedicated and engaged.

Influencer marketing: How to create a plan

1. Identify your objectives

Influencer marketing is primarily used by brands to reach new target customers. An influencer campaign expands your reach to that individual's followers, which makes sense.

It is not the goal to make a sale right away, but rather to reach new customers. Influencer campaigns are the third most common for driving sales.

Create measurable goals and assign them to every aspect of your influencer marketing campaign, so you can measure their impact.

2. Identify the people you're trying to influence

A successful influencer marketing plan necessitates speaking to the appropriate people with the proper tools and influencers. The first step is to figure out who your target audience will be for this campaign.

Creating audience personas is an excellent technique to ensure that you know who you're attempting to target. Maybe you're seeking to reach out to a larger portion of your present audience—or a completely new one.

Create a set of influencer personalities that correspond to your decision. This will assist you in determining the attributes you seek in your influencers.

4. Take care of the 3 Rs of influence

Influence is made up of three R components: Relevance - Reach - Resonance

Relevance

Relevant influencers share material that is pertinent to your company and industry. They must have a target audience that is similar to yours.

Reach

The number of individuals you may potentially reach through an influencer's following is referred to as reach. Remember that a small audience might be effective, but you must have a large enough following to achieve your objectives.

Resonance

This is the possible level of engagement with a relevant audience that the influencer can create. To put it another way, bigger isn't necessarily better. As previously said, having a large number of followers is pointless if those followers aren't interested in your offer. Niche influencers, on the other hand, can have a large number of loyal and engaged fans.

5. Shortlist influencers that you want to work with

The key to deciding who you want to work with is trust. The opinions of the influencers you work with must be trusted and respected by your audience. Any outcomes obtained without the element of confidence will be shallow. Your efforts are unlikely to have a measurable business impact.

How can you tell if an influencer is trustworthy? Engagement. You want a lot of views, likes, comments, and shares on your video. You want to see these from the specific follower segments you're attempting to reach.

A high interaction rate indicates a loyal following, as opposed to a bloated follower count fueled by bots and fraud accounts. You need to locate someone who creates content with a similar look and feel to yours.

6. Carry out a Research 

Examine what your potential influencers are saying on social media. How frequently do they post sponsored content?

Their engagement rate may not last if they're currently bombarding followers with compensated posts. To keep followers interested, excited, and engaged, look for plenty of organic, non-paid content.

Keep this in mind as you consider what you'll ask the influencer to share. Requesting too many posts in a short time will make your offer difficult to accept, even if it comes with a hefty payment.

Influencers in high demand receive numerous offers. When approaching an influencer for the first time, you'll need to demonstrate that you've taken the effort to learn about their work.

7. Reach out to them personally!

Slowly begin communicating with a new possible companion by responding to their postings naturally. Their content is interesting. When it's appropriate, comment. Be grateful rather than trying to sell.

A direct message is a wonderful place to start when you're ready to suggest a relationship. If you can locate an email address, use it. However, do not send a mass email or DM.

8. Assist them to develop content.

A social media influencer who has worked hard to create a following will not accept a deal that appears incongruous with their brand.

Influencers, after all, are content creators. That is why they prefer the term "creator." Allowing them to demonstrate their abilities will maximize the value of their effort. Of course, providing some guidelines about what you're looking for is a smart idea. However, don't expect to direct the entire campaign.

9. Manage payments

Once you start with the campaign, the most important part is to take care of the fact that you have to pay the influencers on time. Your influencer may start demanding payment as soon as he/she winds up the campaign. In that case, working with a large number of influencers without the support of an influencer marketing agency becomes a challenging task for the marketing manager. 

But remember, you’re a marketer, not an accountant. 

You need to shift to a tool that can help you with managing your influencer payments and focus more on building the brand. Vouch is one such tool that helps you with bulk influencer payments without the need of signing up with any influencer agency.

9. Measure the outcome of the campaigns

It's easy to get caught up in vanity metrics like likes and comments when launching an influencer campaign. If your influencer has a considerably larger following than you, the sheer quantity of likes that might accumulate can be overwhelming.

You're done! Follow the steps and become a pro influencer marketing manager.