We’re often asked by influencers what brands are looking for. What kinds of influencers do they like to work with? What can they do to secure more frequent and long-term work? You can read more specifically about what we’ve heard from brands lately in this blog post, but with brands increasing their budgets in influencer marketing, they’re being tasked with finding the best ways to maximize these partnerships and justify ROI.
We believe the key to being viewed as a reliable influencer is all about being a good partner. This starts with treating your blog like the business that it is! Successful businesses stay on top of trends in their industry and make sure they’re aware of new things going on in their space. This doesn’t mean jumping on every band-wagon trend, but instead taking the time to understand the trends and then evaluate if they make sense for your business.
There’s a lot of chatter in the influencer space about the pros and cons of having a business account for Instagram. While some people believe this decreases your reach and engagement on the platform, there haven’t been any studies to confirm this. We understand the concerns with this, but since Facebook and Instagram are owned by the same company, there are quite a few benefits to having a business account on Instagram: 1) It allows you to see some more in-depth analytics on the performance of your posts {link clicks, profile visits, etc}. 2) It gives you the ability to link out to content in Instagram Stories, enabling the “swipe up” feature, which brands are loving right now. 3) It allows brands to view the success of your content via the Branded Content Tool.
The last point might be the most important; by tagging the brand using the Handshake tool, they’re able to see the performance of the piece of content and given the ability to put money behind the piece of content and run it as an ad. As brands spend more money in this space, they’re looking to give the pieces of content they’re investing in the biggest bang for their buck. This means doing things like using them across multiple platforms and running ads using your content {helps them create more content-driven vs. sales-driven content!}. When brands work with influencers who are not utilizing these features, it can cause some hesitation about working together and making the investment because they won’t be able to maximize the reach of the partnership.
The Branded Content Tool isn’t the only way to position yourself as a sophisticated business! Here are a few more quick tips to make sure you have your ducks in a row when working with brands:
- Have a media kit at the ready!
- Know your rates. What’s your idea rate for a partnership? Have a reach rate and a drop-dead low rate {one you’d only accept for a brand you absolutely love and want to work with}
- Be flexible. Suggest alternative ways of working together to hit the budget and give ideas that deliver on the goals the brand is trying to achieve {don’t be afraid to ask what budget they’re trying to stay within}
- Be timely with your email responses and clarify deadlines
- Be prepared to answer questions about what content is performing best on your website and social channels
- Have audience data {both qualitative and quantitative} prepared to share
While not all trends are worth changing for, make sure you’re taking time to know your business inside and out and evaluate the potential benefits to both your business and for brands so that you’re positioning yourself as a valuable influencer partner.
Looking for a place to stay up on influencer marketing trends? Tune into our blog where we cover the latest and greatest in this ever-changing space!
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