“Competition makes us faster; collaboration makes us better” – Fyrefly
63% of marketers today work with ten or more influencers on every campaign. If you are one among them, Congratulations on your wise, winning decision!
But if you are not one of those wisest brands, stop right there and pick the right influencer to work with in order not to lose the game of marketing.
Wait, your job is not done just by clicking on your kind of influencer. There is yet another stone to be turned for you to make this effective strategy work and mind you, not many are even aware of this step.
Choosing the best type of influencer collaboration is the next big step to hitting a goal when you are anchoring on Influencer Marketing.
Here, we present to you the 6 most successful types of Influencer Collaborations:
- Sponsored Social Media Content
- Gifting
- Sponsored Blog Posts
- Guest Blogging
- Takeovers
- Brand Ambassadors
#1 Sponsored social media content
This type of brand collaboration with influencers renders you the influencers who can promote your brand on their social media platforms in exchange for a fee or rewards.
Sponsored social media content is the most popular type of collaboration because influencers are highly capable of winning you a large chunk of audience (who will later turn into customers) from their own niches.
In fact, Customers who prefer the word-of-mouth strategy i.e 88% of consumers place the highest level of trust in recommendations from people they know are heavily attracted to this sponsored social media content. They are prone to become loyalists who can take up the mantle from the influencers.
What do they need from you?
Influencers who nod their heads to the sponsored social media content, create the influential and right kind of content themselves and promote your brand on their social media accounts.
For this, you will have to provide them with a brief that consists of your content guidelines, marketing objectives, values, and goals. It will pave a platform for them to work on in exchange for the payment that you promise.
Popular niche
Instagram is being the most popular platform for sponsored social media content these days.
In fact, 59% of micro-influencers have reported that Instagram is the most effective social media platform to engage their followers.
#2 Gifting
Gifting the sample products of your brand is another popular type of brand collaboration with influencers. You can encourage the influencers to use your products and create content around them for your brand.
This method of collaboration works like a charm if you could pick the right kind of influencer who can use as well as promote your products in their niche.
Building a rapport:
But here’s a catch, influencers aren’t necessarily obliged to promote your products just because you have gifted them yours, unless and until you have a legally binding agreement.
Some influencers demand monetary compensation to promote your products, mere gifts and hopes can go sideways here.
Hence, building a rapport with your influencers is essential in order to grasp their expectations to make things more bright.
#3 Sponsored Blog Posts
Image source – selfproclaimedfoodie.com
Social media platforms are not the only ways where an influencer can swish his/her wand in order to grab more eyeballs toward a product.
A considerable number of people also turn towards blogs to get trustworthy recommendations. According to Trustpilot, nearly nine out of ten (89 percent) consumers worldwide make the effort to read reviews before buying products.
So, if you want to leverage the trust of consumers through influencers, a sponsored blog post is the best bet.
Two different types of sponsored blog posts:
Commonly, there are 2 different types of sponsored blog posts :
For one, you can ask for a dedicated post that revolves around your products and services. The entirety of the post focuses on your brand and may also include an exclusive discount code for purchases or a custom giveaway.
Alternatively, if you think it to be enough, you can ask the bloggers to mention your products in a round-up post, which will also give room for many other businesses apart from yours.
Sweeten up
Just a tip, when it comes to blogger collaboration with brands, bloggers are prone to sugarcoat their posts promoting your products if you care to sweeten it up a bit by giving them something extra.
Remember, go the extra mile to put a smile on your blogger’s face, it’ll be worth it.
#4 Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a uniquely effective strategy that guarantees traffic to your site in a split second (not literally though).
The same but extra drill
You should follow the same drill of catching the influencers whose values and goals resonate with yours, making sure that they belong to your niche and that they have an active domain here.
But, guest blogging requires you to reach out to “the chosen ones” conducive to finding out if they can accept guest blog posts and promote your products via posting them on their blogs.
Additionally, pitching them some ideas for guest post topics that might kindle their zeal is highly advisable.
Give the suitable influencers generous offers in order to make them nod their heads.
With all that done,
Cut the chase and create a well-put-together blog post that can paint a dazzling picture of your brand for the influencers to post on their blogs.
And most importantly, never forget to include a link back to your website. It can not only help you bring traffic to your website but can also boost your website’s SEO.
#5 Takeovers
Influencer takeover is another popular format that brands use to gain popularity using, especially, Instagram influencers.
Do takeovers benefit your campaign?
Of course. Trust us, instead of striving to create eyeball-grabbing content for your brands, letting the influencers do the job is simple yet effective.
Here, you will let your influencers create and post content for your brand on your website to attract the target audience.
This influencer-created content is proven to be more effective than your brand-created content since takeovers are interesting and beneficial. As stats have it, 60% of marketers shared that influencer-generated content performs better and drives more engagement compared to branded posts.
Time frame
Takeovers happen for a fixed timeframe, be it a day, week, or longer – it depends, constructively, on your campaign skeleton and the influencer collaboration strategy.
#6 Brand Ambassadors
By declaring an influencer as your brand ambassador, you are taking your influencer collaboration to the next level.
Your customers or influencers can be converted into your ambassadors once they have worked with you for a considerable period of time and have earned your trust.
What do the brand ambassadors do?
Brand ambassadors use the brand’s products on an ongoing basis and continually promote them online.
As a brand ambassador, the influencer shares posts about their day-to-day experiences of using the brand’s products.
They could also represent the brand at local events and share freebies with attendees.
This is one of the common ways of making the influencers “the faces of your brand.”
Kickstart your collab moped
Brands collaborating with Influencers is a silver lining, especially if your business seems to look cloudy and likely to forecast thunderstorms.
Meaningful influencer collaborations can bring valuable benefits to your brand and are completely capable of mustering loyal customers, building consumer trust, boosting the brand’s exposure, driving greater sales, and much more.
Now that you are aware of the most essential ways to collaborate with an influencer, give your business a shimmering new look by shaking hands with the right influencers.
If you still feel overwhelmed, Happine.cc can help you with your influencer campaigns from finding the right influencer to managing them. Create you campaign with Happine.cc now and kick start your success!
