Brittany Berger is head of content & PR at Mention, where she reads a lot and writes even more. She likes her media social, her content marketed, and her Netflix non-stop. Connect with her on Twitter at @bberg1010.
What’s left to do when you’re doing everything right–researching personas, creating great content, strategically sharing on social media–and still not seeing results?
You know the recipe’s okay, but you’re missing the magic ingredient to give everything some oomph.
As content marketers, it’s a huge struggle for us. We put tons of work into creating content we know can convert (“I did the research!”). But people need to see, read, or watch it first.
And that’s the mystical nut that’s harder to crack.
Download our influencer marketing guide to learn how to plan a campaign from start to finish!
How influencers get your content seen
Luckily, influencer marketing is excellent for increasing your content’s reach. And the better your content is, the easier it will be.
When your content is great and shareable, it’s just a matter of getting the right eyes on your content. People whose shares and mentions go a little further than anyone else’s. The influencers in your industry.
You want the right people interested in your brand. But then you run into a new problem–these are the most important people in your field. How can you make your ideas stand out?
One way is to involve them in the content itself–you’d share something you helped create, right?
And it all starts with the type of content you decide to collaborate on together, so here are some ideas to get you started.
Types of influencer marketing collaborations
1. Expert roundups
Creating one piece of content involving several influencers is like building an all-star team. The team promoting your blog post or guide could have a dozen VIPs instead of a few.
Creating one piece of content involving several influencers is like building an all-star team. Click To TweetAn expert roundup collects insights or recommendations from your industry’s most influential people. Since you’re highlighting their knowledge and making them look good, every influencer you include will want their whole audience to see it.
You can even create an influencer infographic, rounding up quotes or data from sources with high impact in your target audience.
2. Guest writing
Creating content for an influential source is another great way to reach new people. It’s what I’m doing with this post–this is an influencer collaboration about influencer collaborations. Meta, right?
You can create content for them, publish their work on your site, or do a little of both. And you don’t need to stick to swapping written blog posts. You can also offer them a video, visual content, or emails to each other’s lists (you can use an email solution like SalesHandy to manage your lists).
3. Interviews or Q&As
Interviewing influencers has benefits far beyond the content you actually get from a webinar. A personal, back-and-forth live conversation like that is pretty intimate.
It’ll be much more effective for building long-term relationships with influencers. With the amount of contact you’ll have with each other, you’ll build a real connection. With “less involved” collaborations, you might not build enough rapport for them to remember you if you email them again down the line.
4. Social media campaigns
If you and your influencers don’t have the time to create large content pieces, you can keep it simple and stick to social.
Crafting a campaign around your partnership using short-form social media content can foster engagement and grow your social reach. Use a branded hashtag, add multimedia, and get creative to drive users to engage.
5. Live events
Finally, there’s the more traditional approach of co-hosting an event. Only you can also do online stuff, too.
If you’re working with local influencers, you can hold a live event that would draw a crowd of your target audience. For example, for a clothing brand, a fashion show with another fashion brand (maybe accessories or body care) will draw a local, relevant crowd.
If you’re working with local influencers, hold a live event to draw a crowd of your target audience. Click To TweetBut there are also online events, like webinars, livestreams, AMAs, and Twitter chats. These are great because anyone can join from anywhere, plus the online nature allows the event to promote itself. As people are participating in the Twitter chats, for example, their tweets are also generating more momentum for it.
How to find influencers to collaborate with
When choosing collaboration partners to work with, you want to make sure they’re relevant to your brand, are in touch with your target audience, and influence decisions. You can use tools like Mention, BuzzSumo, and Followerwonk to find influencers based on topics they talk about.
Make it a hit
Like I said earlier, your content type lays the groundwork for the rest of your campaign. It’s the foundation, and needs to be able to support the rest of the campaign. Choose a content type that reaches the right audience, in the right place, and conveys the information easily.
Your content type lays the groundwork for the rest of your campaign. Click To TweetWhen it comes to planning the rest of your campaign–designing it, finding research, performing outreach, etc.–it’s just as important to be strategic every step of the way. And if you don’t know where to start, we’ve got you covered.
