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Influencer collaboration has some absolutely incredible benefits, and when done right, it can really turn your business around and help you find an exciting new direction.
Neil Patrick Harris is launching a lifestyle newsletter, so what did he do?
Influencer Marketing!
i.e. Source of influence found ( https://t.co/7x5fEapQ4H ) reached the target audience & co-created/marketed with them. pic.twitter.com/TfU2Ugh9Hm
– Rand Fishkin (@randfish) October 15, 2021
But it’s not easy either.
Sure, you can hop on some influencer marketing platform and connect with everyone there. But this approach is extremely limited.
Like with any other marketing tactic, there’s a vicious circle involved: If it’s easy, it doesn’t work.
In fact, your most valuable influencers are the ones most difficult to collaborate with. They were successful and extremely busy. In their eyes, your brand is just another business trying to monetize them.
These influencers don’t have time to join any special platforms that connect them to businesses because they have no shortage of businesses advertising their products for them.
To get top-rated influencers to collaborate, you’ll need some creative approaches and conversation starters. Here are a few ideas:
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1. Find common connections
So that you know exactly who you’d like to work with to promote your project. You’ve emailed, followed, and even sent public messages tagging the influencer. No reply o. Or maybe there’s a quick answer that says it’s not the right time.
In either case, trying the same approach doesn’t make sense. This is a good time to check if you have any generic connections that might help.
Nothing is more effective than a personal introduction even in our globalized virtual world of relationships.
In my previous post about influencer marketing tools I mentioned how Linkedin can be a useful tool for identifying common first and second level connections.
However, Linkedin will not work for any niche or any influencers. Twitter is a better option that will work for everyone. Twitter will show your general connections (if you have one) when you visit an influencer’s profile:
While this is a good indicator that your influencer and you have a lot in common, it is the people you follow that also follow the influencer. These are not mutual connections.
You can click through the “Following” link on your influencer’s profile and find out for yourself which of those people also follow you:
But what if you don’t really have any common connections?. What if your business is new and your Twitter is not well connected to have in common with influencers?.
This is where you can use a tool called Twiangulate identify mutual friends of any two Twitter accounts.
- Check if your friends have any connection with that influencer connection
- Find common followers of two competing businesses
Now all you need is a quick introduction from a friend or his/her help to make a common connection.
2. Follow their blog and social media profiles
Another great trick to get an influencer’s attention to collaborate is fashionable message:
- Congratulations on their career change or new project launch
- Offer to help promote their new product
- Provide feedback on their website redesign
- Post a review of their newly published book, etc.
When such things happen, you are bound to be in the sights of your influencers.
How to schedule your emails or posts well?
Set up a tool called Visualization to track changes to an influencer’s About or Home page. Visual Ping lets you choose an area of any page to follow, so you can even follow your influencer’s profile on Twitter or Instagram:
You can choose how you want to be notified: Via email, text, and/or Slack. I recommend choosing email and use for Gmail because it conveniently stores automatic notifications in a separate folder, so you’ll only see them once. Help avoid clutter! Here is a detailed overview about the tool’s features and capabilities.
3. Rate for their Brand or Product Name
Finally, a great way to become your influencers’ best friends is to send traffic to them: Interview them or review their products. Ranking a page for a branded query is quite feasible as the competition is usually manageable.
All you need to do is create content with your influencer’s name in the title tag and in the post. You need to give it some time to rank, and you will at least need to submit some links from your own site.
When creating content for an influencer-driven page, try running their name through Text Optimizer will suggest concepts that Google is associating with that name:
Another solid advantage of this tactic is that you will associate your website with a well-known niche entity that will help Google identify you as a brand. Google is using lots of ranking signals , so this is just one piece of a big puzzle. However, everything is useful!
Once your page ranks on Google, chances are your influencer will reach out, or you can use it as a conversation starter.
Pro Tip: Engage Your Influencer!
Good influencers are hard to find, so make the best of the connections you manage to build!
One of the most effective ways to keep your influencers motivated is to invite them to join join your affiliate program especially if you manage it!
You should consider an affiliate and/or influencer marketing program as part of your community building strategy. Getting your influencers on board is not enough. You need to get them to love your product and this is where your relationship management efforts will come in handy.
Set up a Facebook group to keep your affiliates connected with your brand and with each other. Set up a separate website where you can integrate a ticketing system, a discussion board, and even a private blog to keep your affiliates up to date with company news.
A lot of brands consider their affiliate/influencer program completely separate from their main industry. SEMrush just an example.
This gives you more freedom about how you want to collaborate with your newly acquired promoters:
You get it!
It is difficult to build some connections but any connection is worth the effort. In my experience, the strongest partnerships arise from multiple touchpoints here and there, and the most valuable connections always take some work. Good luck!
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