Are you looking to get started with influencer marketing? Want to know how to find and approach influencers who can benefit your business? Read this blog until the end.
A large percentage of marketers in 2020 work with ten or more influencers on every social media campaign they put out. Sounds outrageous! So what’s all this fuss about influencer marketing?
It’s because influencers can connect with their audiences as trusted peers. And their authenticity, knowledge, and opinions can convert people into loyal customers.
However, finding influencers that are the right fit for your brand is not easy. Today I have created a simple guide for you to help you find the right influencers for your business.
Here’s a quick summary:
- Set Goals
- Know Your Audience.
- Be direct and respectful
- Follow up
1. Set goals
Without setting goals in place, it’s unclear what you’re trying to achieve with your influencer marketing campaign. Just like you’d plan upcoming content for your blog, you want to plan a conversion strategy for this, too.
Some common goals with influencer campaigns include:
- Building brand awareness
- Promoting products and services
- Do Your Research
- Get to Know your Influencer
- Make a Proposition
It’s best to focus on one or two at a time so you narrow your focus to reach your goals quicker. If this is your first influencer campaign, it’ll help you gauge which tactics worked and which didn’t.
It’s easier to communicate what you expect and need from your influencer if you know what you’re trying to accomplish with your campaign. It also gives you specific metrics to measure and track so you know if your campaign was a success.
2. Know Your Audiences.
Audiences are one of the three cornerstones of any influencer marketing strategy. And this is where many brands go wrong. They fail to ensure that their target audiences are the ones following a particular influencer. This is why knowing your audience is the first step to find influencers for your business.
For example, let’s say you have a beauty brand. In order to sell your products, you decide to work with a beauty blogger. Do you think you’ve made the right selection?
You need to understand that not every beauty blogger has the same kind of target audience.
- Some may target millennials as their audiences.
- Others may target moms or middle-aged women.
So, what is it that you must check for?
You need to ensure that your target audiences are the same as that of your influencer’s. This is a must when you want to find influencers for your business because the right ones will ensure that your products are shown to relevant audiences.
3. Perform Hashtag Researches and Conduct Keyword Searches.
One of the best ways of finding social media influencers is by using hashtag and keyword searches.
Some influencers may not know about your business, but they may have an interest in the services or products you offer.
For you to use this method, you have to come up with words that relate to your business or the industry you are in. If you are in the food industry, you can use a term like ‘Pizza’ or ‘barbeque’ to search for influencers.
You can also use hashtags to identify influencers.
The hashtag you use must be specific. For example, if you are into selling beauty products, #beauty, #Makeup or #Makeup tips can give you good results.
You can also go through the posts that turn up and see what they are about. Then choose the best influencer to contact.
RELATED CONTENT: Inbound Marketing 101: A Step by Step Guide to Lead Generation.
4. Try to connect micro-influencers at real-life events.
Real-life events offer opportunities to link up with micro-influencers who can help in promoting small businesses.
You can find influencers at events like workshops, seminars, exhibitions and business fairs that relate to the form of business you are doing.
You do not have to look for them only on online platforms. In offline events, you can meet with micro-influencers and talk face to face. You may end up discovering micro-influencers who are in your friends’ cycle.
When you interact with these influencers in person, it will be easier for you to tell them what your business is about and what your plans are.
From there, you can see and tell if you are getting the right person to be a micro-influencer for your business.
5. Do a search for Local Bloggers.
Niche bloggers can also be a good source to get influencers. Micro bloggers can be effective if your business operates within a certain area.
This is because they engage readers in a certain geographical area. They also have a significant following which means they are micro-influencers.
You can find them by using Google search. Search the term bloggers and include your location or city name.
The results will give you a list of articles and top bloggers within your area. Including keywords will also help you get better results.
From the results that you get, go through the articles and choose the best bloggers to get in touch with.
How to Identify and Understand Your Influencer.
In order to find influencers for your business, you need to first evaluate them. Evaluation is necessary or else you may end up with the wrong influencers or even fake ones.
Below are the parameters that you must evaluate when finding influencers for your business.
Reach
Reach simply means the total number of followers an influencer has on social media or their blogs. You need to make sure that your influencer has a decent following on the social channel where you wish to run your campaign.
It’s one of the most important things to look at when you want to find influencers for your business.
Engagement
Perhaps, even more, important than the reach, is the engagement rates of an influencer.
Why? Because it is an indication of how many of their followers are truly interested in their content.
It is essentially a measure of how much your influencer is capable of influencing their purchase decisions.
Did you know that Instagram influencers with 1K to 5K followers have greater engagement than bigger influencers?
So it is not about the number of followers but the engagement they are generating on their platforms.
Authenticity
If an influencer’s recommendations sound authentic, only then will their follower’s trust and follow them.
Their posts (especially any brand-sponsored content) shouldn’t look like something they’re talking about only because they’ve been paid to.
Personality
Find influencers whose personality and style align with your messaging and brand values.
Such resonance will make the content truly appealing and relevant to your target audiences.
Niche
When you’re looking to find influencers for your business, you need to see whose niche aligns with your business, products, or industry.
For example, if you develop tech gadgets, find influencers from the technology niche.
Relevance is key when it comes to deciding the fate of your influencer campaigns.
What tools can you use to Search for influencers?
It is hectic and time consuming to search for micro-influencers manually. Manual searchers will not give you important statistics like reply ratio, retweets or likes. Using third-party tools like:
- iFluenz – one of the most useful tools, this is a platform that links the +25’000 registered influencers worldwide to brands and the fact that it is free to create a campaign. Just try it and you will feel all the benefits.
- BuzzSumo – It is not a free tool, you have to buy but it is worth every penny. The tool enables you to search for influencers using keywords. You can view stats like the number of followers and Retweets on the results page. You can also use BuzzSumo to find trending topics that can help you with your marketing effort.
- Influence.co – This is a free tool that can help you find potential influencers for free. You can search using usernames or categories which you can filter further until you get the influencers you like.
These tools will make it easy for you to get influencers to work with. They will help you get accurate feedback and help to save time that you can use for other marketing activities.
After Finding the Right Influencers, What Next??
Create a Compelling Proposal
Once you have put yourself on your influencer’s radar, it’s time to send them a winning proposal. Here’s what you need to mention in it:
- Who you are and how you came to know about them.
- Why you are reaching out.
- What you can offer in return.
- How they can take the conversation forward.
There’s no need to go into the specifics of what you can offer. However, you need to make your offer sound lucrative enough to increase your chances of getting a response.
After all, it is one thing to find influencers for your business and a completely different thing to get them to collaborate with you.
You can talk about how relevant the opportunity could be or refer to some of your past successful collaborations.
Don’t forget to mention a clear call-to-action in your email. You can ask them to reply with a suitable time for a detailed discussion, for example.
Follow Up
Since they get a large number of messages, it’s possible that your email may go unnoticed by influencers. So wait for a couple of days and send a follow-up email if you still don’t hear from them.
Send at least a couple of follow-ups before you move on.
That is just about it. Was this helpful?
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If you need any help finding the right influencers, contact us on 0725544155 or Look at our WEBSITE For more Digital Marketing Services.
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