10 Yetis Insight Blog: 6 Ways To Work With Influencers

Influencer marketing is fast becoming one of the best ways to increase interaction and engagement with your brand and your products.

First and foremost you need to identify your key influencers – they need to be relevant to what your company does, they need to have a good following who would be interested in your product/brand, and you want to work with someone who is going to genuinely enjoy using your products, and portray this to their engaged audiences and followers.

Once you’ve identified your key influencers, you’ll need to build a relationship with them. You can just email them and get straight to the point, but using social media to begin discussions, generating their interest and putting your brand in their mind is a good place to start.

The ways in which you can work with influencers vary greatly, but they all have the potential to work wonders for you and your product/brand. Just ensure that when you begin working together that you may it clear what you’re hoping for / expecting in return so you don’t find yourself disappointed (particularly if money is exchanging hands).

Here’s an idea of the different ways you can work with influencers…

Gift them products

If you think that they might genuinely be interested in your product, you can always send them one to try – there’s no guarantee here that you’re going to get a mention on social media or on their blogs, but if they enjoy the product they’re highly likely to talk about it. And, most bloggers will appreciate the sentiment and publicly want to thank you for sending them a freebie with no expectations in return.

Arrange a product review

If you want to guarantee some sort of coverage, you can discuss with them the possibility of sending through a product with the hope of them reviewing it on their sites / social media for their audience to see. Influencers have a following that trust them to be honest, and they will eat up anything that is said. Many people are more likely to trust a blogger that they regularly follow than a company that’s telling you to try their product because it’s amazing/the best/better than the rest.

When offering reviews, don’t forget to mention any key words you’d like mentioned and don’t be shy about asking for a link back to your website.

Invite them to an event

If you’re launching a new product, why not host a launch party, or if you’ve got some exciting news to shout about, why not host an event to get people together anyway? Here you can invite a number of influencers, providing a networking opportunity for them, whilst also giving them something to shout about on social media. They’ll want to thank you for inviting them to your event, they’ll probably share images of the fun night that they’re having, and if you give them a goodie bag then they’ll likely do a little brag to their followers. You may even get a blog post out of it.

Collaborate

If you decide to collaborate with an influencer, they will appear as a face for your brand/product for a short while. Whether you take them on board as a brand ambassador, or you simply team up together to create an engaging, fun video that they can share on their platforms and you can also share on yours, this is a great way to work with influencers.

Offer giveaways and competitions

The majority of influencers love to do competitions and giveaways as it keeps their audience engaged and also helps to increase their exposure in the process. You could look at the possibility of sending the influencer one or multiple products that they can then offer to their followers. This creates a desire in the followers as they’re all vying to win the product, making them want the product and increasing their chance of purchasing it if they aren’t fortunate enough to win.

Sponsored posts

If you’re wanting something a little more instantly than sending products and waiting for the influencer to trial them in order to write a review, you can discuss the possibility of paying for a sponsored post. If your product/brand fits right with the influencer and their audience, they may be willing to accept money / compensation in return for shouting about you on social media to all of their followers. This could include a mention of your social media handles, a picture and even a link back to your website.

Ultimately, what you need to remember here is that more exposure = more sales.