Marketers across industries and niches agree on how important influencer marketing is for their overall marketing campaigns. Most brands are hiking their influencer marketing budgets to take advantage of its various benefits. In fact, brands are taking great pains to hire influencers that suit their brand identity.

It is on Instagram where most influencer marketing takes place. No wonder Instagram influencers are so sought after. Though influencer marketing is based on the premise of the influencer using his creativity to help the brand reach its business goals, what also matters is the mutually beneficial relationship between the brand and the influencer. This means that the influencer and the brand should cross-promote their content, especially if the influencer has a following that reflects the brand’s target audience.

Getting your influencers to share brand-generated content

Create quality content

This may look obvious, but you’ll be surprised to know how many brands don’t get it right. To keep your audience interested in your brand, you will have to keep producing high-quality visual content that is useful and engaging. Especially for Instagram, you have to create engaging content that people will stop, notice, and interact with.

Comment on their posts

Comments help you commence the interaction with the influencer. It shows that you appreciate their efforts and that their content is interesting enough for brands to comment on. You can comment on any of their posts, even if it is not directly related to your niche. The start of a working relationship with the influencer is what matters the most.

Share their posts

Once you have developed a rapport with your influencer via comments, the next step would be to share their posts on your social handles as well. This will draw their attention towards you for enhanced communication that may yield mutual benefits later on.

Quote/Tag them in your posts

An alternative way to attract the influencer’s attention is by mentioning them in your posts- you could simply tag them or even interview them on a topic that would interest all your followers.

Influencers who get such free publicity are more likely to return the favor as and when needed.

Invite them to write guest posts

Creating content is not easy, especially on social media where you are expected to post often. Getting your influencer to write a guest post helps your target audience see the brand in a different light- especially from their standpoint. You can decide with your influencer on what topic you aim to write the guest post, what its format would be, and what aspects it would cover. After all, your influencer knows what will interest their followers.

Simply ask them to share your content

Finally, when you have built a rapport with your influencer, just asking them to share your content will do the trick. By this time, he would be familiar with your brand. He would know what your brand brings to the table. At the end of the day, you are building a meaningful relationship with the influencer, one that will be mutually beneficial for both.

Finding influencers who would share your content

Through an influencer marketplace

With almost everyone on social media, choosing the right influencer could be challenging. What many people do is use influencer marketplaces to help them choose an influencer that suits their brand’s identity. These marketplaces help to negotiate terms on both ends for a mutually beneficial relationship for both the influencer and the brand.

Through hashtags

Here, you search for hashtags related to your business. For example, if you are a pizzeria in New York City, you can search for influencers who have hashtagged #pizzaNYC, #pizzainNYC, or #pizza. Though this is a tedious and time-consuming method, it can help you find the right influencer. Usually, you can do this if you operate within a narrow niche.

Through followers of niche influencers

If you are working in a small niche, you can choose an influencer that follows another influencer within that niche. Though this is also a time-consuming method, you can get great results if you persevere.

Through your competitor’s influencers

This is easy- you check out your competitor’s posts and see which influencers work for them. Though you could convert your competitor’s influencers to work for you, an easier method would be to find influencers who work with brands that have a niche similar to yours.

Sum Up

If you want to reach your business goals through influencer marketing, it is a two-way street. You have to help your influencer grow alongside the growth of your brand. After all, the first step towards higher sales numbers is brand awareness. Here is where your influencer marketing campaign would start. Getting them to share your content is one spoke in the wheel going towards your goal of brand awareness.