How to Work with Influencers: 3 Game-Changing Tips to Achieve your Goals

Collaborating with an influencer can be a great way to launch a new product or service into the market, especially if you are a relatively new brand. The right influencer can help you reach a larger audience and build credibility. They can also add a level of social proof to your brand so that consumers feel more trusting about who you are and what you have to offer. However, in order to get the most from your campaigns and achieve your goals, you need to understand how to work with influencers in the most effective way.

In this post, we are going to share three of the most valuable tips that can help you up your game and create a successful campaign that gets your brand out to the right audience. 

Essentially, the following are the three most important things you need to do once you have found and hired the right influencer for your campaign.

Provide a Detailed Brief

One of the keys to understanding how to work with influencers is appreciating the importance of sharing all the information they need so that they understand what you expect from them. And that means creating a detailed brief that covers every aspect of your campaign. That way, you can avoid any potential misunderstandings further down the line and ensure that the content the influencer creates is in line with what you are hoping to achieve.

Make sure your brief covers all the following:

• A detailed explanation of who you are, what you do, and what your brand values are. Include a description of your past experience and any campaigns you have launched in the past. Also share a little information about your personality and interests so that the influencer understands what angle they should take with the content they create.
• Clear standards about what you are aiming to achieve and what your expectations are. What is your main objective? Expanding your reach? Engaging more potential customers? Directing traffic to your landing page? Promoting a product or service?
• Specific details about how you expect them to achieve your goals. What form of content do you want them to create? Which format should they use? What should the tone be? What is your call to action? 
• An outline of the metrics that you will be tracking to measure the performance of your campaign, and any specific benchmarks they should be aiming for (e.g., increase website traffic by 10%, get 1000 new followers for your brand’s social media page, etc.).
• Any additional materials that will inspire them and help them understand the look and feel of your brand. This might include mood boards, branding and style guidelines, content examples, dos & don’ts, or anything else that will guide them in the right direction.

Give Up Some Control

Another key to understanding how to work with influencers in a way that helps you achieve your goals relates to giving up control. Although it’s important to provide a detailed brief on your goals, values, mission, and expectations, you also need to allow for a degree of creative freedom. After all, this is what influencers do best. They understand their followers far better than you and they will know which tactics will work and which won’t. 

Encourage your influencer to give you as much input as possible and be flexible with your approach. Remember, it’s their personality that helps them connect with their audience, so let them express it. Plus, an influencer will probably have their own look and feel that they need to maintain in order to stay loyal to their brand and remain authentic. Always be clear about your expectations but allow them enough creative freedom to design content that they believe will best appeal to their audience. 

Track your Metrics

Finally, don’t forget the importance of identifying and measuring the right metrics to quantify the success of your campaign. These metrics should be established at the start of your collaboration (as we saw in the above section on designing an effective brief), but you also need to make sure you regularly track these metrics so that you understand how your campaign is performing and if you need to make any adjustments to boost reach or engagement. This is the most effective way to measure the impact of your influencer marketing campaign and calculate your influencer marketing ROI.

So, once you have decided which metrics are best, how can you track them? 

The best way to monitor your key performance indicators is by using reporting tools. These tools help you monitor the content your influencer is posting in real-time. You can monitor your campaign’s engagement, audience reached, and many other KPIs. You can also include pricing information to see how metrics like cost per click (CPC) and cost per mille impressions (CPM) evolve over time. You can then feed these insights back to your influencer so that you are both working towards the same objective. This will help you create a successful campaign that helps you build a solid and reputable brand.