In the age of the digital world, companies now have to set aside large percentages of their marketing budgets on outreaching and working with influencers to grow their brands online visibility. With more and more influencers on the rise, it’s becoming easier for brands to do this, however you need to ensure you’re doing it correctly. I share 5 of my tried and tested tips when it comes to working with influencers/bloggers below.
A large part of your link building strategy will be offering content to influencers in the hope of obtaining a link. The majority of bloggers will only publish self-created unique content so make sure the content you create is fun, informative and engaging, something that’s hard to resist. I suggest staying clear of infographics and focusing on interactive widgets and games.
A crucial aspect of any modern day marketing strategy is building key relationships with influencers. The objective here isn’t necessarily to obtain a link but more so to establish an on-going relationship to reach a wider audience across their blog and social media platforms for future campaigns. Let them know from the offset you are interested in a long-term relationship and briefly discuss any future campaigns you have in the pipeline that might be of interest.
This is a great alternative solution for engaging with influencers. Host an event that’s relevant to your industry, whether it’s inviting influencers to fashion week or an exhibition or perhaps organise your own event where you teach influencers about your brand and present your new collections. It’s a great way to kill two birds with one stone as you’re building relationships with influencers and personally engaging with them. Plus they’re more likely to document their experience at the event resulting in extra links.
Influencers receive tons of emails every week so make sure your content stands out by offering attractive incentives. A lot of bloggers are quite reluctant to publish blog posts on behalf of someone else, as it can be very time consuming. That’s why offering something they can benefit from such as a gift voucher, a shopping spree or a luxury item can dramatically improve your success rate. The best way to do this is in the form of a competition or giveaway.
So we discussed offering attractive incentives to bloggers, but what about their readers? Creating competitions/giveaways for blog readers is a great way to grow your brands online presence and visibility. Utilising tools such as rafflecopter ensures the competition entrée has to follow you on every social platform, as well as the bloggers social platform before entering. It’s a win win situation for both the brand and the blogger.
Featured Image: Duchess of Fashion