When Ideabar client Taos Bakes asked us to create a social influencer campaign, we pulled together our strategists with team members well-versed in all things social media. During the process, we identified eight tips for working with social influencers.
1. Define the campaign goals.
This is a crucial first step to any influencer campaign. Work closely with your team and your client to outline the intentions of the campaign to set expectations, provide clear direction for the team and set benchmarks that can be reviewed and compared against.
2. Find influencers who are right for your brand.
Now that you’ve defined the campaign goals, find influencers related to your industry that share your audience. Defining your budget and audience will determine both your influencer type (mega, macro, micro, nano, etc.) and platform (bloggers, YouTubers, podcasters or Instagrammers). For Taos Bakes, broadcaster Erin Andrews and Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman were the perfect fit. Not only do they have a combined following of more than 1.6 million, but their affinity for the brand, paired with their shared interest in healthy eating and wholesome ingredients made for a recipe for success.
3. Create content guidelines.
Once the influencers representing the brand are nailed down, the next step is creating detailed content guidelines for the influencers to follow. Content Guideline decks should be the guiding light for all content creation and should address:
- High-level brand strategy for the campaign
- Post mandatories such as hashtag and tagging requirements, guidelines for utilizing branded content tools, must-have promo codes, CTAs, etc.
- Communication do’s and don’ts
- Visual inspiration
Then it’s time to brief in the team (including the influencers), address questions and align on content expectations for the campaign.
4. Outline a content calendar.
Content calendars are crucial for any social media campaign. They serve as the framework for when the influencers should share and promote their posts across marketing channels. They also allow you to organize your efforts in a visual way that’s easy to follow. A social media calendar should take into consideration national holidays, brand sales, trends in engagement based on platform, and posting cadence for each of your influencers.
5. Curate social content.
Content curation for social influencers varies based on the campaign goals and influencer needs. Erin Andrews and Troy Aikman, for example, requested we create the posts and captions for them to best serve Taos Bakes. While it is important to work closely with the influencers to emulate their voice, this is the time to explore your creativity and curate original, engaging content.
6. Measure success and revise accordingly.
At this point, you’ve strategically planned the behind-the-scenes details of the campaign and prepared your client and influencers for campaign launch. As posts are pushed live and the campaign progresses, take note of the campaign metrics with weekly reports. For Taos Bakes’ social influencer campaign, we reported on unique reach, impressions, clicks, CTR, spend, sales, revenue, ROAS and add to carts. We then worked as an agency to analyze the data and understand the campaign performance more holistically to provide recommendations for future posts. By understanding campaign performance after each post and asking the right questions, you may also begin to see trends with post engagement that will inform next steps. Stay curious throughout the process.
7. Be flexible.
Influencers are people, too, and collaboration is key for any successful influencer campaign. Be open to working with the client and influencer to confirm content guidelines are followed and expectations are met. Understand that despite a thoughtfully curated post, caption or content calendar, influencers have their own lives and opinions that may take precedence over the original plan.
8. Have fun!
Above all, have fun with your social influencer campaign. Engage with the posts on your own social channels and take advantage of the unique opportunity to work with influential content creators and brands that excite you! Explore your creativity, learn from your mistakes and enjoy yourself!