Considering the overall objective of your influencer campaign is always a good way to start. Is it about generating awareness, getting people engaged with your brand or actually boosting sales? What we observed during the workshop is that some groups tend to prioritise the fun part first – scrolling Instagram for the best matching influencers for their brand, before realising that their selection might not correspond to the overall influencer campaign objective. If it’s getting consumers engaged with your brand, choosing an influencer with great content, who has low engagement rates, probably won’t work out.
Campaign creation in the making.
Giving two weeks of preparation time for an influencer campaign, especially if you’re planning to go live around a special day or around a seasonal promotion, is tough. Very tough. Consider enough time for the unexpected: re-shooting, delays in product shipping or even the actual content approval – these are all critical factors during the course of a campaign. How thought through is your brief in the end? Did you consider everything your designated influencer should think of? Keeping your influencer campaign brief straight forward and setting your expectations realistically is key to a successful collaboration.
Collabary account manager Sophie joining the group discussion.
Having hundreds of nice Instagram posts with your brand endorsement is nice to get a short-term peak in awareness but how about thinking further? Ideas discussed in the group work included choosing fewer influencers, producing three posts each, having influencers take over the brands’ account by taking them through their day to day routines, or using the produced influencer content for your website or shop (eg. include buyout rights in your campaign brief). Another idea presented by one of the groups was to not only focus on Instagram posts but include blog posts and YouTube videos in their influencer campaign strategy as well.
Last but not least, our advice to everyone joining the influencer game just now is to think outside the box! There’s no need for another 50 posts with the hashtag #sneakerlove out there. Investing some time and creative thinking in the beginning will clearly reward you in the end. Even though our groups only had one hour to come up with their creative influencer campaign concept during the workshop, the results turned out to be very well thought-through.
Keen to set up your first influencer campaign now? Start your free 30 day trial now with Collabary.