An Instagram influencer is someone who has built a reputation in a particular area on Instagram. They are essentially brand ambassadors for your business. Instagram influencer marketing has grown rapidly over the past few years, which has led to constant changes in what works and what doesn’t.
This includes collaboration strategies. To successfully partner with Instagram influencers, brands need to adapt quickly to market conditions. In this article, you will learn the 5 things you need to ensure before collaborating with Instagram influencers.
Collaborating with Instagram Influencers #1: Set Your Goals and The Metrics You Will Use
Before starting an Instagram collaboration, you need to identify your goals and metrics to measure success. What you want to achieve will affect which influencers are suitable to work with and how you work with them. Additionally, the metrics you choose will help you assess the success of your Instagram partnership campaign at the end of it which include brand awareness, conversions, Instagram engagement and customer retention rate.
Brand awareness is a marketing term that expresses the degree to which consumers identify a product by its name. Ideally, consumer perceptions of a brand might include positive perceptions of the qualities that differentiate a product from its competitors. Building brand awareness is a critical step in promoting a new product or revitalizing an old brand.
Conversion marketing focuses primarily on strategies to increase existing traffic conversions, rather than just trying to increase the number of visitors. Conversion marketing aligns with other online marketing strategies, including lead generation and search engine optimization (SEO), to create comprehensive campaigns for every stage of the buyer’s journey.
Instagram Engagement and Customer Retention Rate are metrics which can provide an early warning system when things go wrong, such as an unresponsive promotion. It also provides valuable information on what else you can offer your visitors or users to increase sales.
After identifying your goals and assigning your metrics, the next step is to record your current Instagram account analytics and compare them to the results at the end of the campaign.
Collaborating with Instagram Influencers #2: Choose the Right Instagram Influencer
It is important to analyse Instagram influencers before choosing which Instagram influencers to work with. Once brands have determined what kind of campaigns they want to run, the main metrics brands should consider from Instagram influencers are authenticity, consistency, reach, and engagement. However, some of the most critical criteria for choosing Instagram influencers are making sure that these influencers align with your brand’s core values and are relevant to your brand, industry and audience.
When choosing an Instagram influencer, consider the influencer’s relevance, reach, and resonance. To run your Instagram influencer campaign successfully, you need to choose an influencer who is relevant to your brand and has an audience that aligns with your target audience.
Try not to choose influencers based solely on the number of followers, as a large number of followers is not always better. A large following is trivial if those followers are not aligned with your target audience. On the other hand, the right influencer can have a very loyal following that will help you increase your Instagram engagement.
Collaborating with Instagram Influencers #3: Be Open-minded and Think Outside the Box
Thinking outside the box is not just a business cliché. This means approaching problems in innovative ways, conceptualizing them differently, and understanding where you stand in any given situation. You may find that people in other industries face many problems similar to your own, but they develop very different ways to deal with them. You’ll find new connections between your own industry and a new one, which may well be the basis for future innovative partnerships.
Instagram influencers are eager to partner with brands that offer creative freedom. When working with influencers, try not to set huge restrictions or strict editorial policies. Creative freedom is required to ensure their audience can relate to the content they create for your brand. By doing this, you’ll get better engagement. It’s best to be specific about brand guidelines and let influencers know what you expect from them without giving too many restrictions.
Brand influencer collaborations are an opportunity to be as creative as possible. Try not to follow the old strategy of building campaigns. Collaboration is the perfect way for brands and influencers to inspire their best ideas and work together to achieve new and outstanding outcomes.
Collaborating with Instagram Influencers #4: Use Scarcity Marketing Strategy
Scarcity marketing is one of the most successful tactics brands can use when working with Instagram influencers. Scarcity marketing is a technique that marketing teams use to encourage customers to buy a product or discount before it disappears. Typically, this means setting timers during sales and promotions, limiting the number of items in stock, or creating seasonal or promotional items to sell at short notice.
This is a marketing strategy based on the fact that customers are keener to buy limited items who want products or discounts that may not be available to them if they run out. Combine this strategy with a brand-Instagram influencer collaboration, as influencers can create buzz around the products they promote or create with the brand. This will enhance the results.
When the products are made by limiting the quantity of the product, it will turn the products become exclusive and this will generate more demand for them.
Collaborating with Instagram Influencers #5: Create Long-term Collaborations
Influencer marketing on Instagram has grown rapidly, which has led to changes in marketing strategies. Brands need to adapt because what was successful a few years ago may not be relevant today. For example, one-off collaborations with one or two large influencers have been successful in the past. These days, long-term influencer partnerships are more effective for both parties.
Long-term collaborations will help the brand/product to be more credible.
When an influencer repeatedly works with many different brands, their followers won’t remember any of them. Additionally, if an influencer promotes a brand at one point in time and a competitor at another, it reduces the influencer’s credibility in the eyes of their followers. As such, their advice may no longer be taken seriously by their followers in the future.
There is a big trend for followers to try out products or services that have become their favourite influencer lifestyle. This can be achieved through long-term cooperation, as they need to share frequently on Instagram, show their followers that they are using the brand’s products/services every day, and the influencer’s recommendation will be remembered by the followers.
Conclusion
Partnering with Instagram influencers offers many benefits to your business growth and is still considered the most effective way for brands to succeed in their marketing campaigns. This can be achieved by identifying some strategies before starting the campaign. Brands need to set their goals and metrics before starting, they also need to choose the right influencers, be open to new ideas, apply scarcity marketing strategies, and arrange long-term collaborations to win in their influencer marketing campaigns.
The KOC Live has been founded in Malaysia in 2021, we have been aiming to help our clients to reach out to their targeted audience within their social media platform and attempted to assist in influencing purchasing decisions of consumers.
We have always tried to ensure our clients in achieving their business goals and are passionate about connecting brands to the right audience and consumers. We understand that currently, businesses are struggling with their business by not being able to reach their target audience, especially now that everything is turning remote. We hope that we can help our clients in bringing the best to the world.
