How To Build Solid and Profitable Relationships With Online Influencers

So you’re probably wondering what exactly is an influencer, right?

We could define it as a real person who already has a solid base of followers in a specific niche.

It’s usually a person with authority in their particular field and for instance, have the power to affect the purchasing decision of their audience.

Social Media is Where Most of The Engagement Happens

There are also different types of influencers: celebrities, experts in a specific subject, marketers, copywriters, and micro influencers.

There’s an interesting fact regarding the types of influencers and it’s that the content marketers and microbloggers have a more genuine engagement with the audience in the social media.

This is especially true when they make an effort to directly address the audience inquiries within the social media platforms.

Keeping that in mind, how can we build a solid relationship with an online influencer?

Figure Out The Type of Audience You Are Looking For

We must already know the target audience we want to reach depending on the nature of our service or product. Then we need to contact an influencer that best fits our specific product or service.

For example, there would be a difference between a musician and a digital marketing expert influencer.

Wait a moment, not necessarily, even a musician would benefit from a digital marketing product since they would probably want to know the best way to promote their talent, right?

So, we would need to think out of the box when trying to figure out about the specific audience we want to reach based on the specific product or service we want to offer.

Do Your Research

You must do very careful research about a specific influencer to make sure they have a real and genuine following.

This turns out to be really important since there are many websites that allow anyone to buy followers, either they are real or fake.

But, even if you buy a “flesh and blood” follower, the engagement won’t be genuine, right?

What we are looking for is a committed audience to a specific niche. Otherwise, we are going to waste our precious time in futile efforts.

Partnership Proposal

When you’re ready to speak to an influencer, you want to choose the best way to speak to each other. Thankfully, there’s plenty of remote team tools you can use that will make the whole process a lot easier.

When contacting an influencer you must make sure not to sound “spammy”, that your ultimate goal is just to get followers to buy your product no matter what.

Please, hold your horses, sir. Remember, we are talking about “relationships”. This is how marketing works nowadays.

Try to be friends first. Engage with their content by liking and commenting on valuable insights. Get them to know you in a genuine way.

Once you have interacted enough around their content, you can reach them out and let them know you find their content interesting and “support” the reasons why you think your service or product would solve a specific need of the audience.

You must also look for creative ways to make the specific influencer engage with their audience when promoting a specific product. You can offer a special discount promotion and free giveaways for their followers.

Keep in mind that when partnering with an online influencer, you must set clear expectations. It’s not always about selling, other times you might just want to grow your audience and gain brand recognition.

Once both parties have settled on an arrangement, then it’s time to walk about payment. Normally, you would pay the influencer upfront so make sure to do your due research on the influencer first to you know they deliver what they claim.

How you pay them is entirely up to you but a few ways you can pay an influencer using Paypal, Transferwise or any other payment service available online.

Till then,

Michael Flores