An ever-increasing number of businesses are taking a chance with new and modern advertising strategies to improve the impression of their campaigns, the effectiveness of their messages, and increase brand awareness.

One of these strategies which have seen a great deal of achievement is influencer marketing, or in other words, the act of brands teaming up with web-based social networking influencers.

Influencers are so significant nowadays that brands are collaborating with them to humanize their messages and offer their products with their followers since these profiles are appreciated by hundreds, thousands, and even a large number of online users. People tend to listen to someone they trust. Would you rather enroll in language courses promoted by your favorite YouTube blogger or by Facebook Ads?

Sometimes influencers are smoothly turned into brand ambassadors, and that’s where the interesting part begins. First, let’s begin with this:

What is a brand ambassador?

A brand ambassador is someone who is paid to not only talk positively about the brand but to embody the brand they are endorsing. Good examples of famous brand ambassadors could be Gigi Hadid who is the Global Brand Ambassador and the face of Tommy Hilfiger’s womenswear or George Clooney who has been the brand ambassador for Omega for many years now and has chosen to endorse only international brands to avoid oversaturation in the US.

So, what does a good brand ambassador look like?

How should they act?  

Companies need ambassadors to reach as many people as possible, across a variety of channels and platforms. Presently, this does not mean an ambassador must have 20,000 Instagram followers or thousands of email contacts to represent your brand. But they should have a well-established online presence and a highly-engaged network that they can access via their blog, emails for example. 

Ambassadors are not salespeople who are trying to make as many one-time sales as possible. They exist to bring up strong, loyal relationships between your customers and your brand. Your ambassadors should not only be passionate about your products or services, but they should also be skilled at making deep connections with others on your behalf.

How to turn influencers into brand ambassadors in 4 steps?

1. Build a good connection

The primary step in making an awesome relationship with an influencer is establishing personal affinity. Once you come across somebody that you simply think would be an extraordinary fit for your brand, reach out to them to create a connection- you can tell compliments to their photography or recent blog post they just wrote that resonated with you.

They will appreciate that you just took the time to learn about them and send a personalized message. That is no doubt that it will show them you are interested in what they are doing. From there, you can begin to introduce your brand and kindly ask them to try out your brand or services. It would be great if you could also invite them to upcoming events. 

2. Do not forget to provide them with sneak peeks

An essential way to show influencers that you simply need to work with them for the long term is to clue them into upcoming news and events. Allow them to get involved in your new product launches, invite them to try new offerings before it hits the shelves, or hosts them for a private tasting of new menu items. If you can include them on important occasions for your brand, this would make them feel as they are part of an elite group.

3. Choose those who have a professional mindset

Does the influencer respect deadlines without reminders? If yes congratulations! You are in the right way!

This point is all about good communication but includes the factor of trust and maturity. When you are supervising brand ambassadors remotely, you need to be sure that they will perform without micro-management. Can you rely on your ambassador to follow your agreed-upon calendar and post on deadline without follow-up from your staff?

If you believe that they include your hashtags, Instagram handles, and website or product links without any reminder, you would be successful in choosing that brand ambassador. A creative mind and perfect brand arrangement are one of the most essential things when you are engaging an influencer to represent your brand. You also want to be sure that the campaign will progress without overwhelming administration and regular content checking from your team.

4. Accept and value their opinions 

Last but not least, one of the key points to turn an influencer into a brand ambassador is to ask for their feedback on your brand. Motivating them to share their honest opinions on services or products, you make them feel they are important in sharing your brand. Additionally, it will not only show them that you value their input but hearing direct feedback from bloggers and influencers that reach your target audience is beneficial for your brand and can inform your plans and business developments.

Feel free to register on Keepface as a Brand to discover thousands of influencers worldwide for your product and services.

An essential step in any influencer marketing campaign is appropriate and effective outreach. Influencer outreach is essential in running a successful campaign, so avoid the following common mistakes:

1. Reaching out through the wrong platform

It is important to reach out to potential influencer partners on the right channel – the best contact method is often simply through email. Though social media is the popular choice for other types of communication, email is more demanding of response and makes the conversation easier to track and reference later. Social media can be cluttered for this kind of business conversation, but useful for sending a message pre-pitch to ask how best to get in touch about your idea. It is also always safe to go through the business account, not personal accounts.

2. Not having clear campaign objectives

Establishing your campaign objectives is essential in building the foundation for the rest of the project. Depending on what you hope to gain specifically from this campaign, you will need to use the appropriate channel (i.e. social media platform) and at the same time the right influencer.

A social media influencer will have their own personal strengths, which you will need to be aware of and select them according to whether these things will help you in reaching your campaign goals. Communicate these goals with your influencers so everyone is on the same page and the campaign will be more successful.

3. Picking the wrong influencer

Having a clear list of criteria for finding the perfect influencer to head your campaign is vital, as well as knowing how these requirements are prioritized.

It is important to remember that an influencer’s number of followers isn’t everything – audience engagement is another influential factor to consider. Small, niche followings can be just as valuable as larger, mainstream audiences, even more so, if chosen and applied effectively. Daniel Hardison, a business writer at Ukwritings and Academized, says: “These things contribute to creating a presence that will drive sales and promote brand visibility.”

Thorough research and clear goals are both crucial in this stage of the process – you need to ensure your values align and that you have the same or at least overlapping audiences.

4. Writing a generic, long-winded, or just bad pitch

When it comes to writing your pitch, use personal details and specific connections between the brand and the influencer to make it more effective. Never use the same template for multiple pitches, or, even worse, send the same pitch as a mass email.

Also, remember that the pitch is just that – it isn’t your entire plan and doesn’t need to include every detail about your business, it is simply the hook. Be concise and try to get to the point quickly. Communicate the vital information clearly, the basics, and include the next step you would like to take.

Wayne Smith, a communication manager at Boomessays and Bigassignments, says: “Framing is everything: you want to pitch an offer to them, like you are doing something for them, rather than asking them to do something for you. Your pitch needs to sound like a unique opportunity that will benefit them as well as you.”

5. Taking things too personally

When it comes to getting turned down, it is important not to take things personally. The influencer could have any number of reasons for declining your offer, most of which have nothing to do with you, your brand, or even your campaign pitch. If their response is lacking in details or reasons, it may be reasonable to enquire as to why they chose to decline and whether they are giving you a hard no or just a ‘not right now’. Of course, this shouldn’t ever come across as a bitter plea, begging to know why they rejected you – instead, make sure you frame this line of questioning as constructive advice to help you with future pitches.

Finding the right influencer for your marketing campaign can make all the difference when it comes to building your brand image and audience and increasing sales. So, it is extremely important to ensure your outreach is perfect!

Brands centralize their marketing strategy on influencer marketing to reach the target customers in the fastest way. The success of your campaign heavily depends on the quality of content that generates engaging and genuine results. For an organic partnership with influencers, brands tend to seek long-term relations with their favorite influencers. The obvious benefit of long-term collaborations is that it builds trust for both influencers and brands. It generates more engagement, increased brand awareness, and higher ROI. Let’s dive deeper into how to build long-term relations with influencers, even post-campaign.

Why long-term relations are important?

One-off projects usually do not create strong results as long-living ones. The quality of posts and content also differs significantly. Influencers put a lot of effort for long-term campaigns. Working together for a long time allows influencers to better understand the values, requirements of brands and create more desired content with their creative touch.  When influencers post constantly about a specific brand, it shows their devotion to the brand which then leads to follower loyalty.

From the brand side, brands’ attitude to long-term relations also indicates how they prioritize the audience of influencers. Even in one-off projects influencers that generate higher results are a good source for your next one-off projects. The more you work together better you understand each other. Working with the same influencers reduces the time spent on influencer outreach and briefing.

Ways to run successful long-term influencer campaigns

An in-depth search of the influencer market 

The first step is to find the best influencer for your campaign. Before starting a campaign investigate a good search on the influencer market. While audience size, industry, demographics of followers are initial factors you have to check, there are other crucial things to pay attention to. Follow influencers’ social media activity, read their captions, blogs, watch their videos. Just like a true friendship, building long-term relations with influencers also takes a long time. The social issues that influencers show care and support are other measures that should be appropriate to your values. Third-parties such as agency or influencer marketing platforms are a smart and fast way for reaching out to the best ones.

Relevance of influencers

For successful long-term partnerships and genuine results, pick only relevant influencers. The relevance of influencers implies the relevance of the audience which will buy your products at the end.

Creativity is key

Often in long-term relations brands allow influencers to prove their creativity within the framework of projects. Repeating the content word-by-word sounds like the usual advertising on TV. Yes, it is important to set a campaign agenda, and rules. At the same time, influencers have to feel free to give their ideas and reveal their creativity.

Decent payment

Payment reflects how brands values influencers in real. Payment affects how they are motivated to work as your employees. Companies usually tend to send free and sample size products. The payment should be defined according to the influencer’s number of audience, location, product, the purpose, and project duration. Unequal payments also affect the length of projects.

Do not forget to thank 

Always say your sincere thanks to the influencers at the end of the campaign. You can send a hand-written letter indicating how you are pleased by working with them, some sweet gifts.

Post-campaign relations

Now, the tricky part, how to keep relations even you do not have ongoing projects? Just let them know that you do not forget about them. Send your wishes for special days of influencers, mention them in your posts or stories, invite them to your events, periodically like even comment on their social media posts. Show your support for their success and hard work. Treat them as industry experts. You can discuss what consumers need and expect from, what is missing by the brands and ask their opinion for resolution. 

Keeping all facts in mind, your goal is to gain and sustain your customers around you. Do not forget your customers while focusing too much on the influencer side.