How to catch a social media influencer

Often frequenting in the untamed lands of Instagram and Facebook, the wild social media influencer is a unique breed of marketer adorned by many followers.

You can usually find them in their natural habitat, surrounded by large, big-name brand predators prowling the area and fighting off any competitors trying to snatch up the latest addition to their social media strategy.

With social media influencers so sought-after, it’s enough to make anyone wonder: how does one find and capture one?

It’s simple, really. Just follow these three steps:

1. Identify your prey

It’s important to decide on the type of influencer you want before trying to nab one (don’t take this literally. media update does not condone kidnapping). For instance, what kind of influencer will best align with your brand’s requirements?

Are you looking for a macro-influencer, micro-influencer or even … a nano-influencer?

Unfamiliar with the types of influencers out there? Take a look at the short descriptions, which should help you make your decision:

• Macro-influencer – people with over 250 000 followers (celebrities, well-known personalities, etc.)
• Micro-influencer – people with under 100 000 followers that produce content with a focussed passion, niche or topic
• Nano-influencer – a new breed of influencer that has only a few thousand followers within a well-defined sector

You can learn more about the new breed of influencer, scientifically known as ‘nano’, in our article, Five trends shaping influencer marketing in 2019.

You can feel your brand’s hunger for a new strategy. Your stomach rumbles, as you inch closer to your Koal-ity influencer.

2. Observe them in their natural habitat

The next thing you need to do is observe the nature of the influencer you’re trying to catch. Which platforms do they post on most frequently – Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube?

It’s important to make sure that you and your influencer speak to the same audience so that you know for sure that they won’t be promoting your brand’s products to the wrong demographic.

One way to do this is to manually take a look at the content of their posts and to see who engages with them, and more importantly, who they engage with.

Rather catch an influencer with only a few thousand followers but more engagements than one with millions of (and possibly fake) followers and hardly any engagements at all. You don’t want an influencer who is just purely promoting products – they’re there to make your brand seem relatable and approachable, and the only way to do that is to engage with audiences (we’re talking likes, shares, comments, mentions, retweets, etc.).

Take note of their mentions and who is following them and check to see if those people match up with your brand’s target audience. Also look at the hashtags and the topics they follow. Are they similar to your brand’s? Great! Now you know you have something in common.

media update top tip: Be sure to have a look at your own followers for influencers as well. You never know … one of your followers could already be a big fan of your products and have a large following themselves. It’s a win-win.

Another way to keep track of their engagements is to use a social listening tool. These tools will automatically search for mentions of your brand so that you don’t have to. You can also see who is talking about your products and whether the mentions have positive, negative or neutral sentiment.

You see SOMETHING scuttling in the bushes, forcing your influencer to lift its head up in terror, it’s eyes roaming the area as a leaf lazily inches towards the edge of its mouth. You sit back and remain as quiet as possible, observing it as it posts about what it just heard – #Weird #There’sAWeirdGuyWithBinoculars #Unfamiliar  

3. Set out some bait – and get ready to pounce

Now it’s time to set out some bait and reel your influencer in. You can do this by engaging with their platform. Tag them in posts, share their content, retweet them or even write a blog that makes mention of them and share it on your platform!

This will allow your influencer to familiarise themselves with your brand. Once they’ve ‘taken the bait’, so to speak, and have a sense of what your brand is all about, pop them a message and make a proposal. Yes, that’s right – sometimes the best thing to do is just ask!

Remember, the partnership between an influencer and a brand needs to be mutually beneficial, so they need to know that the brand that they’ll be promoting produces great products.

Include a free trial or sample of what your brand produces in your proposal so that they can get a sense of what they’ll be in for. Make it look presentable and perhaps post them a few gifts – there’s no shame in brown nosing in this particular situation.

You also need to show your influencer that you know how to implement a successful strategy. What’s the use of a great product if no one knows it exists?

Prove your worth by sending them a mock-up for a future campaign so that they can get an idea of what it might be like to work with your brand.

Be sure to include the following:

• The goal of the campaign: It’s important to set out clear goals for what you’d like the campaign to achieve so that your influencer knows where the campaign is going and what they need to include in their own strategy.
• The platforms the campaign will be channeled through: It’s important for the influencer to know which platforms they’ll be engaging with so that they can alter their posts accordingly (in terms of style, tone, length, etc.).
• The influencer’s role in the campaign: This should include the audience they’ll be targeting, the times they’ll be posting, the number of posts, what media they’ll be using (images, video, etc.).
• The campaign objective: There should be an overall objective and outcome of the campaign. What would your brand like to get out of this campaign, and how will your influencer assist in achieving that goal? The answer to those questions should be included in your mock-up.

You’re slowly starting to gain the influencer’s trust. You step a bit closer and extend your hand to let the influencer catch a whiff of you and familiarise itself with your scent. The influencer accepts your offering and tentatively places its head under your hand in order for you to pat it. And thus, a partnership ensues.

What do you think, influencers? Would these tactics be enough to work on YOU? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Did you know that you can create social media posts all day, travel AND get paid? Sound too good to be true? Well, it’s not. Read our article, How to get an awesome job in social media – and travel the world, to find out exactly how it’s done.