Social Media Influencer reveals secrets of reaching out to influencers and getting a YES
My name is Jessica MacCleary. I am a YouTuber and a social media influencer with over 100,000 followers on my combined social media networks. I’ve been creating content in the online world for nearly three years now and throughout this time, I’ve had many companies reach out to me in hopes of collaborating to extend their brand’s reach. I’ve worked with only about 30% of the companies that have reached out to me. You might wonder, why not collaborate with all the companies that reach out to me? Well, that’s the thing. In this article, I’m going to reveal the secrets of what makes a company stand out to an influencer and the right approach that will guarantee a “Yes”, and how to find the right influencer to represent your brand.
Quality, not Quantity
Finding the perfect influencer to represent your brand can be a little tricky. You don’t want to necessarily partner with an influencer purely based on the number of followers they have. Sure, the higher the number of followers, the wider the reach, but does a wider reach matter if you’re not reaching the right people? The answer is no. It’s incredibly important to find an influencer who has a similar demographic of followers to your ideal target audience. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your resources reaching people who won’t be buying your product simply because it’s just not in their interest.
For example, if you are a company that sells makeup brushes, you probably should not reach out to a male YouTuber with 3 million followers who discusses politics and current events. It simply just would not make sense to choose this influencer when there are so many other better candidates to partner with instead. Alternatively, look for someone who would actually use your product and reach out to them. They may not have nearly as many followers, but they will have the target audience you’re trying to reach.
The Influencer’s Influence
Using social media, you may notice that some people have a large number of followers, but they don’t get many likes or comments. This means they have a low interaction rate. There could be a few reasons behind this. The first is that the influencer may have purchased their followers. Purchasing followers is popular thing to do in the online community because it seems like your account has a lot of followers. Technically it does, but the purchased followers are nothing more than fake accounts that do not interact with the influencer’s post as there is no actual account user.
Another reason behind a low interaction rate could be that many of their followers are inactive. Followers become inactive because of an influencer’s lack of posting or lack of engagement with their fans. If the influencer does not keep the ball rolling by consistently creating content and giving people a reason to stay interested, the followers will either unfollow or stop interacting. Interaction rate is just as important, if not more important, than a follow.
The final thing you should look for when choosing an influencer to represent your brand is how much, how often, and simply just how the influencer interacts with their fans and followers. Do they retweet their fans tweets? Do they comment back on Instagram? Do they do Q and A’s featuring questions submitted by their fans on YouTube? Finding an influencer who engages their fans and engages them often is very important. The more interactive an influencer is, the most trustworthy they come off to their followers. The influencer feels more like a friend, an older sister, or a really cool uncle. Someone who is very engaged with their fans will have more credibility than someone who is not. Engagement builds up trust and respect for someone’s opinion.
Make sure to follow these tips on what to look for when trying to find the right influencer for your brand.
