There has been a lot said about influencer campaigns – the good, the bad, the trials, and the benefits. In the marketing world, we often see these campaigns from the lens of the brand. And this is largely because the creator and the influencer community are still finding their voice.
But the truth is that delivering a successful campaign is no easy task for a creator or an influencer too. There are too many if and buts to navigate, and they have the added onus of satisfying their niche audience besides the brands too.
And this success more often than not begins with the influencer and the brand being a good fit for each other. Understanding which brand is good for you and which collaboration can do more harm than good is tricky at any stage of the business.
So if you are an influencer wondering how to strike gold with every campaign, here is a tip. Start screening your clients. Besides pitching yourself to the brand, ensure that you also know enough to make the right decision for your personal brand.
In this blog, we detail a few questions that a creator/influencer can ask a brand to know if the match works both ways or not. And if the planned influencer campaign will benefit both the brand and the influencer.
But before that, let us understand why this is so important.
Opportunities also feel like the golden goose, right? Why question the goose when the egg is coming? While this is partly true, the secret to becoming a successful creator on social media means that you find your voice and stay true to it.
Your social media audience is here to know you, and they stay because they like you. Your brand collaborations are not primarily why they are there for.
But you need brand collaborations to grow your audience and move ahead in your career.
Balancing these aspects can feel tricky, but it becomes easier when you choose the right brands to work with. In fact, all these come way before thinking about the kind of influencer campaign to choose.
Yes, the right brand collaboration on your social media profile can :
Gaining followers is on every creator’s vision board. There are goals, plans, and endless brainstorming sessions to make that happen. But what if your brand collaborations could do that for you? Yes, we are serious.
When you are careful about the brands you associate yourself with, there is a great possibility that the brand’s audience and your target audience intersect. This means that this influencer campaign is not just an opportunity for the brand to gain awareness amongst your audience, but you can use it to reach more people too.
And with the collaborator feature on Instagram, the followers can reach your profile easily too.
You know your audience more than anybody, right? Their likes, dislikes, preferences, and demographic breakdown is all you think about every second of the day. This gives you a great advantage in launching a successful influencer campaign if you pick the right brand.
Not every product resonates with everyone, and most of the time, an influencer campaign suffers because of the primary product, and audience mismatch. You can break the cycle by carefully choosing brands you know your audience will appreciate, allowing you to deliver a successful campaign to the brand.
We know writing brand campaigns can be hard, but it is your conviction and belief in a product or service that helps you really sell it. And the chances of that happening with ease increase when the brand matches your ideals, your personality, and how you approach your brand campaigns.
The added onus of delivering a successful campaign is that you impress your audience with your prowess too. They gain faith in you and start banking on your brand campaigns to entertain them as well.
As you can see, just choosing the right brand can truly level up your social media career. So, once you have this ideal brand to work with, then comes the discussion of planning the actual influencer campaign.
And how to do that? Here is a list of questions that can make the job easier for you.
Well begun is half done. And to begin a campaign in the right way, a creator needs to know a lot more than a typical project brief that most brands send across. It is good to have an onboarding questionnaire or template that can help you get started on the right foot.
Ask these questions to your brand before the influencer campaign and you will never regret a brand collaboration again.
Let’s begin with something quite simple but detrimental to the success of any campaign. Yes, no brand begins a project without defining goals, but they definitely miss sending those out to you. This inhibits your content planning and does not allow you to put your best foot forward.
But understanding an influencer marketing campaign’s goals can also be selection criteria. You must know if the brand plans to improve awareness or increase sign-ups with the campaign. What stage in a typical buyer’s journey is it serving?
Understanding the goals helps you understand if the campaign has the potential to resonate with your audience or not. And if not, can you tweak the message in a way that it possibly could?
Analyzing this even before you sign the deal assures that you only take on projects you know inside out and can deliver.
This is probably one of the most important details to have when working with a brand. As we mentioned before, you know your audience better than anybody. So, the onus is on you to create and curate content that would appeal to them.
To do that, an important question to ask a potential brand partner would be – “Who is the ideal customer for your brand? And who is the target for this particular campaign?”.
Ideally, the brand must be able to share its “Ideal customer profile” or “buyer persona” with you so that you know the brand is the right fit for your content space.
Sometimes a lot of things fall into place, but still many creators feel unhappy about certain brand collaborations. The vibes, as they say, just don’t match. And that is very disappointing, isn’t it?
What if there was a way to avoid this so that you don’t sign up and regret it later?
Most established businesses have branding guidelines or brand style guides that describe how they represent their brand using visuals, words, and personality indicators such as tone and voice. Perusing this should give you a broad idea of what the vibe and personality of the brand are like, and can a long-term collaboration really works.
Even if a brand is not willing or cannot share this document with you, you can either find it online or put together a quick mood board of their past campaigns to see a pattern emerge.
Knowing this helps you pick out a brand closest to how you approach a campaign.
Now it is time to get down to the basic details. Working with a transparent brand is the dream, but sometimes, you must ask so that you have all at hand before you begin. And that primarily includes having a clear discussion about
This is because some brands expect the creator/influencer to be more involved than a typical post. It could include engaging with older content, sharing campaigns on Stories, or using over one platform to promote the brand. The more you know, the better for everyone involved.
Also, a transparent discussion on ROI expectations and timeframe-related details tells you if you can manage this project.
There is a relaxed and well-organized way to brand collaborations, and it begins with setting the right expectations transparently.
Last but definitely not least for a creator with a voice, understand if this potential brand collaboration comes with the space for creative freedom. More often than not, influencer marketing campaigns come with templated options, making it seem like a TVC, where just the lead changes.
This model works but may not be a fit for every creator and their audience. And it is better to ask if you can tweak the template before signing up so that the campaign can reach its potential with your audience.
For this question to work well, you must also share your expectations and what a potentially tweaked campaign may look like using your previous works. But it will be worthwhile if you can get on the same page before beginning the campaign.
Working as a creator/influencer has probably got to be one of the hardest jobs possible right now. Every day demands that you level up, and the stakes are always higher than ever. Choosing the right brands to work with can make the hardest job a little easier to do.
Finally, when your collaboration is all set, you also need the right designs and the designs should be relevant to your personal brand and that of the brand as well. If you have a designer or design team to take care of your designs for you, then remember to include them in the conversation. Also provide them with the brand guidelines of the collaborating brand so that you have posts that promote your brand partnership effectively.
