Content Marketing Institute advice on influencing influencers

I have just read an excellent article from the Content Marketing Institute entitled "No celebrities allowed".

The article outlines their advice on how to build an influencer marketing programme and is full of good tips.

Here are some highlights: (I have paraphrased their excellent article)

1. Do the preliminary work - make sure you have clear objectives and how will they be measured
2. Build a timeline - treat the activity like any strategic plan that you build, set deadlines, assign ownership etc
3. Select your influencers - more on this later....
4. Invite influencers - think about what is in it for them before you contact them eg association or exposure
5. Provide assets to make amplification easier - make it as simple as possible for the influencers to share your content by providing creative assets that they can use e.g. videos, case studies or an infographic
6. Measure your results

What interested me most is their advice on selecting influencers. Their excellent check list was:

• Are they known in the industry? You need some big hitters to gain reach and credibility
• Do they have a network outside of yours? Do they reach people that you don't e.g. in another country or industry?
• Will they share your excitement? Will they be thrilled to be part of the programme and therefore more likely to share your content?
• Do they represent your audience? Will your customers respect them?
• Have you had success with that influencer? Have they participated in a positive way with your brand in the past?

I would add to that:

• Do they share your brand values? Are they a good fit with your image?
• Are they associated with your competitors? Can you build an exclusive partnership with them?
• Are they trusted? Do they do what they say they will do and not get involved in anything that may cause issues for your brand? Do they declare when a post is sponsored or in partnership with a brand?
• Do they influence other influencers? Could their involvement start a viral reaction?

Influencer marketing is crucial to social media success. Influencers can massively increase reach and credibility. You need to be sure what you want from them and what you can offer in return. If you want to know where to find influencers, a good tool to help you is followerwonk. This tool allows you to see who the most influential people are that are following your twitter account. You can actually use it for any Twitter account, so why not see who the influencer influences before you start by putting potential influencers into the tool too?

I am always open to suggestions to partnerships, so if you would like to be an influencer for me, or if you would like me to be an influencer for you, please get in touch. You can reply to this post or check me out and look up my contact details at my Navigate Consulting web site.