Influencer marketing is a great way to organically increase the visibility of your brand. The right partnership with a trusted influencer will build your brand’s reputation as an authority in your niche. And growing your own audience through influencer partnerships widens your opportunity to convert potential leads.
Finding an influencer who is a good match for your brand is only the first step. Once you’ve entered a collaboration, it’s important to communicate effectively and create a space to share actionable feedback. At the end of the day, both you and your influencer should walk away enriched by the merger of your brand and their expertise.
Below, we’ll cover why giving content feedback is essential to a successful influencer marketing campaign, how to give effective feedback, and where to find the best influencers to represent your brand.
Why You Need to Give Content Feedback to Your Influencers
One way to think about the brand-influencer relationship is like a client-marketer relationship. You, the brand, are the client in this situation.
As a brand, you understand the significance of client feedback in improving the quality and salability of your products and services. Within the brand-influencer relationship, it’s your job to provide client feedback so the product and service you receive from your influencer is what you want and need.
How to Provide Effective Content Feedback to Influencers
Create a Campaign Brief
The first piece of client feedback you’ll provide for your influencer is the brand guidelines and campaign brief. This is where you get to clearly communicate what you need from the influencer in order to accomplish your marketing strategy goal.
You want to make sure your brief is detailed enough that the influencer has a clear sense of direction for what they’re supposed to produce and the expectations for that product. Simultaneously, you don’t want to be overly detailed to the point where there’s no room for creative freedom.
What to Include in Your Influencer Campaign Brief
- A brand bio that talks about what the brand is, why it was founded, and what your values/goals are. This will officially introduce the influencer to your brand as you see it, regardless of what they might already know from your previous marketing.
- A campaign overview and goal. Even though you’re partnering with an influencer so they can adapt your products and services to their brand, they still need a jumping-off point to develop content.
- Campaign messaging that clearly explains the product or service and features you want mentioned in the content.>
- A list of the social media platforms you want the influencer to post on and deliverables for those channels. Being specific about where the content will be posted and the content type informs how the influencer completes the campaign.
- A list of what is and isn’t okay for the influencer to include in the content. Example posts and clear parameters establish your expectations. This creates a foundational structure for the influencer to develop from. For example, specify if your brand logo should be visible during the ad portion of the content or whether or not it’s okay to have brand competitors visible in the frame.
- Your review process and payment process. Share your content review process so the influencer can factor it into their content planning. Sharing the payment process sets clear expectations and will build confidence in your relationship with the influencer when you follow through.
Recognize the Influencer’s Authority Within Your Partnership
When you partner with an influencer, what you’re actually after is their audience. The influencer themselves is the authority on how to market to this audience. They know what their followers are interested in and receptive to. That’s why you hired them.
Trust that the influencer will be able to translate your brand’s products and services into a language that is well-received by their audience. In order to complete that translation, the influencer has to take your brand and make it their own, which is something only they can do (not your brief).
Allowing influencers to use their natural language, tone, and aesthetic are imperative to maintaining authenticity, even with ad content. As tempting as it might be to get as specific as possible, too many parameters will lead to content that feels scripted instead of genuine.
An authentic influencer is a trusted influencer, and a trusted influencer has effective influence.
Create a positive brand-influencer relationship by achieving the delicate balance between instruction and trust.
Always Include Positive Client Feedback
Throughout the entire creative process, remember that working with an influencer isn’t the same as working with an ad agency. Ideally, you’re making or maintaining a positive business relationship with a hard-working individual.
Include positive content feedback, even if it’s in addition to critiques. Taking the time to acknowledge the effort that goes into the content can go a long way and keep the influencer encouraged throughout the editing process.
Find the Best Influencer to Represent Your Brand
If you’re new to influencer marketing or not sure where to start when looking for an influencer to represent your brand, Sway Group is a great resource. We are a full-service influencer marketing agency with a network of over 30K authenticated influencers.
We can connect you with an influencer based on your brand and campaign goals. And when you partner with a Sway Group influencer, you get a representative and a team of professionals dedicated to your brand’s success.
Our streamlined process makes the brand-influencer relationship simple to navigate and beneficial for all parties. We work directly with our influencers to ensure they return high-quality content that meets your requirements.
If you’re interested in taking your marketing strategy to the next level, contact us today!
