How to Build An Influencer Driven Content Campaign
Influencer marketing and content marketing are two effective long-term ways of promotion which have all kinds of benefits beyond higher traffic (like trust, brand awareness, natural link acquisition, etc.)
And yes influencers can bring in sales! Megaphone Marketing lists multiple case studies proving the concept.
Put the two together and you have a match made in heaven. Influencer driven content is perhaps the single best addition that you can apply to any marketing campaign, be it a lead generation or a link building campaign.
1. Build a Solid Influencer Campaign Management Team
It all comes down to the right people managing your influencer program. People with good followings can greatly benefit your brand by sharing their reach. They can also damage your online reputation by speaking up about your brand’s unethical outreach efforts.
By all means, avoid that. And the best way to do everything right is to:
- Pick talented people who will eventually grow into niche influencers and will be able to build real friendships in the industry
- Collect resources for your managers to learn important topics in great detail. (And work out some ways to reward their efforts on that long learning curve.)
- Adjust your social media policies to give those campaign managers freedom and flexibility to approach various influencers differently
Start By Looking From Within
Chances are you have some incredible talent right in your own workforce. So start there before you move on to outside hires. In my experience, it’s more about the right mindset and a good level of enthusiasm, than experience. Your influencer campaign managers should be in love with your brand.
They can then infuse that feeling into influencers they will be building relationships with. There really is no way to fake enthusiasm!
If You Must Hire New People….
Begin looking for people who fit the necessary skills but also who have the temperament and personality to fit well within your team. They should be diligent, learn new things fast, be able to work independently and be highly reliable. Most importantly, you want your selections to complement one another.
Here’s some useful reading for you to start building your internal training resource:
- Grow your internal influencer: How To Become A Social Media Influencer from Yael Consulting
- Influencer Marketing: The Latest Strategies, Templates, and Tools (Free PDF guide put together by Content Marketing Institute)
You’ll need a good tool to help your team organize the various levels of your influencer campaign. You can use your current CRM solution for that.
I use Salesmate to organize mine. It’s a great tool helping you lay out all the steps and monitor how many members of your team is managing each one.
It works with the multiple other apps I use, connecting all the dots nicely. You can read more about their Pipeline feature here:
2. Put a Human Face On Your Brand
Influencers are nothing like the people you see acting in commercials. These are people speaking as themselves, and you have a chance to build a relationship with them.
Let them speak from your blog and associate your brand with them. Here are a few ways to make that happen:
Invite Influencers To Guest Post On Your Site
I have been and always will be a huge fan of guest posting. I believe it remains one of the most important and powerful content marketing tools on the planet.
You can use a guest blogging spot on different sites to build a repertoire with your desired audience. It is a way of laying a foundation of trust that increase your odds of converting that audience. It is giving your brand a human face, and proving the authority of those behind it.
You can also hire some of the influencers to do regular columns for your site…. if they are interested.
Invite Influencers To Do An Interview To Publish On Your Site
Many influencers will appreciate the chance to boost their own traffic by being featured on your site. And they will happily share those blog posts with their audience.
Interviews can have lots of formats, like a podcast, a video or a Twitter chat. We’ve been doing Twitter chats for ages for ViralContentBee with great results.
Invite Influencers For An Expert Roundup
Use expert roundups to discuss a popular issue or trend in your niche and turn that into valuable content for your site. Roundups can become huge traffic drivers when done right.
MyBlogU can be a great help organizing those. (Here’s how I am using it to put together popular expert roundups).
It is not uncommon to build the whole site around influencer-driven content. If you decide to go that route, here’s a cool blog name generator that will help you find cool domain name on a budget.
3. Use Influencer-Driven Calls-to-Action on Your Site and In Social Media Marketing
Facebook ads are really becoming something great. The conversion rate is very high, especially for the rather low budget needed to make it work. But while standard ads on Facebook work well, there is a better method that can really improve your results without even requiring you to increase your efforts.
Using customer reviews in Facebook ads immediately catches the eye, especially when that customer is well-known within the industry. Social media provides a certain sense of realism that cuts through the selling tone of the advertisement and increases a viewer’s trust. According to a recent study, around 30% of consumers are more likely to purchase a product which is endorsed by a non-celebrity blogger than a mainstream celebrity. And this number is only going to grow!
So start collecting reviews and testimonials – especially when those come from niche micro-celebrities. There’s nothing more convincing than a well-known name praising your service or product. Neil Patel is a great example of that:
You can tag those influencers so that their social media account is tied to it, proving that it is genuine. See my Slideshare upload on how to tag people on each social media channel.
Of course, you should get their permission before using their review. Offers such as discounts off a month’s service can act as a great incentivizer.
Apart from better converting ads, this trick has another powerful benefit: More online context around your brand. You can use those reviews and testimonials on your site, re-purpose them as newsletter content and market them further through your social media accounts. Colorlib has a nice list of tips on how to use testimonials on your site.
For example, Sitegeek uses Twitter reviews as on-site content:
Please Comment
Have you started working on an influencer marketing campaign yet? Do you create influecer driven content? Please share your tips, tricks and experiences!
Ann Smarty
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