How to create content with an influencer

Influencer marketing often refers to celebrities or brandividuals advocating for a brand. Influencer content goes beyond advocacy to focus on the actual content being produced for marketing. Influencer content isn’t something new, but the digital era has changed how it’s used. Influencer content marketing in its current form started gaining momentum in 2014, and it’s now the fastest growing and most cost-effective marketing channel.

Why? Simple. It works. According to a study by Tomoson, an influencer marketing platform, businesses are making $6.50 for every dollar spent on influencer marketing. In addition, 51 percent of businesses reported acquiring better customers through influencer marketing efforts.

Definition of Influencer Content

Influencer content is content that is created in collaboration with subject matter experts and industry authorities—influencers. As a content marketing tactic, influencer content aims to reach new or larger audiences by leveraging the credibility and social followings of those experts.

Collaboration with influencers can take on a couple different forms:

• Content can be co-created with the help of the influencer.
• Content can be created by the brand using a quote or contribution from an influencer.
• Content can be created by the brand for the influencer’s blog, website or another publication.

Influencer content can work closely with earned media. Earned media is any unpaid publicity, mention or recognition you receive from a third party such as a news article, customer review or social media mention.

Pros

Influencer content programs are proving to be one of the most effective marketing tactics around. Here are some of the benefits of using influencer content as a content marketing tool:

• Influencers are trusted by their followers and they can lend major credibility to a brand.
• Influencer content allows you to tap into trusted authorities’ audiences and reach more people.
• While influencer marketing can involve paid agreements with influencers, a lot of times influencers will market your content for free if it’s good quality and useful to their audience.

Cons

While influencer programs can be wildly successful, there are some downsides to consider before adding it to your content marketing strategy. Here are some of the downsides of influencer content programs:

• Influencer programs are all about relationship building and then nurturing those relationships, and that is incredibly time consuming.
• While influencers have an engaged following, that doesn’t guarantee your message will resonate with their following.

Best Practices

• Define your influencer goals. Identify how you want to use influencers to contribute and promote your content. This will help you plan your outreach initiatives and your overall marketing timeline.
• Be smart when selecting topics. The content topics you choose will also have an effect on who you’ll focus on during the outreach process. Focus on concepts that are relevant and will make your influencers want to care, interact, contribute and share your content.
• Identify how those topics will be presented. Are you planning a series of blog posts? An eBook? A social media promotion? Define what form you content will take on..
• Thoroughly research prospects. Make sure you do your homework on potential influencers to ensure they align with your goals. You’ll want to look at how large their social followings are and how often they interact with those followings, as well as their own content creation efforts.
• But, remember audience size isn’t everything. Influencers don’t have to have a huge following to be considered for your campaign. This is why looking at interaction between them and their audience is important. Are they responding to tweet mentions? Are they sharing other people’s content on social media? Do people comment on blog posts?
• Start courting before you ask for help. One of the core values of influencer marketing is relationship building. If you’re able to build some type of rapport with an influencer early on, you’ll have more success when you ask for help later. Influencer relations don’t happen overnight, so think long-term.
• Co-create content whenever possible. The opportunities to collaborate are only limited by your imagination and creativity. Influencers will also be more likely to share and promote this type of content.
• Amplify your content by making it easy to share. Provide influencers pre-written tweets, embed codes, images or short URLs so they have everything they need to promote right in front of them.
• Optimize for people and SEO is another core value of content marketing. All content should be optimized for people and search engines.
• Measure success. It’s crucial to analyze if your efforts are helping you reach your goals. Use social network shares and mentions, blog pickups, and direct and referral traffic metrics, as well as conversions to see how effective your content is.
• Don’t forget about your audience. Focusing on the customer, rather than just the influencer, will help brands achieve the most success. Remember, influence doesn’t matter if the message doesn’t connect with consumers.

If you are unsure how to create content that can appeal to your audiences, we’re here to help. Here are the four different types of content that you can create with the help of influencers.

1. Product Reviews

In general, influencers are viewed as experts in their niches. Their followers trust reviews and recommendations from them. So you can partner with influencers to build a positive image for your brand and products.

If the collaboration is done well, it can create more brand awareness as well as more sales. Leave it up to them to get you a bigger audience.

But your business should primarily focus on how to create content around your products. You need to constantly come up with amazing products and get influencers to review them. Send some samples of your products to influencers, and let them try your products for themselves.

Encourage them to write honest reviews about them or even create unboxing videos. From packaging to listing all of the features of your product, everything can be showcased in a natural manner.

If you’re looking for authenticity, don’t be afraid of getting some negative feedback on your products. If only the pros of your products are listed, you risk making it seem too advertorial.

With honest reviews, there is a better chance of winning over the trust of your audience. At the same time, if the review is good, you can definitely expect more conversions out of it.

For instance, take how ORIGIN PC used this strategy to reach out to more people. They partnered with YouTuber, Linus Sebastian, who covers technology related topics on his channel Linus Tech Tips.

His detailed review on ORIGIN PC has more than a million views. The video succeeded in sparking a discussion about the company and its products as well. The comment section has more than 2000 comments.

2. “How-To” Tutorials

Another effective way of reaching out to your target audience is to teach them how to use your product or service. Instead of telling them what your products can do, show them. Tutorials and demos are an excellent way to show consumers what you have to offer.

If you sell beauty and technology-related products, this strategy is an ideal solution for how to create content that delivers results. This type of content can familiarize your audience with your products. It can also show them exactly what they can expect from your product.

A survey by Ask Your Target Market showed how seeing people use a product can influence purchase decisions. 76% of respondents said that they were more likely to purchase a product after they saw it being used. In the same survey, 92% of people said that they believed influencers were better than other people at explaining how products work.

OUAI Haircare occasionally teams up with beauty influencers to showcase their wide range of beauty products. They conceptualized tutorial videos with beauty influencer, Andrea Cristina, in which she used their products to create different hairstyles. Her tutorial on creating soft waves got more than 50,000 views on Instagram.

OUAI also shared the same video on their social media profiles, which gave the brand more credibility.

You can learn more about how to create content that will boost your brand’s image from such marketing campaigns.

3. Interviews with Influencers

A great strategy for how to create content that is valuable for your followers is to conduct interviews with influencers. You can use this opportunity to share helpful and relevant knowledge in your niche with your target audience. It is also a great way to get featured on influencers’ social media handles.

With interviews, you don’t have to rack your brain for new content ideas. You just have to come up with a theme or topic that you’ll discuss during the interview.

Make a list of questions beforehand. Or if you’re a more spontaneous person, have an impromptu chat with an influencer. Try to get a peek into their daily lives or habits and see how you can align them to suit your products.

The best part about interviews is that you have the full creative freedom to play around with the format. While blog articles and videos have been used for a while, Instagram Live is a relatively new addition to the realm of social media. And it’s quickly growing in popularity.

You can do it the other way around too, which means you interview an influencer with knowledge in your niche.

West Coast Shaving, a luxury grooming brand, interviewed fashion influencer, Denny Balmaceda, about men’s styling. In the interview, there was no direct promotion of the brand.

But West Coast Shaving was able to emphasize proper grooming during the interview, which is a component of the brand’s philosophy. It’s a simple and subtle strategy, yet it creates an impact. It’s a great way of showcasing your brand’s beliefs and ethos without seeming too pushy.

4. Social Media Takeovers

Not sure how to create content that is interesting? Give the reins of your social media handles over to influencers. They’re creating content on their own social media handles constantly so they know what works well, and what doesn’t.

Let them temporarily be in charge of posting content on your behalf. Also, encourage them to promote the social media takeover to their own followers.

Social media takeovers are an influencer marketing strategy that will give you access to the audience in your influencer’s niche. In addition to this, you are more likely to see an increase in engagement and followers on your social media profiles. This cross-promotion will also help you get some diverse content on your page.

Maserati routinely gives influencers access to their Instagram account. Most businesses approach influencers only in their own niche, but Maserati hasn’t shied away from making bold moves.

They approached a variety of influencers to contribute ideas on how to create content that can captivate a diverse following. In a recent takeover campaign, they worked with ballerinas, rugby players, celebrities, architects, singers, and others to curate content for them. They want to give a unique dimension to the Maserati brand by showcasing its relevance to different personalities.

Some businesses are apprehensive to give away control of their social media handles. You don’t have to give influencers complete control. You can ask influencers to send you pictures, videos, articles, and captions. You can then post them yourself from your profiles.

However, for something like Instagram or Facebook Live, you might need to give them access to your page. That’s the only drawback with this strategy. Overall, takeovers are a great way to create engaging content and to build long-term relationships with multiple influencers.

Making Cost-Effective Content

When it comes to influencer marketing campaigns, one of the biggest costs is often content creation and paying for influencer services. However, there are ways to get more value our of your content, or even to create content at significantly lower costs.

Reused content

You’ve paid an influencer to create a post. The influencer has done exactly what you asked and shared the content with his or her followers. What now? If you leave it at that, you really aren’t getting the most out of the money you’ve spent.

Reusing content has the potential to improve its reach and generate a better return on investment. Make sure you share videos and photographs on your own social media pages, and recycle content and quotes for your newsletter. It may even be possible to translate some information for use in more traditional advertising, such as a website banner advert.

User-generated content

Any loyal fan has the potential to be a brand influencer. Encouraging customers to share their own content means you get genuine, authentic endorsements from the people who matter most. For example:

• GoPro: GoPro is famous for mountable cameras, suitable for extreme sports such as skating and skydiving. The company encourages customers to share their videos and photographs. The adrenaline-fueled action is exciting to watch and a fantastic advertisement for its products.
• Games Workshop: The popular war game company encourages customers to share their painted miniatures on Instagram with the hashtag #paintingwarhammer. Selected posts appear on the company’s web store to encourage sales from browsers while also building a sense of community.
• Starbucks: In 2014, Starbucks ran a competition for customers to draw designs on white cups and share them on Instagram. The success of the campaign led to similar gimmicks in subsequent years. Competitions encourage people to share and repost your brand, improving reach and engagement at the same time.