3 Ways to Align Your Brand and Influencers for an Authentic Partnership

Social media has transformed the way brands connect with customers, and influencers are at the heart of the revolution. Brand and influencers partnerships can be a powerful way to showcase your products and expand your audience, though to unlock genuine results your approach needs to be strategic and most importantly, authentic. 

Want to know more? Read on as we highlight three ways to align your brand and influencers for an authentic partnership. 

1. Connect and communicate with your influencers

Connecting and communicating with your influencers is one of the best ways to amplify your marketing campaigns. The more an influencer knows about your brand, the better they can align themselves with your unique goals and values. For example, if you’re launching a new ethically made clothing line, it’s not enough to send out samples to influencers and let them do their thing. 

As a brand, you need to take the lead and ensure they have everything they need to genuinely connect with followers and showcase your product in the best possible light. This could mean educating them on the origins of the fabric, how it feels and what makes it so amazing for the British weather. You could also ask your influencer to pepper their posts with evocative words you want to use across your campaign. This will help create continuity across your channels and add to the authenticity of your brand and influencers campaigns. 

2. Take the time to research your potential influencers

When it comes to building authentic partnerships with influencers, it pays to do your research. Start by selecting influencers who share the same values as your brand. While some influencers are out there to score free products and perks, genuine influencers know the value of working with brands that align with their beliefs. 

Another big faux pas is focussing exclusively on imagery and failing to read captions when choosing your brand and influencers partnerships. This sort of tunnel vision can lead to partnerships with influencers who align with your brand on the surface but don’t have any integrity. Taking the time to get to know your pool of influencers before you propose partnerships will help you build meaningful relationships with your brand ambassadors and your customers. 

Pro tip: look for quality over quantity when it comes to followers. Some influencers do a pretty good job of racking up a huge number of followers that don’t necessarily offer much in the way of value. When checking out profiles for your brand and influencers partnership, look at what kinds of comments are being left and if the influencer engages with their followers. Why does this matter? Working with influencers who have a genuine and engaged follower base will drastically improve the impact of your campaign.  

3. Embrace micro-influencers

While big-ticket influencers like the Kardashians have serious social media sway, smaller brands can unlock incredible value from micro-influencers. Unlike their counterparts with 1 million+ followers, micro-influencers can have a big impact when it comes to niche markets and local advertising. For example, a Shropshire-based brand like Belton Farm could gain a huge amount of value by partnering with a “foodie” micro-influencer with a big presence in the North West. 

Remember, influencers have a lot of power but at the end of the day, paid campaigns mean they’re working for you. Don’t be shy about telling influencers what you want and expect from the campaign. 

Augment your influencer campaigns with BGN

Ready to leverage the power of brand and influencers partnerships? Reach out to our team of digital strategists to discuss how to create authentic, results-driven social media campaigns with high-value influencers. Contact us today to learn more.