Brand engagement is any form of interaction that your audience does with your brand. This can happen in your social media account, website, or email list. It can come in the form of a like, follow, share, comment, or a click on your link. It can also occur as a click or subscribe to your page.
Brand engagement is essential for business owners because it can drive sales. Participation is the first step of interaction that your prospects can do to your business. It is a necessary step if you want them to reach the next level of buying from you. Think of it like asking them to take a small action. It gets easier to motivate them to make a more significant action, such as buying your products and services.
Also, today’s customers need social proof before they buy anything. It is common for customers to search for reviews online and then base their decisions on those reviews. This is the reason why brand engagement is necessary for businesses. It helps them to have a social proof for more traffic and sales.
The best way to encourage brand engagements is to use social media and influencers. This is because these methods are social. You’ll find that creating a business and sustaining a response can only be done if you know how to communicate with other people. The more people you get on your team, the easier it is to attract engagements to your business. Many business owners use social media in the wrong way. They think that it is an announcement podium where they speak to the public and wait for them to respond. But this will not work unless you interact with your audience.
You need to think of yourself as a host of a party instead of a speaker in a podium. You are not talking to the public and waiting for them to respond to you. Alternatively, you are the host of the party, and you want everyone to have fun. A quicker and better method than social media marketing is Influencer marketing. This helps you to zoom past through your competitors and get your offer in front of your target audience.
In this article, you’ll learn ten practical ways to utilize Influencer Marketing for better brand engagement.
Ways to utilize Influencer Marketing for better Brand Engagement
1. Limit Your Campaign to Relevant Influencers
For your Influencer marketing campaign to be effective in driving more engagements to your brand, you have to promote your offer to the right Influencer. It is with this reason why you should not push yourself to the first Influencer that you see. The type of Influencer is critical in determining the success of your marketing campaign. You need to select an Influencer who have a similar target market. This way, you know your campaigns will go to the people who are likely to respond to it.
It helps to have an influencer selection process. You can do this by searching for your topic on search engines or social media. It also helps to look for your topic on hashtags on social media. This will help you to uncover the most relevant influencers in your niche. Once you have this, you’ll want to compile them into a list. This list should include who they are and their contact details, such as their email address, mobile number, and social media details.
2. Interact with Your Target Influencer’s Social Media Platforms
Once you found your target influencers, it is time to interact with them. This doesn’t mean that you should send them an email or private message to interact with them immediately. If you do that, there is an excellent chance that your message will only be ignored. It is essential to be active on their social media profiles first. This will help you to get to know the influencer, and he will also get to know you in return. It is a process, and social media is the best place to do that.
Social media is a great way to reach your target influencer. In the old days, you need special permits to talk to celebrities. But today, you can simply reach them through social media. Every social media profile has a means of contact. You can use these or make yourself visible by interacting with their content on their profiles.
3. Reach Out to Your Target Influencers
Once you have made yourself visible through their social media profiles, it is time to talk to them through their private messages. This is the time when you reach out to them through email or other means of contact. This is where you introduce yourself and tell them how you appreciate what you do.
Influencers usually have their reasons why they consistently create content. A kind word can go a long way in getting their attention and just making their day. You need to make the message less about you and how they can help you and more about them and how they have helped you. By doing it this way, it doesn’t matter if they respond to your message. As long as you have sent positive vibes their way, that is all that matters.
4. Reach Out to Your Influencer’s Followers
If you find it hard to get any response from the influencers, you can reach out to their followers instead. Their followers are the people who continuously engage with their content. If they are interacting with the brand, it shows that they are active people in the industry and can help you. This will help you find friends in the industry, so it’s a strategy that is worth implementing for more than just getting brand engagements.
Interacting with followers is excellent because it allows you to go beyond what the influencer offers. It also allows you to get to know new people in your industry. Getting engagements is more than just getting a successful influencer promotion. It is also about getting as many people to your site, and interacting with followers is the best way to do that.
5. Consider Micro-Influencers
You may also want to consider interacting with micro-influencers. These are people who have a lower number of followers, which range from 1,000 to 50,0000. These influencers may seem like they don’t have a ton of followers. Still, the response to promotions from their content is usually higher compared to celebrity influencers who have millions of followers. This is based on data gathered by marketers who have tried micro-influencer marketing.
The best way to find micro-influencers is through celebrity influencers. You can find them as followers or find that the followers of celebrity influencers also follow them. This is where you’ll see that everything is connected, and it can work for you if you know how it works.
6. Collaborate on Content
One of the easiest ways to quickly drive brand engagements with influencer marketing is through content collaboration. In this article, you’ll find many strategies on how you can collaborate with your target influencer. All of these are done so that you don’t merely ask the influencer to link to you. You also ask the influencer to work with you in something that will bring value to their audience. This is more effective because the influencer will see that you are not just after the results. You are also there to help their audience.
Collaboration on content can come in different forms. You can create a blog post, record a video, have a podcast interview, or have a live recording. The type of content that you should choose will depend on your target audience. It may be better to talk to your target influencer about this. It can also help to unlock some content ideas that you can use.
Also, If the content is video-based It is recommended to go with a private video technology platform that enables video analytics and annotations. The modern video technology helps to track video performance and to convert views into leads more easily.
PRO TIP: I love using a tool called the content wheel when it comes to thinking of new topics for content. This is where I think about six problems around my core topic. Then, I come up with ten content ideas that support each topic around the wheel. This gives me around 60 topic ideas at a time, and it helps me to have a go-to list in case I need more ideas. This also helps me to propose topics to my target influencer easily.
7. Collaborate on Online Events
You can also collaborate with your target influencer on online events. This can be a contest or a giveaway. This is where you provide the prize, and the influencer is in charge of letting other people know that the game exists. Usually, the mechanics include actions such as ‘follow the influencer,’ ‘follow your brand’ and ‘tag 5 to 10 people’. Most influencers are open to events like these, for they help their audience while growing it at the same time.
PRO TIP: You can also promote such as your Etsy referral program and start taking ecommerce classes. A new website called Best Drums Set Labs, that sells the best drum machine for live performance, did this successfully.
8. Collaborate on Products
If you have always wanted to stop your customers in their tracks when they are about to leave their carts, the best solution is limited collaborative products. This is when you create a product with an influencer, and they promote it to their target market. Influencers love this because they are creators. They would usually jump at an opportunity to create something for other people.
This strategy can also work in promoting your Shopify store for the products that are exclusively designed and are only available for a limited time.
But you must take the time to brainstorm product ideas. For instance, a fashion blogger will be more open to creating a piece of clothing than a different product. But that doesn’t mean that he will not be accessible to designing a laptop cover or other product. It just has to appeal to his creativity and is relevant to his target market. Finding the right product may not happen quickly. But it can be done as long as you take the time to brainstorm before proceeding with production.
9. Collaborate through Offline Events or Meetups
If you have the budget, you can launch offline events or meetups and invite several influencers to your event. This is extremely effective because you will not only be targeting one influencer. You can focus on ten influencers at a time. When you do this, you’ll have several influencers talking about your event on social media, and you will immediately get a boost of traffic and engagements from your promotions.
But getting influencers to work with you through this method is easier said than done.
Besides a considerable budget, you also need to organize the event by inviting influencers, selling tickets, and asking vendors if required. It is an entirely different strategy that requires a different skill. You must do your part to research the requirements before you launch your event.
10. Collaborate on Stories
A newer but not to be ignored aspect of social media is the story. This is where influencers post content that is only available for a limited time on Facebook and Instagram. You can also collaborate with influencers through their stories. But it is still necessary for you to work on ideas before you proceed.
Getting brand engagements can be quickly done if you know how to work with influencers. Influencers have mastered the art of engaging their followers. Even if you don’t get them to promote your products and services, you can still learn a lot from them when it comes to encouraging your audience to take action.
Also, you should not limit yourself to influencers. You should look beyond that and look at micro-influencers and followers. These people can also help you drive engagements to your business. You just need to show up every day and interact with them. The more relationships you build in your business, the easier it is to promote your products and services. This is the secret to getting more brand engagements to any type of business.