Take a Tailored Approach to Working with Influencers and Micro-Influencers

I’m on both sides of the PR-Influencer dynamic. I ran influencer campaigns in-agency for big brands for nearly a decade, judge influencer award categories, and am also technically a ‘micro-influencer’ via my football culture site and podcast, Outside Write.  After some recent poor pitches, even from lead agencies, I am going to impart some tips on how to work with influencers and micro-influencers.

I received an email pitch from a leading search agency recently, which inspired me to write this post.

Three key things stood out:

• The pitch addressed me “hi there”, when a quick visit to my About page would have given my name
• The sender would also have learned from that same page in my Notes to PRs section that I don’t work with – or link to – gambling companies, yet they were pitching me an online gambling brand
• The content was already several weeks old. I had seen it doing the rounds before

As someone who’s been on both sides, it appeared to me like they had spotted me writing about a particular topic and pinged me a pitch in the hope of securing another link to mark against their targets.

Before engaging influencers and micro-influencers, it’s key to understand what they want.

Seeing it from the influencer’s perspective

I observe that approaches from PR agencies and search agencies who do PR outreach are different. Both have the same objective of having you (the influencer/micro-influencer) write about their client.

Yet, while the PR is often focussed on getting the coverage, with SEOs there’s always a landing page to link back to in there somewhere, with either an overt or covert request to include it in the copy.

I train for the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) on how to work with influencers, as well as providing private influencer relations training for agencies and brands.

The first thing I ask is – what are your objectives?

Here are some stats from Zine:

• Just a quarter (25%) of influencers know a brand’s goals for campaigns they work on
• Only 29% of influencers are asked by brands about their audience demographics
• Just 11% of paid influencers are asked for their analytics to prove the value of their post
• 83% of influencers want some kind of reward for their work, either product, experience or payment
• 17% would promote a brand in return for exposure, but nearly half (47%) would reject an unsuitable collaboration

It indicates that a lot more clarity is required in-brand, in-agency around objectives, and those need to be relayed to the content creators that brands plan to work with.

One of the other things I cover is getting into the mind of the independent content creator…

Who’s the audience?

Like other published media, an influencer or micro-influencer will stand or fall by whether or not keep their audience engaged. Always think audience-first before approaching a content creator.

How does what your brand offer relate to the audience’s needs and desires? What will your story/content/product bring to their lives?

Is that influencer even a suitable brand fit?

How does the influencer work?

Unless a content creator is making enough to work on their project full-time, the chances are they have a ‘day job’ and therefore only focus on their (for want of a better word) side-hustle at evenings or weekends.

Consider this and research them thoroughly before you approach.

Personalise your approach

No single word is more important to an individual than their name. It is also very easy to find out what it is.

Influencers and micro-influencers want something unique that no one else has, so rather than offering a press release with the same info you’re sending to other media, with independent content creators you need to think of creative ways to give them something different.

Earn that coverage. Earn that link.

Influencers are not press. A press release should only be sent to a content creator if it contains supporting information that will help them with their piece.

Give creative freedom

No one knows the influencer’s audience better than the influencer themselves. Don’t tell them what to create. Give a steer and arm them with the right tools (photographic, video, logo assets, access to spokespeople, experiences etc.) but leave the content creation and timeline up to them.

Support on social

You won’t believe how often brands you write about – even voluntarily without any relationship – fail to support you on social. If someone writes about your brand, and it’s positive, share it with your audience!

I have so much more to say on this, and many PR and search agencies are doing great work with influencers. I just feel that I still get enough bad approaches that it helps to learn from those content creators.

If you would like me to chat to your team or run virtual training, drop me a line.