How to make influencer marketing work for your startup

Influencer marketing is the strategy of connecting with, and effectively using, influential people as brand loyalists for positioning your product. It is the buzzword these days with umpteen blogs and social media profiles being employed for brand promotion. Some people claim to be “twitter celebs” while others have the phrase “food reviewer” in their Twitter bios.

Amidst the entire hum drum, how can you make your brand heard?

Let’s share with you five of our tips to make influencer marketing work for you!

1. Research thoroughly

The best strategy is to dig through numerous Facebook groups, blog promotion forums (I find Fromote and Pitchbox very effective), google search results, and every other place where you can. Be sure of what you want and do not forget to question the authenticity of blogs and social media profiles. Look for blogs, Facebook pages, and Twitter profiles that are specific to your brand’s domain. If someone was advocating a fairness cream yesterday, it is’s unlikely that he/she will review a gadget today.

2. Have a killer content strategy

When you are using blogs, social media pages, Twitter profiles et al for organic brand marketing, the content must be a hundred per cent unique. Have a great content strategy as the pillar of your marketing campaign and give clear guidelines to the influencers about the kind of content they should share. Sixty per cent of the time, influencer campaigns fail because of weak content and unclear guidelines.

3. Communicate effectively

Use management tools, separate Gmail accounts, Mailchimp and whatever else you can think of to keep each influencer aligned. As I mentioned, most influencer campaigns fail because the content going in is either weak, or not being shared properly. Have plenty of sample tweets, images, blog posts to show your influencer group and don’t forget to review what they’re saying. For example, if you are aiming to create a buzz around a video that you have recently released, send out sample tweets to be posted along with the video as well.

4. Never over-sell

DO NOT use influencer strength in directly promoting your product or overselling your business offerings. Keep it as interesting and content-oriented as you can. You can always use ads for direct sales banners.

5. Don’t give them a reason to go negative on you

Your brand marketing campaign could become a negative experience if even one of the influencer turns upgoes against your brand and asks others to join in. So keep in mind to pay them up on time and avoid any situation that may make them turn against you.

Influencer campaigns are a great way to get good word-of-mouth marketing and achieve a viral effect for your brand. Do try it and share your feedback with me! My details can be found below. Cheers!

(image credit: Shutter Stock)