It’s no secret that influencer marketing can shine a spotlight on brands in a way that other forms of marketing simply can’t. If you’re already doing influencer marketing, then your goal should be to get as much leverage as you can out of the gorgeous and authentic earned media produced by your influencers.
With the ability to elicit authentic brand recommendations, consumers look to influencers as peers giving influencers the power to move the needle when it comes to brand awareness and even revenue growth.
That’s where this post comes in. We are going to explore how you can take your influencer marketing strategy to the next level and a step past just gaining earned media.
Social Media Ads
Influencers are influential for a reason and many times that reason is that they create great social media posts. Getting these posts in front of the audience your influencers have accrued is key, but you can also leverage them past the influencer’s audience.
When it comes to social media ad spend, boosting an influencer generated post is a lot more engaging than something self-promotional about your brand. Consumers want to see a peer’s experience with your brand so put your social media budget behind your earned influencer posts.
Some brands give the influencers the money they want to spend on boosting posts and have the influencers boost their posts on their own channels for an extra layer of authenticity.
Testimonials and Reviews
You already know that many consumers are self-sufficient and want to seek out information about your brand themselves. Because of this, it’s your job to highlight your earned media in a way that consumers can find it when they’re in the buyer’s journey and researching your brand.
Extracting quotes to use as testimonials and reviews from an influencer’s social and/or blog post provides great brand assets that consumers will come across when they are on your brand’s website.
Having a testimonial or review menu item or section on your homepage helps consumers learn more about your brand and gives them brand highlights in a way that feels organic. Be sure to link back to their posts so that your potential consumers can read more about the influencer’s experience with your brand.
Website Photos
Your website is probably already visually driven, but does it include authentic photos of people using your products? If not, it’s wise to consider using images that influencers post on Instagram or their blogs on your website. Instead of just highlighting your products, influencer photos showcase an actual experience with your brand.
Some brands have a section on their website that highlights influencer content and photos so that consumers can see these third-party recommendation of your brand when they’re doing their research.
Email Marketing
Whether you’re sending out an email blast or a weekly newsletter, consider highlighting influencer generated content in these emails.
Think about it this way, your emails or newsletters can talk about your brand from your brand’s point of view or they can showcase an influencer’s organic experience with your brand and their recommendation. Which one of these scenarios do you think consumers would trust more?
Print Advertising
Many influencers take great photos and creatively integrate your brand into their everyday lives. These photos are priceless and should be leveraged as much as possible.
Influencer photos paired with quotes from their posts are the perfect assets to use on print advertisement materials such as flyers, catalogs and one pagers.
Company Blog Posts
Influencer earned content is intriguing and engaging and in order to get the most out of it, you can include it in your brand’s blog posts. Consider doing a wrap up post after each influencer campaign that contains summaries and links to earned blog posts. Add in your favorite Instagram posts and influencer photos and you’ve got yourself a great blog post!
Getting Permission
To reuse influencer content, you need to get the permission of the influencers. You’ll find that some influencers will happily agree to letting you use their content for free. Some influencers charge for you to use their images on your brand’s channels and marketing materials. So, know what to expect and be sure to always get the influencer’s permission before utilizing their content.
A Step Past Earned Media
Influencers will get you plenty of exposure when they post on their own channels, but your brand can leverage their content to get even more exposure and take your influencer campaigns a step further. Using influencer content on your brand’s channels and marketing materials can help consumers find these third-party word of mouth recommendations when they are researching your brand and help build credibility.
The best part of all these tips is that they can be leveraged with your customers too. Eliciting high-quality reviews that include images from your customers provide SEO value and can be featured in your paid ads. We partner exclusively with Yotpo, a review platform that enables all of your customers to produce authentic content that you can share.
Do you want to run an influencer marketing campaign and find ways to make the most out of your earned media? Here at eAccountable, we have the experience and influencer relationships in place to power your brand so reach out to us to talk more about how we can help!