Instagram Influencers and Marketing

Companies that quickly want to grow can work with social media influencers on their marketing campaigns to reach their audiences.

There are different ways that businesses can find the right partners to collaborate on Instagram influencer campaigns as well as build trust with new audiences.

Introduction

Companies that use Instagram as a communication channel can sometimes find that the number of followers that their accounts have only reflects a small percentage of the total overall target audience.

Additionally, growing the audience of a business on Instagram can be relatively slow, even when the company is using the right hashtags and location tags, as well as engaging with other industry accounts.

However, when companies are able to partner with influencers on the platform, they can immediately start reaching out to those relevant target audiences that will be interested in making a purchase from those businesses.

In general, influencers on the platform are seen as people that have 50,000 followers at the very least. When companies are able to partner with these people they have the chance to connect with thousands of people that can turn into customers for that business.

Results

Businesses that haven’t invested in influencer marketing campaigns generally avoid it because they think this type of marketing campaign only targets the beginning stages of the buying journey that customers go through.

However, the fact is that influencers can help companies accomplish a lot more than simply generating more followers for the company’s Instagram account.

They are also helpful in generating a lot more engagement and impressions for the business.

In fact, companies that partner with influencers on marketing campaigns can achieve measurable results in terms of generating leads, sales, and overall conversions.

However, it’s important to note that before a company reaches out to an Instagram influencer to make a pitch, or even launch a promotional campaign, it should start by setting the right goals and discussing all of the measurements it should keep track of to ensure that everyone working on the campaign will be on the same page.

Trust

It’s not always easy for companies to convince potential customers that they are able to solve the pain points that those customers might have.

Because of that, potential customers tend to read reviews from other customers, research competitors of a business, and try samples to figure out how trustworthy that business might be.

However, when companies work with influencers on marketing campaigns they’re able to build more trust and credibility a lot faster and more efficiently. This is because most influencers tend to attract the followers they have because they have specific expertise.

That means if an influencer starts talking positively about a business, their followers are going to be a lot more likely to trust those claims, which can speed up and streamline the buying journey of those customers.

Working With Influencers on Marketing Campaigns

Companies that work with influential people on social media platforms like Instagram are going to be more efficient at their marketing campaigns.

However, there are several steps that companies need to take before they’re able to partner with the right Instagram influencers.

Building Relationships

Most of the time, it’s a good choice for companies to not pitch to the influencers they find as soon as they find them.

That’s because just as companies have to evaluate the influencers before they decide to work with them, the influencers have to do the same to the businesses.

That means the influencers need to feel confident that they’ll be making the right choice by partnering with the business, those companies have to first focus on building relationships with those influencers first.

Fortunately, companies can get to know the influencers to a certain extent through the content they share.

They should also take the time to post comments on the content they’re sharing regularly to showcase the personality of the business.

Businesses can also track the influencers they want to work with and organize the messages they send to them through the page platform they’re using.

For example, through the Creator Studio, companies can flag the messages they receive from the influencers they want to work with.

They can also add labels to different conversations which help companies rank the influencers they’re communicating with on a short list, or on the campaign that the business wants to partner with for that influencer.

Planning

When a company has a general idea of the types of influencers that would collaborate with, it can start effectively planning its influencer marketing campaigns.

That means thinking about the types of content that the influencers will have to create and share with their audience, as well as the format of that content, and the allocated budget for that campaign.

All of these details are very important to take note of before a company reaches out to an influencer so that it can ensure that the campaign is going to be successful.

Goals

It’s important for companies to think of the goals they want to reach for their influencer marketing campaigns, such as generating a certain amount of revenue through sales or getting a certain number of brand new followers to the company’s Instagram account.

Then, the company needs to share those goals with the influencers it’s going to be working with on the campaign so they can better understand how the company plans to measure the performance of that campaign.

Additionally, some of the more experienced Instagram influencers can also estimate whether the company’s goal is going to be reasonable depending on the amount of content they need to share, the size of their audience, and even results they’ve been able to achieve in the past when working with other businesses.

How to Find Relevant Instagram Influencers

There are countless influencers on Instagram that cater to practically every niche in existence. Companies can get a lot of benefits from working with the right influencers, however, the first step to creating influencer marketing campaigns is finding the right people on the platform.

Hashtags

One of the ways that companies can start looking for influencers on the platform is by starting with a hashtag search.

In the search bar on the platform, companies can type a hashtag that’s going to be relevant to the industry or the business.

Then, in the search results, companies can select the relevant hashtag and scroll through some of the top posts to see which ones fit the company’s aesthetic.

If there are any posts from an influencer that are going to be a good fit for a marketing campaign, companies can also save that post to review it further at a later date.

Businesses that want to create video-based Instagram influencer campaigns also have the option of searching through the Reels tab for the hashtag they’ve selected, and they can also follow some of the important industry or market tags to keep up with relevant content on a regular basis.

Location Tags

Companies that have brick-and-mortar stores or a physical location can also search through the location tags on the platform to find any influencers that are local to the area.

This can help in substantially narrowing down the search process.

Mentions

There are times when companies have to do a lot of research before they’re able to find the right influencers they want to work with.

However, there are also times when the right influencers have already reached out to the business, and all that the company needs to do is look through the accounts of the people that have tagged the business on their posts.

Generally, tagged posts tend to be public, which means that companies can also review the tagged posts of their competitors to see if they’ve been tagged by an Instagram influencer too, to find any relevant influencers in the market.

Social Listening

Whenever an account mentions a business, Instagram will send out an alert to that account.

However, if a creator hasn’t tagged the business in their content, the company won’t receive such an alert.

Fortunately, with the help of social listening tools, companies can easily find any content that’s mentioning the business without outright tagging it.

For instance, companies can find posts that have mentioned the business in the caption or spelled out the company’s name instead of using the Instagram handle for that business through social listening tools.

Influencer Marketing Platforms

Finally, another way that companies can find Instagram influencers they can work with on marketing campaigns is through influencer marketing platforms, which are generally paid but give businesses a great way to streamline their research process and make it overall easier to find new influencers.

On these types of platforms, companies can find influencers based on niches, keywords, audience size, and locations, and even get more information about them such as their engagement rates and the quality of their audiences.

Ronn Torossian is the Founder & Chairman of 5W Public Relations, one of the largest independently-owned PR firms in the United States.

With over 20 years of experience crafting and executing powerful narratives, Torossian is one of America’s most prolific and well-respected Public Relations professionals.