How To Influence Influencers: 4 Foolproof Techniques

When working with influencers you can have incredibly varied outcomes, because every single influencer is different; each one is their own person, with their own lives, doing their own thing. For that reason, in this post I focused on how to influence the influencer.

Get social!

Social media is a very powerful tool, it can help you get to know your influencer’s interests and if they would be suitable for your client. It can also help figure out if the brand is right for the influencer’s audience.

To attract bloggers to your project, it’s important to get your social media posts and profile just right. For example, Twitter is a really popular platform used extensively by both bloggers and brands – so it’s essential that you’re able to stand out from the thousands of other tweets that influencers see on a daily basis.

Here are some top tips to consider when using Twitter to attract influencers:

Make sure you have a profile picture. This makes your profile look much more personal. Besides, you don’t want to look like you’re out to catfish anyone!

We all know that tweets can only include 140 characters (soon to be 280!), so it’s vital to include as much information as possible when posting. Try to include the type of blogger you’re looking for, the subject of the blog and any blogger incentives.

Top hashtags to find influencers on Twitter:

• #bloggerswanted
• #bloggersrequired
• #journorequest

You can also use hashtags to search for specific types of bloggers, for example:

• #fbloggers (fashion bloggers)
• #tbloggers (travel bloggers)
• #bbloggers (beauty bloggers

Don’t, however, overload your post with hashtags. Not only does this look unappealing to influencers, but it’s also wasting that valuable character count!

Using Instagram to attract influencers

Instagram is jam packed full of influencers, but has a more private nature than Twitter, and is essentially a photo sharing site, so anything you put on this platform has to be visual.

The most obvious way of getting your brand message out there on Instagram is by posting a picture to your followers. Just like Twitter, there are relevant hashtags you can use to get your post seen by more influencers. But how do you make your post visual? If you’re not a designer, don’t panic! There are some excellent tools out there that you can use to create a fabulous Instagram post that will attract bloggers – Canva is a personal favourite of mine.

Making sure your Instagram account is top notch will attract more influencers too. So make sure you have a good bio and post great content, that’s not all about attracting bloggers!

Make sure your brand matches the blogger

Always browse through every bloggers’ content and make sure that your proposal is relevant/beneficial to them. Make sure that the brand, product or campaign that you are approaching the blogger with is something that they will be excited about.

Creating content that influencers like is much easier and the end result will most likely be of a higher quality.

Even if your client is a smaller or lesser known brand/company, it is about how you pitch them to influencers you work with. In this case, it’s very similar to the approach you would use when contacting the press – you need to grab their attention.

Take advantage of the seasons

Keep seasonal celebrations in mind, people as a whole like to get excited about certain occasions that happen once a year, so make sure to be early with your proposal.

It’s always about good timing. Whether it’s ensuring that the influencer you are contacting is open to working with your client or that your campaign is not focusing on wrong things at the wrong time. There is nothing worse then trying to work with influencers on a campaign, that you know is not relevant – BBQ campaign in December anyone?

Maintain influencer relationships

You are creating a relationship with someone that you’ll probably only talk to via email or social media. There won’t be that many occasions where you can call an influencer that you’re working with. And unless you’re running an event that you are inviting influencers to, you won’t meet them face to face. That means that you need to try hard and make sure that you are easy to work with, your emails are clear and you’re always honest.

Follow influencers on social media, it’s great to know what they are up to when you are approaching them to work with you. Do make sure you know what their blog is about, what they like and what they prefer to write about.  

It’s very likely that you will work with the same blogger more than once. And similar to all other situations, you wouldn’t start introductions all over again as if you have never met! That said, you should not only be in touch when you have new projects, but also time to time check how are your influencers friends doing – what about nice chocolate at Christmas to say ‘thank you’ for working with you?

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