Aliza Freud

To stay on top of the important trends, watch what successful influencers are doing. That's it. If you pick a few influencers on different platforms who create a few different types of content and watch what they do and listen to their insights, you will get a pretty solid understanding of what is on trend AND working right now.

Being as upfront as you can be regarding what your budget is for a particular influencer content/post request is the key to expeditious and successful influencer negotiations. Influencer pricing can be wildly different for influencers of similar audience size and engagement rate. Stating your budget range upfront is important and will lead not only to a more successful outcome for that campaign but a strong building block for an ongoing relationship with influencers.

The best influencer marketing content is focused on product benefits i.e., how does the product make your life better, easier, more interesting etc. Do NOT focus as much on product features. This tends to be less interesting to audiences. Influencers who can share compelling stories about how the product/service is a benefit in their life, will find strong audience engagement with their posts.

We should first de-couple the terms "uniqueness" and "appeal". Much of the successful influencer content is not at all unique. It instead ties to a social media trend that is frequently replicated. So just because content is not unique does not mean it won't appeal to an audience. I have found that successful influencer content is benefit-driven and conveys how the product makes someone's life better, easier, or more interesting/exciting. This type of content inspires audience engagement.

Zero in on one or two critical desired results. Don't pick too many. So, are you trying to build awareness, drive clicks, drive sales, get sign-ups or something else? Decide upfront. Then, make sure that your program plan matches the desired result; from influencer selection to audience to messaging to call-to-action etc. all should support the defined goal. If it does not, don't be surprised when you do not achieve your result.

When your influencer campaign or content is not working it’s critical to determine why. I have found that a critical voice in your campaign analysis must be the influencer(s) themselves. Influencers understand their audience better than anyone else and can provide rich and significant insight into why content is not resonating. Be sure to include influencer feedback in your campaign analysis.