It’s 2020 and Kylie Jenner is the world’s most influential person. (We wish we were kidding ?).
Needless to say, influencer marketing is one of the fastest ways to get your brand out there, specially if you’re in the consumer space. (B2B products generally aren’t marketed best on IG).
Creating content for Instagram influencers should be a crucial part of your social media marketing strategy, but…
There are so many companies who have absolutely zero idea how to make content that resonates with an influencer’s audience.
The best campaigns are relevant to the influencer’s audience.
I was just watching the Super Bowl, and most celebrity placements were well researched, generally referencing that particular celebrity’s home life and history to really relate to the audience.
For example, Jennifer Lopez’s ad used her husband in a hilarious video spot (below).
And while you may not have the budget to tailor make every ad to every influencer, it’s always best to understand the influencer’s audience and make content that will resonate with their following.
Just putting up random shoutouts that don’t align with your influencers’ brand is a sure way to lose money quick.
The key is this – You want your brand to stand out organically in your influencer’s posts, while also being consistent with their other posts.
There’s plenty of thought and research that goes into creating content for Instagram influencers, this guide will teach you how to do it effectively.
We address these issues and offer some strategies for running successful influencer marketing campaigns.
Creating Content for Instagram Influencers
Let’s dive right into how we can create the right content for the right influencers.
It actually starts BEFORE we create the content. We need to make sure the right influencers are aligned with our brand.
Some Advice on Finding the Right Influencers
The video above goes over some crucial tips on choosing the right influencer for your brand.
Don’t just select someone because they have tons of followers.
Make sure that the influencer and his audience are in some way associated with your brand’s products.
Creating Instagram Content as a Brand Representative
Why is Instagram the place to find your next brand rep?
- Instagram alone has over one billion active users a month, statistics show.
- Instagram is home to activists, celebrities, photographers, artists, sports personalities, and more.
- Also, it’s an intuitive platform that promotes content in an easily accessible, joyful way.
One of the most popular routes for companies today is to use Instagram Influencers to act as brand representatives.
- You take celebrities or important figures who have a following that they have cultivated themselves, and you get them to use their own following to boost yours
- Normally through paid promotions, though, if you can get it to happen organically, then lucky you
Influencers are powerful. They have plenty of fans that get ‘influenced’ into becoming your customers.
- This requires minimal work and is less expensive than a traditional ad campaign.
- What’s more, there are plenty of users to choose from. Statistics indicate that there are more than half a million active influencers on Instagram.
Finding an influencer to promote your company won’t be too difficult.
The key is how can we make each post more cost-effective and bring in more ROI?
One of the biggest challenges is creating content for them to share with their audience.
That’s what we are going to be doing now. So, let’s get started!
Understand Your Influencer
When an influencer gets hired to promote something on behalf of a company, there’s already a slight feeling of uneasiness amongst their followers.
If the way that they promote the company doesn’t fit with their own social media presence, their content and their personality, that feeling of uneasiness could actually be accentuated in a majorly detrimental way, turning the whole operation into a waste”, says Mary-Jane Strahan, social media writer at Brit Student and WriteMyx.
You have to understand your influencer:
- They should guide the content you create (a lot of times you can ask them about what content works best for their audience).
- Study their feed. Look at how they have promoted in the past (if they have).
- Get to know their audience. Get to know how they normally interact with them.
You want to tailor your marketing to their personal brand
The influencer themselves may reject your proposal if it is potentially damaging to their personal brand.
(For example, don’t propose your vape company to an influencer who’s anti-nicotine.)
If your proposal is really corporate and not well-thought-out, they might turn you down for fear of insulting their followers or seeming to be controlled by a company.
Instagram users are there to get insights into the lives of real people. Not to be marketed at by companies.
Create A Hashtag
Creating a unique hashtag just for your campaign will make it easier to gauge your results since you can now see how many people used the specific hashtag.
This is especially useful in an Instagram giveaway, since you may be getting user-generated content.
It will also help Instagram users to start to build brand recognition. You can get your influencer to ask their followers to use the hashtag if they buy a product.
Then, they can then see everyone else who has. It’s an excellent method of building a brand community on Instagram.
This is something that will pay dividends in the long run.
Use Instagram Video
A now-famous statistic about sponsored video content on Instagram is that videos generate three times as many comments as sponsored photos do.
This is a pretty remarkable statistic and shows just how powerful video really is.
Furthermore, if you ask the influencer to create their own video content, you can use this content inside your own ad campaigns.
For example, this funny viral video from Connor Murphy is actually an ad for Bang Energy.
Video should at least be amongst the possibilities that you explore for your branded content.
If you want something organic, then you could do a video that features the influencer that you have chosen for your company.
In the example above with Connor Murphy, he created a video that’s almost exactly like his regular videos, but incorporates his sponsor, Bang Energy in the video in a very believable way.
By creating content that doesn’t deviate from the influencer’s normal content, the Instagrammer’s followers are going to be even keener to check out your brand.
And it doesn’t have to be expensive. A lot of times, lower quality video can be more personal. A selfie video can perform better than a high-resolution professionally shot video.
Create Striking Imagery
People scroll past thousands of posts every day.
However, they’re even more likely to scroll past a post that is sponsored.
That means, you need to be fighting hard to combat this general indifference that Instagram users display
- You must specifically create visual content that grips viewers as soon as they see it.
- You don’t necessarily want to shock. When viewers discover it is a marketing campaign, shock may put them off.
Anything to battle the shrinking attention and interest spans that fast-paced media is creating will do you wonders.
This picture of an influencer getting a drink is a good example.
Why does this stop the scroll?
The influencer is doing something that you would normally never see on Instagram – getting a drink of water with a funny pose.
It also helps that she’s attractive as well.
Furthermore, her yellow watch is very striking in this particular image since it stands out from the rest of the picture.
“You should try and develop content for your influencer to share that somehow incorporates faces and bodies since the human brain is hardwired to be especially visually engaged by other human forms, which could give you a couple of seconds of delay in their scrolling that you need to reel them in,” says Charles Lejeune, marketer at Australia2Write and NextCoursework.
Use Instagram Contests or Giveaways
Influencers have a much more relaxed relationship with their followers than any company.
This means giveaways are generally much more well-received.
One of the strategies that we highly recommend here at VYPER is an Instagram giveaway.
If you host an Instagram giveaway, you can pick influencers to promote your giveaway. This is one of the easiest strategies to grow your brand’s audience.
VYPER allows you to host and manage effective Instagram giveaways. Some of the benefits of using VYPER to host an Instagram giveaway include:
- Growing your Instagram following
- Increasing exposure and engagement on Instagram posts
- Building an email list
- Increasing website traffic
But if you create an Instagram giveaway or contest and generate all the content needed to get the word out, you can then get your influencer to do the marketing:
- This is far more likely to get genuine engagement.
- Plus, what they might win could be something that they can see the influencer already has. This would greatly further boost the likelihood of their engagement.
- Contests or giveaways are also quite non-committal. You’re not actually asking for a purchase.
- Details you require might be something like entering their email address. Or, doing a short survey. Or else, using a hashtag along with a photo of themselves doing something.
- Make sure the prize is really worthwhile. You only have to give out a few prizes, so make them really good.
BONUS: Check out this case study where one company used a social media contest to grow their brand online.
Get The Influencer On Your Marketing Team
As mentioned above, you need to know your influencer and their audience well. This is to generate the perfect, shareable Instagram content.
Well, to do that most effectively, you can cut out the guessing. You can get the influencer themselves to consult for your marketing team.
- Knowing what they think will work, particularly if they have experience in the field, will help you create content that appeals to them, to you and their audience.
- If you can do all three of those things effectively, then you are well on your way to creating content that could really effectively boost your company.
- It will also give it a genuine stamp of integrity that will play really well with the influencer’s audience, who cares about the influencer and encourage them.
Conclusion
Until you’ve tried to use an influencer for marketing your company, you might not be able to see just how immensely effective it can be.
If you choose the right influencer and create the right content for their audience, there are no limits to the success that you can gather for your company from Instagram.
Do you currently work with a social media influencer? What strategies do you use when creating content for Instagram influencers? Let us know in the comments below.
Author
Michael Dehoyos is a content marketer and tutor at Phd Kingdom and Academic Brits. He assists people with their digital business projects and marketing strategies as well as sharing his knowledge by contributing to numerous sites and publications, the academic service, Origin Writings, amongst them.
Jack Paxton is the co-founder of VYPER, a marketing tool that helps brands build email lists, social followings, and revenue using viral giveaways, referral, and reward programs. After millions of dollars spent testing different marketing strategies at his marketing agency. He then also co-founded Hyax a fast, conversion & design-focused course and funnel builder for creators.