Influencer marketing has evolved into a powerful marketing strategy where influencers collaborate with brands to promote their products or services. We have compiled a checklist on how to successfully collaborate with brands as an influencer and what you should look out for.
Define your niche and your target audience
Think about which topics and interests you want to cover and what kind of audience you want to reach. What do you enjoy doing? What are you particularly good at? What interests you? What are others not doing? - Clear positioning helps you attract the attention of relevant brands that fit your content and you. You can check on websites to see whether your favorite brands are currently advertising campaigns or whether they directly offer collaborations with influencers, as you already trust them and know their products very well. You can also show initiative and write to brands via DM or email to ask. It is best to introduce yourself briefly so that the brand gets a first impression of you.
Build your reach and engagement
To be attractive to brands, you should build reach and engagement on your social media platforms. Focus on high-quality content, interaction with your community, and continuous growth of your follower numbers. The engagement rate is one of the most important metrics when companies want to collaborate with an influencer, as it shows how much interaction you actually have with your community and whether you have the potential to reach followers. Continuous posting and utilizing the latest social media tools will further boost your posts. TikToks and IG Reels are currently the most important communication channels on the web. Companies know this and are switching to them, increasingly placing advertisements on these platforms. Write comments under other posts and actively get in touch with your followers and other influencers. Networking is key here.
When it comes to the engagement rate, there is a distinction between two different types. On one hand, the metric can refer to a single post, and on the other hand, to your entire social media profile. This is how you can calculate it:
Engagement rate per post = Total engagement per post / Reach per post x 100
Using this metric, you can track your posts or even campaigns and understand how they were received by your followers. Total engagement is understood as all interactions under a post, i.e., Likes + Comments + Shares.
Engagement rate per profile = Average ER = Total ER / Sum of posts
The engagement rate per user profile allows you to compare the average number of interactions of several profiles with each other.
If you have friends who are also active on social media as (nano-, micro-, macro-, ...) influencers, it is very helpful to tag each other in stories and push each other's posts. This also generates more engagement. Your friends' followers will notice you, and brands that have already worked with you or your friends will too. In addition, it is a lot of fun to produce content together.
Create high-quality content
Make sure your photos or videos are appealing and authentic. You should bring in your own voice and personality to strengthen the brand as an influencer. Followers quickly build trust with influencers they can identify with. Do not pretend to be someone else and present products you stand behind, as this makes you appear particularly authentic.
The camera work and the presentation of the products you display are also important; after all, the brand is working with you to show its products. Your motto should always be "creative, unique & professional." Have you wondered why there are many influencers who release their own photo presets in the colors of their feed? Unique content is the answer. These influencers are recognizable by their unique feed appearance and achieve high reach through this alone. You also need to be sure which image formats are best for the respective platform on which you want to post. You want to capture the reader's attention for several seconds, which is why vertical images are particularly suitable on Instagram. Here, the reader only has your image with the caption on their screen. With a landscape image, the reader already has the next post on their screen, and your image might only get 50% of the attention. Here is an overview of the most important formats:
Instagram: square/portrait [1080 x 1080 // 1080 x 1350]
TikTok: vertical videos [500 x 750]
Pinterest: square [222 x 150]
Twitter: landscape [440 x 220] Facebook: landscape [1200 x 630]
LinkedIn: landscape [min. 646 x 220] YouTube: landscape [1280 x 720]
You do not necessarily need a super expensive camera for the perfect photos. Familarize yourself a little with your smartphone's camera settings and watch out for good lighting conditions. Try out what kind of photo you can identify with before your first campaign. You can also give your pictures a certain extra touch with various editing tools.
Research and select the right brands
Choosing brands is not that easy. Look for brands that fit you and with which you can build a real connection. Pay attention to the values they stand for and whether you pursue the same. You cannot authentically represent a brand whose performance you are not satisfied with. The easiest way is to visit the respective brand's website and use your skills to scroll through their Instagram account.
Contacting brands
Instead of waiting for brands to discover you and approach you, you should pro-actively approach them. Write to them via DM or formulate a friendly email where you briefly introduce yourself and your content. You can write the whole thing like an elevator pitch, because you want to make yourself interesting in a few sentences. Helpful for this is the perfect media kit, which holds the most important data and information about you and serves as an extensive business card. Research beforehand who your contact person will be. A little tip for this, use LinkedIn. You can go to the brand's page and view the employees and thus already network with them. In your first email, you can already bring in positive experiences you have had with the products and ideas on how you would present them. This way, the brand already gets a first work sample from you and sees if you bring creative ideas. It is also extremely important to write what your motivation for the collaboration is. And even if it is very tempting, do not write that you would like to do the campaign to get free products or money, because the brand will fulfill this part. Your motivation is always personal. Think about why the brand should work with you and what advantages you bring to them.
Implementing the campaign
If a brand wants to collaborate with you, your creativity is needed. You must develop a unique and authentic brand presentation that reflects both your personality and the brand's identity. If the brand has given you pointers on what you must include, it is important to adhere to these guidelines, because the partnership can only work if both sides fulfill their tasks. Most of the time, you will receive a contract listing all criteria and regulating your payment. It will specify which format should be used, meaning TikTok, Reels, Stories, ... and which hashtags you should use. The brand will require you to tag the products and mention the brand account so that potential buyers have an easy time getting directly to the products and purchasing them.
Reporting
Reporting is a very important part of your collaboration with a brand. This allows the brand to see how successful the campaign was and how reliable you are as an influencer. Be honest and see where there are areas for improvement.
