What You Need To Know About Working With Influencers

Influencer marketing is taking digital advertising by storm.

According to Statista, influencer marketing has already grown to a robust $6 billion a year, representing a staggering 3x growth rate over the past four years alone. By 2029, advertisers are expected to spend more than $69 billion a year to have their goods and services promoted by influencers.

The breakneck speeds at which the landscape is evolving “imposes an ultimatum on senior executives: adapt or risk your brand falling behind.

Although there is no single answer to how one should approach influencer marketing, what has become abundantly clear is that traditional marketing strategies are no longer sufficient. What’s worse, generational gaps and simple inertia continues to create tensions between brands and influencers who can find it difficult to find a shared language.

The key message to business leaders is simple. Influencers are not just promotional tools, they are vital partners in branding and marketing.

Below, we provide a crash course on how to best understand and engage influencers for those who wish to fully harness the power of their audiences.

Trust the Talent to Know Their Market

Young influencers are not your typical 9-5 marketing professionals.

Instead, they are individuals who have made the bold choice of interleaving their professional careers directly with their professional lives. This intimate connection with their audience is what provides them with a true marketing superpower: the ability to derive market insights at a pace and depth that are inaccessible to corporate marketing teams.

Trusting these influencers with creative freedom and seeking their advice on how to approach their corner of the market is the right play here. Their intuitive understanding of what drives their community makes them invaluable in crafting messages that resonate. Going against their intuitions and expertise is a sure-fire way of creating inauthentic and misaligned brand collaborations which will do more harm than good.

In our recent discussion with Jessica Henig, founder of Unlocked Branding, she clarified that the relationship between a brand and influencers can no longer be simply transactional. “The relationship has to be personal and built on trust and a shared purpose for everything to truly work out”, she added.

Acknowledge that Influencers Are A Uniquely Interactive Form Media

Influencers represent a new era of interactive media.

Unlike traditional advertising channels like TV, radio, or print, influencers engage with brands and their audience directly with their audience. This interactive nature requires a markedly different approach to campaign planning, one that considers the influencer’s personal brand and their audience’s expectations.

“This is an entirely new way of doing business for many brands and companies need to learn from their influencers as much as the other way around,” Jessica Henig noted. The shared learning aspect is why firms like Unlocked Branding are now fully embracing the Social Media University approach, a term Henig coined for developing young talent. This concept recognizes and builds upon the intense learning experiences influencers undergo directly at the job instead of educational institutions that are struggling to catch up.

In addition to learning from their influencers, authenticity and brand alignment are also keywords of note here.

Leaders should acknowledge that influencer marketing is about opening a dialogue with their audience rather than generating one-off impressions. The personal and interactive relationship influencers have with their audiences also necessitates a higher level of commitment, a fact which many brands are learning the hard way.

Stand Behind Your Influencers

There is scarcely anything worse than a brand that dumps their lead influencer when the rain rolls in.

Take the Budweiser/Dylan Mulvaney fiasco as exhibit one. Shortly after their progressively provocative campaign faced an unexpected backlash from the wider Bud Light audience, Anheuser-Busch not only dropped Dylan Mulvaney’s campaign but also subjected her to harassment and personal attacks as a consequence.

While both parties will ultimately move on from the campaign, Anheuser-Busch will forever carry the shame of not having truly stood behind their lead influencer and their own campaign. The relationship between a brand and its influencers should be built on commitment and respect that withstands controversies.

Otherwise, corporations would be doing little else than skimming off the top should things go well while leaving influencers with the downside risks should the campaign turn sour.

Support Your Influencers Through the Unique Challenges They Face

Nothing worthwhile in life is easy, being an influencer included.

Although many consider the influencer lifestyle as one of ease and glamor, the reality is one similar to any modern professional. Hard work, dedication and commitment is what brings brands to the table, and there are no free lunches for anyone involved.

At the same time, influencers face a unique set of challenges, bubbling right under the surface. As explained by Millie Leer and Alicia Breuer, two young influencer powerhouses represented by Unlocked Branding, their work can be extremely solitary and all-devouring.

“Though extremely rewarding and exciting, this can also be an incredibly isolating job. On most days I work on my own in my bedroom, making finding time to spend time with loved ones all the more important,”, Millie noted. Alicia chimed in with her routine on remaining sane and grounded; “It’s incredibly important for me to be able to go off my phone and take a step back from social media so that I can gather my own thoughts. Finding time to take care of myself by e.g. going to the gym really helps with this.”

Recognizing these challenges is the first step business leaders need to take if they intend to build a productive relationship between their brand and their influencers. From there, corporate marketing teams need to be on point in supporting their influencers to protect their personal lives and retain a positive headspace when off the clock.

Be Ready to Drop Your Old Ways of Working and Innovate

The final lesson is one of innovation.

The dynamic nature of influencer marketing often calls for radical departures from conventional working methods. This includes adapting to new content formats, communication styles, and campaign strategies that align with the fast-paced, ever-changing digital landscape.

Sometimes it means rethinking the engagement modality altogether. Nata Salmela, Finland’s topmost lifestyle influencer, recently launched an influencer e-commerce platform, allowing brands to create tailored campaigns just like shopping online.

While not every influencer is pushing the envelope as far as Nata, all of them sense the tensions between the status quo and where the influencer industry is going. In order to speak the same language with their influencers, business leaders must be ready to tear up their old media rate cards and contract templates and start afresh.

What worked with print and TV is best kept in the past, as the future, it will be all about influencers and the platforms they command.