Lead by our talented team of specialists, BlueSky has developed many creative and impactful social influencer programs over the years for consumer and business markets, touching various sectors – from personal finance to retail, health care to education, beauty to cannabis, and we’ve learned a lot along the way.
We’ve asked our team what their top advice would be when working with content creators and this is what we found.
“The most important thing to me would be allowing influencers the freedom to create content that resonates with their audience. For content to be authentic and resonate with the target audience, trust and mutual understanding play a vital role between brands and influencers. This mutually beneficial relationship can help facilitate the creative freedom required to develop well-produced, authentic content that resonates with target audiences and is on-point with the brand.”
-Arbaaz Ghani
Account Executive
“Many social influencers we’ve worked with are not full-time influencers. They may be medical students or lawyers or scientists and their social profile is a side gig. In fact many may charge a very nominal amount for a post, yet they have a targeted following and can have strong sway over their audiences. Working with these micro influencers can be invaluable for brands, however the experience is not always straightforward. Expectations need to be managed – formal contracts may not be possible, timelines need to be flexible and highly professional content may be sacrificed over authenticity.”
-Zulfikar Fahd
Account Executive
“Do the heavy lifting up front – we make sure that a creator is not just well suited to the campaign, but that they have bought into it and are excited – before the program actually begins. This means there is less turnover and this is VERY different from how our competitors approach campaigns. We act as the guide or coach that helps the creators harness their creativity to develop something that is on brand and also meaningful. They are the creatives, we’re just there to “sherpa” their way through the process.”
-Sarah Turnbull
Account Director
“For me, I think my main learning around influencer relations is the importance of ‘front-loading’ the process. Make sure that, from the outset, you’ve clearly established your goals and objectives – what do you want to achieve from this campaign? Who do you want to reach? What’s your message? Also be sure to choose your influencers with consideration and vet them closely – Is their content typically related to whatever you want to promote? Are they personally aligned and passionate about your brand values? Is their audience relevant to your campaign? If you put in this work at the beginning, the rest of the process — managing client & influencer expectations, ensuring authenticity — all becomes a lot smoother!”
-Lauren Ng
Account Manager
“Our first step is to establish clear client goals, KPIs & target audience(s) upfront. We’ve also developed standardized templates for items such as initial outreach emails (i.e. quick vetting for potential conflict of interests or whether the influencer is already a customer of the brand and campaign briefs – and iterating them with any new learnings from each campaign. We work extremely hard at ensuring all required information is clear, captured and considered. Lastly, striving for a mix of different influencers is also smart – nano influencer to ‘celebrity’ or marquee – helping achieve slightly different objectives and/or broadening the audience reach for the same campaign.”
-Federica Maraboli
Senior Content Strategist
“Looking at an influencer’s postings from the eye of the consumer, I would agree that authenticity would be most important. Audiences are wise to the fact that influencers are paid for reviews and legally it must be disclosed, but we also trust the influencer to recommend what they truly believe in. I recently stopped following a fitness creator on Instagram when he recommended high sodium egg bites. For us, we want to ensure the influencers we work with believe in their content.”
-Dan O’Brien
Account Director
Our team is continuing to evolve and improve on our approach to influencer relations, while remaining responsive to market conditions, such as the need to pivot and adjust messaging in our current pandemic reality or alter course with the recent Facebook boycott.
Either way, a bit of ingenuity coupled with clients who trust us to try new strategies means we’ve delivered some of our best work over the past few months.
