
The 5 Most Common Mistakes Influencers Make When Working With Big Brands
When you see an influencer marketing campaign executed to perfection, it looks incredible.
It’s effortless. It’s organic. All the messaging makes sense. It’s a collaborative, creative story.
And when you see an influencer marketing campaign made up of big names and no coherent story, it’s a disaster. Audience members comment on posts with negative feedback. The big brand makes headlines for making such a huge blunder. And a whole lot of money is washed down the drain.
I have been running influencer marketing campaigns for long enough that I can spot these disasters from a mile away.
When I first started my agency, theAmplify, and we began working with big brands like the NFL, Ford, Axe, Nickelodeon, and dozens more, one of the things I kept front and center as a priority was educating and empowering the influencers that we worked with. I knew that none of our campaigns would be effective if we were only loyal to the brands — we had to have the backs of the influencers too.
After all, influencer marketing exists solely because of the hard work influencers have put in to build such massive, loyal followings. And it’s unfortunate how many brands and even other agencies forget that protecting an influencer’s personal brand is a high priority.
So, whether you’re an influencer who wants to start working with big brands, or you’re a brand or agency that wants to get better results from your influencer marketing campaigns, here are five of the most common mistakes I see happen — and what you can do instead.
1. Influencers say “Yes” to whatever the brand or agency says.
If you’re a social media influencer, then you know your audience better than anyone.
Which means, when a brand comes to you and says, “Post this picture with this caption,” you can’t just say, “Okay.” You have to really question whether or not that is going to resonate with your audience.
So many brands and agencies misunderstand when an influencer comes back and says, “No, I don’t want to post that.” Most of the time, they aren’t saying it to be difficult. They’re saying it because they know it won’t perform well — and that’s the kind of feedback you want, especially before a campaign goes live.
Instead, listen to what the influencer is trying to tell you. Hear them out, and work with them to create something they feel comfortable posting.
2. Brands don’t include the influencers in the creative process.
You’d be surprised how many influencer campaign managers don’t even bother asking the influencers they’re collaborating with to be part of the creative process.
This is something I’ve never understood, seeing as it’s the influencers themselves who figured out how to attract hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people to their pages. Who better than them to suggest creative ways of weaving a brand into their already-established narrative?
On the flip-side, as an influencer, it’s also your job to speak up. As soon as you’re brought on to be part of a campaign, take it upon yourself to communicate with the team you’re working with. Suggest your own ideas. Don’t just say, “Yes.” Be part of the process, so that the campaign as a whole can be more successful.
3. Brands and agencies don’t communicate effectively with their influencers throughout a campaign.
This is another big mistake, and one that usually leads to a campaign being a failure.
When a campaign kicks off, that doesn’t mean your work is done. In fact, I would argue that’s when the real work starts. Whether you’re a brand working directly with a group of influencers, or an agency coordinating the whole thing, it’s on you to tweak and refine as the campaign moves along. If you start seeing a piece of content perform poorly, and people are commenting on it giving very direct feedback, take that and adjust on the fly. Don’t just sit there and accept things for how they are.
Fix it.
In parallel with that, as an influencer, it’s your job to be proactive. Especially if you want to work with a particular brand or agency again in the future, it’s your responsibility to call things out as you see them and suggest ways to improve the performance of the campaign. Remember, what sets influencer marketing apart from other marketing tactics is that it really is more of a partnership. And like any other partnership, communication has to go both ways.
Don’t just post the content and then sit back. Refine it and make it better.
4. The only measures are Likes, Comments, and Shares.
I am a big believer in data. That’s why we built our own proprietary platform called Reach to measure the effectiveness of every campaign we run at theAmplify.
Without data, you’re making educated guesses at best — and this starts long before the campaign has even gone live. For example, we use data to pick the right influencers for a branded campaign. We use data to make sure their audience is the right fit for the metrics a brand is driving toward. And we use data to make educated decisions all throughout a campaign.
The truth is, most agencies and brands don’t use data at all. They pick trendy influencers with big followings, and their measures for success are how many Likes or Comments a particular post received.
That’s not data. That’s barely scratching the surface.
This means that as an influencer, you need to take it upon yourself to understand the analytics and data behind your own social performance. The big brands, the ones you really want to work with, care more about data than they do anything else. So the more you can speak that language and be able to point to definitive metrics, the more likely you will be to work with them in the future.
5. No one does a final recap after the campaign is finished.
This is the most unfortunate mistake of all.
I can’t tell you how many times a big brand has walked through our doors and said, “We really want to move more of our advertising spend into influencer marketing, but our last campaign was such a disaster.”
When a campaign is finished, it’s on all parties involved to do a final recap — regardless of how things turned out. But influencers especially, it’s important that you’re part of those conversations because you’re going to want to know what worked and what didn’t. That way, you can improve your performance the next time around. And the better your content performs for a brand, the more brands will want to work with you.
When a campaign is finished, don’t be afraid to hop on the phone with your point of contact, ask them questions, and walk through the performance of the campaign.
It will only make you a better influencer.
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