Today, instead of openly selling a product through traditional ads, brands are asking influencers to show themselves using their products through genuine content that feels authentic, just like a recommendation from a friend. Brands capitalize on the relationships that influencers have with a specific market segment, and in this article, you will learn where your focus should be, whenever you are a marketer or aspiring influencer.
We asked marketing expert Rohan Goswami and mega influencer Cindy Prado to give their best tips to conquer the social media and influencer marketing industry, so if you’re looking for some great influencer marketing tips to increase exposure, recognition, and trust, check out what the experts have to say below.
CINDY PRADO’S TIPS
Build a strong relationship with your audience
My followers are everything to me and I wouldn’t be where I am today without them – I really see them as family and I try to share my life with them as much as I can. Making my audience feel valued and seen is super important to me. I’m all about building a strong community where people can express themselves and be authentic. Sometimes it can feel difficult to connect with people through social media, but after surviving a global pandemic, I think we all found different ways to communicate with people.
I recently launched my own fitness program, ‘Prado Program’ to help and guide others in their fitness and wellness journeys, and I have to say, the response has been fantastic. What sets my program apart from hundreds of others out there, is that I’m one hundred percent involved in everything. For instance, I like to create group chats where everyone who is part of the program can connect, share their stories and support each other; it’s super inspiring. Being able to help others become their best version of themselves and being there for them in every step of the way is the best feeling in the world.
Find the right brand partnership
I get approached by hundreds of brands every single day. Luckly, I have an amazing team behind me who helps me find the best partners in the industry (Shout out to Zooz Group.)
Before I decide to work with a brand, I always make sure that the product is something that aligns with my own personal brand. I would never partner with a brand that doesn’t align with my morals and values. One of the most important things to me is to be seen as a trustworthy person, so if you see me promoting a product, it’s because I believe in it, did my research, tested it for a few weeks, even months, and ultimately decided to say yes to the partnership.
This has been extremely successful for me, because both my followers and business partners know that I am genuine, honest and real. I always do everything with integrity and purpose, that’s my motto.
Always be yourself
Being unapologetically yourself is the key to being successful in my line of work. It’s easy to lose yourself and feel lost with so much going on around you; so, being myself is a way I ground myself. I stray away from things that don’t feel honest or genuine to me, it would just contradict the kind of person I strive to be. I’ve learned that knowing yourself and loving the person you are really changes your path in life, I’m grateful to be able to do that.
Social media is not high school, and people know right away if you are pretending to be something that you are not. Never be afraid to be your own person, everyone is born with a gift and unique personality, so let that shine!
ROHAN GOSWAMI’S TIPS
Build long-term relationships
If you have enjoyed working with a brand and results were great, make sure to create an organic relationship with them. The more visibility a brand has on your page, the more people will remember them and build a trust relationship with them. The importance in this is inserting your own personality into the equation, in a world saturated with talent, brands are looking for faces they can trust and celebrate consecutive wins with.
My overall success in influencer marketing has hinged on working with the same brands multiple times, instead of doing multiple campaigns with a spread of low impact brands. A long term relationship will amplify the brand’s reach – helping you deliver better numbers and metrics. Specific brands in the market serve as indicators and can be leveraged to land a target brand by laws of attraction. It’s important to understand your talent at the most finite level to understand their goals and develop a creative strategy that actually delivers on those goals.
Measure your impact
Something that I’ve noticed in recent years, is that clients are now being a lot more critical with numbers, parameters and how we measure results. That’s why metrics like “potential reach” are now in the past.
Today, clients only care about real data, real numbers and real results. Always pay close attention to the performance of your posts, see what kind of content performs better and once you find your content niche. With the introduction of TikTok, all platforms are seeing a major shift to video content. Through market study, we have found prospective audience members generate a better engagement rate with video content as it allows the creator to be more organic.
The days of sending a product for talent to take a picture and post are gone. Organic content is king and the creators moving to the new forefront of influencer marketing are leveraging video.
Get off Email
In a world saturated with endless options for influencer marketing, brands are hungry for agencies that can push the needle in a consistent fashion. Brands are looking for individuals who are dependable and can work in absolute scale. With every agency and influencer operating in the same transactional manner, brands jump at the opportunity to change the pace. Our greatest successes have landed as a result of moving brands off email and getting them in person. While we know there is an abundance of talent and agencies in the market, there are few who push the needle, and focus on a brand as an individual making their key metrics of success your own.
Cindy Prado is an American model and social media influencer from Miami. Rohan Goswami is Head of Talent at ZOOZ Group US.
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