Tips for working with influential social media personalities

Many PR and marketing pros have begun working with influential people online to boost brand awareness.

If it’s a goal for your brand to partner with some of social media’s most popular and influential users in the coming months, first look at Crowdtap’s recent report, “The State of Influencer Marketing.”

Crowdtap recently interviewed more than 50 well-known bloggers and social media personalities to learn what they think about brands and what motivates them to work with brands.

“For this study, we wanted to give PR pros and marketers firsthand perspective into what’s on the minds of the next generation of influencers so that they can build stronger, more enduring relationships,” says Claudia Page, vice president and head of creator partnerships at Crowdtap.

Marketing through popular social media personalities is of great interest to many marketers, but it’s also somewhat misunderstood.

“A lot has changed since the word ‘influencer marketing’ was coined,” Page says. “Moms no longer rule the blogosphere—though they still have a strong presence—and content discovery has proliferated, expanding from blogs to short-form platforms like Instagram, Vine and Snapchat.”

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This is timely information, given that more than 80 percent of marketing and communications professionals expect to launch at least one campaign involving bloggers and social media personalities by mid-2016, according to a May 2015 study by Schlesinger Associates.

Here are some of Crowdtap’s top findings:

• More than 40 percent of the content creators surveyed said they receive five to 15 pitches per week from brands. Ten percent of the creators surveyed reported getting more than 20 pitches per week.
• Forty-four percent of content creators said their primary method for vetting brand partnerships is by determining which opportunities are most relevant to their audiences. They cited this reason more frequently than compensation and brand affinity.
• When asked what they dislike about working with brands, 47 percent said brands’ editorial guidelines are often too limiting or strict; 27 percent said brand managers sometimes fail to respect creators as publishers by shifting timelines that disrupt editorial calendars.

The report also offers insight into how brand managers can establish a sustainable partnership once they get a social media personality’s attention. Most (77 percent) of the bloggers and social media personalities involved in the survey identified creative freedom as the relationship aspect they value most, even above competitive compensation, which was cited by 68 percent of those surveyed.

Social media users with large followings also want to be treated as professionals, the same way brand managers would treat a journalist, the report reveals.

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A successful partnership with social media personalities who garner large followings also hinges on getting rid of misconceptions that they will work for free or for product samples alone.

Other common misconceptions identified in the report:

• Successful content takes minimal time and effort.
• Their followings don’t offer as much value as those in other channels.

Eighty-three percent of social media personalities surveyed for this report said they charge based on the number of posts a brand manager wants. Other factors that are used to determine pricing included the personality’s overall reach, turnaround time and complexity of the request.

Ragan.com readers, does your organization plan to work with bloggers, vloggers and short-form content creators as part of your marketing and PR efforts? How will the information in this report shape your approach?

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