A trial-and-error strategy won’t help you find the best influencer who will efficiently embody your brand’s ideals. What you get instead is wasted resources, or worse, a PR nightmare.

If you want to dodge these influencer marketing mistakes, position your brand to win. Find the influencer that fits you and get them to collaborate with you. 

These steps can help you.

1. Know who you are looking for

In-depth knowledge of the audience you want to serve should be a huge factor in the choosing stage. 

Find your target audience’s common grounds:

• Do they follow a set of influencers in common?
• Do any of those influencers fit your brand or work in your niche?
• How engaged are these influencers to their social followings?
• How often do they post new content?
• Are their creatives in no way damaging to your brand?
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Without knowing the answers to these questions, you could be working with a dud bullet instead of going with a bang. And that could mean thousands of dollars of marketing budget going down the drain for you. 

Especially when you’ll work with big influencers. 

But you don’t have to work with mega influencers right away. 

You can start working with micro-influencers who are eager to grow their profiles and reach.

Plus, micro-influencers have lots of pros:

• They have a highly targeted audience.
• They have 60% more engagement rate compared to macro influencers.
• Their followers see their recommendations as genuine (as they’re more relatable than celebrities).
• They’re more affordable.
• They have a tighter relationship with their audience so they drive more sales.

But then there’s an easier way than just guessing answers from the questions above — use a platform like Sociata to find the right influencers. 

‍Sociata is an influencer search platform that you can use to gather data such as total followers, audience type, and audience engagement. It validates the real effectiveness of the influencers.

The best part?

It will give you access to the influencers’ emails and phone numbers.

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2. Engage with them before reaching out

Scouting an influencer does not mean directly reaching out to them via private message.

You still need to start with the basic interaction. Influencer outreach is one big social game, after all. The more you establish rapport, the higher the chance they’ll reply and even say yes to your collaboration request.

Start by following their social media accounts, especially the ones they’re very active on.

Share and comment on their posts to get their attention. This is one good way to build rapport that leads to mutual trust. 

Remember, genuine influencers who love their audience will take the time to engage their audience through comments. Influencers that do not are probably in it for vanity alone.

3. Slide into their DMs or inbox

When is the right time to slide into their DMs?
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When you’ve made your brand’s presence known to them and you regularly hang out in their comment section.

Once you’re sure there is a sense of connection between you and the influencer, then it’s time to make the next move.

Whether it’s their email or DM, it’s best to send a personalized message.

Show the influencer that you’ve taken the time to know them by mentioning relevant pieces of content.

Open up with a simple “Hey, I love your content about ___. We can relate!” 

You can use Sociata to analyze any of their content and include some amazing data-driven insight in your message. 

Tell an influencer one or two specifics of their content e.g. high engagement or views and they become happy creatures. Compliment them on what they’re doing well. 

Here are the templates that you can download for free

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4. Stand out from other brands

News flash — you won’t be the only brand in their DMs. 

Every rising and established influencer is probably swamped with similar offers for content collaboration.

It’s a jungle out there, mate!

If you want to stand out from the sea of brands and shine, you can’t simply mention your plans.

You have to come at them and show them why you're a fun and trustworthy brand to work with. Here are ideas:

• Mention the previous influencers your brand worked with, especially ones within their niche.
• Send them freebies of your product that they can test out. Everybody loves free stuff
• Offer something that’s worth their time
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Properly compensating an influencer for their efforts is one good way to keep things good between you.

The line between an influencer's perceived worth and your brand's offer can get a little confusing.

Influencers refuse to be low-balled and brands want to ensure they're not over-paying for future collaboration.

Good thing, Sociata can give brands pretty fair influencer pricing estimates. The pricing analysis is based on the influencer's number of followers and predicted performance such as views and engagement.  

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Sociata has a nifty feature that helps you find out which influencers are good to keep in contact with. iScore allows you to measure the content performance of the influencers you’ve worked with. The higher the score, the better their influence is.

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5. Keep in touch even after the project

The end of a collaboration project should not be the end of your relationship with the influencer.

Keeping goodwill towards well-performing influencers you’ve worked with leads to more benefits.

If their content collaboration is still delivering even after the project period, it is best to let them know about it. Don’t hesitate to shower them with personalised gifts for a job well done. 

It should be part of your influencer aftercare to check up on them and share their new wins.

When you take care of your influencer, they take care of you too. They tell other influencers the positive qualities of your brand. They don’t hesitate to continue sharing about you even after the project.

That’s how you cultivate the art of reciprocity as a brand.