Quick! It’s time to audit the amount of content on your social channels. Whose voice is behind the majority of the content you share on social and in your blog?
Is it the voice of your brand? If so, that’s not good.
When brands prioritize and amplify the voice of the consumer, they cause engagement, brand lift, and community building.
Any marketer who is not living in a cave knows that a brand talking about themselves all the time is not ideal. The question that baffles so many of us marketers, then, is this: How do we actually get consumers to create content about us and share their love?
Here are four influencer marketing strategies with user-generated content as their backbone, complete with actionable strategies you can use to do a better job of amplifying the voices your consumers actually want to hear from.
1. Equip Them with Story-Worthy Assets
If you follow my content or GroupHigh, you know that I’m obsessed with prAna’s marketing and their product. My favorite marketing example of theirs is the #7daystretch campaign, where they challenged a handful of bloggers to wear the same pants for seven days and share a picture from each day—pants provided for free, of course!
What you should learn: Focus on the story and giving your content creators story-worthy assets instead of just focusing on your brand.
2. Make Rules for Your Social Media Sharing
I like the “3 to 1” rule: Brands can share one piece of content or social message talking about their brand for every three pieces of content they share published by someone other than their brand.
ModCloth does a great job of this. They put the consumer voice and image before their own on their homepage and the posts they share on social.
What you should learn: Implement the rules of cocktail party etiquette, and don’t spend too much time talking about yourself. Nobody likes it!
3. Partner on Something That Organically Integrates Your Brand
Read through the content that an influencer structured their network from in the first place. Build a marketing partnership tailored to an influencer’s individual strengths—one that organically shows their audience how they use your brand.
Lake Tahoe worked with The Abbi Agency to partner with mom bloggers and did a great job of personalizing their partnerships with each influencer’s lifestyle.
What you should learn: Influencer marketing should be approached on a per-person basis and not looked at as a giant strategy that can be scaled up. Real relationships actually lift brands.
4. Ask Questions
Brands must find the right balance of keeping in touch with their influential relationships without being annoying. One of the many ways to stay on their radar and keep up strong relationships with influencers is simply to reach out and ask them to weigh in about a new product or service your brand is thinking about offering.
My favorite recent example of this is from a software company I use. They sent out an email surveying the marketers in their network, asking us to weigh in on strategy, and promised early access to the report if they took the survey.
What you should learn: Make your consumers and influencers feel like a part of your brand, not an extension.
I’m always looking for creative influencer marketing case studies, so reach out to me on Twitter if you want to collaborate on awesome content! @kristenwords
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