50 Ways to Lose Your Influencers

Playing on both sides of the marketing influencer game, I get to see all kinds of influencer marketing outreach mistakes. Unlike the famous song by Paul Simon, "50 Ways to Lose Your Lover", most brands are not intentionally trying to lose the influencers they've worked to attract.

Avoiding costly mistakes starts by understanding what those mistakes are, even when they are head slapping obvious. Below I've listed 31 influencer engagement fails and added 19 more contributed by a fine group of marketing influencers.

1. Using the wrong name in a pitch email or other inaccurate information (that should really be correct).
2. TLDR requests that take forever or never get to get to the point.
3. Irrelevant requests that have little if anything to do with the influencer’s expertise.
4. Not making it clear what the value exchange is.
5. Being too familiar and friendly with influencers on the first contact. Hey, we’re not actually friends (yet) are we?
6. Making it difficult by asking numerous, complicated questions, like those fun essays in college.
7. Unreasonable deadlines: “Hi you don’t know me, but please send me 1,000 words by tomorrow.”
8. No credibility. Emailing a pitch from a gmail address and pointing to a website that looks really spammy or just bad.
9. #influencerstalking Following up one day after the first pitch. Then again the next day. Then again the next day and so on.
10. #failuretofollowup Asking for participation and then never following up.
11. Cold shoulder. Engaging an influencer online several times and then ignoring them when in person at industry events.
12. Lying or being disingenuous in any way.
13. Bait and switch. Offering access to a tool to preview, then requiring an guided demo where the influencer is “sold to”.
14. Bait and switch 2. Inviting the influencer to an event, then requiring attendance of a presentation where the influencer is “sold to”.
15. Micromanage. Requiring an unpaid influencer to cover specific topics in specific ways to the brand’s benefit that are not natural to the influencer (or their community).
16. Taking advantage. Expecting an influencer to do for free, what really should be paid for – moderating a panel, writing substantial content, extensive participation requirements.
17. When a brand takes unearned credit for ideas the influencer created, wrote about and used in their business.
18. Misappropriating. Using influencer content in ways never intended, especially when it is monetized by the brand or someone else entirely. Also, misrepresenting how the influencer’s contribution will be used. For example, saying it is for a public article and then using it for a gated ebook.
19. Making public, disparaging remarks or being disrespectful about an influencer.
20. Not being patient – these people are busy!
21. Switching the conditions of participation – shame on everyone if there is not a written, signed agreement for specific expectations.
22. Not being thankful for the influencer’s efforts. This goes both ways too – influencers should be thankful for the opportunity as well.
23. Failure to communicate. Managing communications and coordination poorly, in a disorganized way and without clear direction.
24. No edits. Publishing influencer content “as-is” without copyediting.
25. Being an asshat. Going over the line with sarcastic humor in influencer communications – you really need to know if they’re in to that.
26. Slimy SEO. Taking the influencer’s contribution and then SEO-ing the heck out of it with keywords and anchor text galore.
27. Backchannelling. Reaching out the the influencer’s “boss” or co-worker to ask why the influencer hasn’t responded to pitch emails.
28. Not being clear about the premise or context of the ask and thereby confusing the pitch.
29. Being one sided. When brands do not follow through on commitments made to the relationship.
30. And you are? Changing the client side contact and not doing any kind of hand off to ensure continuity.
31. Making it incredibly difficult to share the result of the brand/influencer collaboration. i.e. not providing pre-written tweets and social shares, properly sized graphics, embed codes, etc.
32. Inappropriate asks. “As for asks like promoting your product (books, webinars, conferences, etc.) in exchange for affiliate revenue please DON’T.” via Carlos Gil
33. “Out-of-the-blue Asks. I get requests from people I know really well every week. What makes you think I’ll make time to work with you if I’ve never interacted with you before? Take some time to comment on my posts, rate my podcast, review my book. I’ll return the favor in a heartbeat. If you hit my inbox out of nowhere… Delete.” via Drew Davis
34. Too soon. “My pet peeve is when someone follows me on Twitter or Instagram and/or fans me on Facebook and immediately reaches out to me with a request to check out their business.” via Kim Garst
35. “Ask Them To Sell. Your influencer is there to help you increase the awareness, association and consideration of your brand in a certain space – not to shill for you.” via Gerry Moran
36. Using the wrong channels to communicate: “Sending me a message about LinkedIn using Facebook.” via Jason Miller
37. Hello, can I interrupt you? Calling an influencer without an appointment to pitch. via Mark Schaefer
38. Peerless pressure. PR people that try to persuade influencer involvement because their peers are involved too – except they are not. via Mark Schaefer
39. Impersonal pitches. When companies send out generic en masse pitches, like a robo-call, but via email. The personal touch can make or break an influencer’s decision to engage. via Chad Pollitt
40. “Don’t tell me your story, let me tell my story. ‘LESS fabrication, MORE facilitation’ = a boost to your Return on Relationship, #RonR.” via Ted Rubin
41. Lazy duplication. “When you get that really interesting Tweet inviting you to take a look at something and then when you click through to it you also see that they have composed basically the same message to 579 other people on Twitter.” via John Jantsch
42. Delegated and impersonal. “Reach out to me directly yourself. Do NOT delegate this critical step to your marketing agency, PR professional, team member, assistant or intern. Do it yourself and make your note personal. If you want me to respond, I expect you to do the asking yourself.” via Heidi Cohen
43. “Not greasing the skids. Influencers are most likely to add commentary if there is some kind of existing relationship. This means at least some kind of history where the person reaching out has already been sharing the influencer content.” via Joe Pulizzi
44. “Expecting too much in one ask. For example, writing a 1000 word article on your platform due this week without a previous relationship.” via Joe Pulizzi
45. Misleading opportunity. “Asking for 30 minutes of my time to discuss a “partnership” – which actually means you want me to sell your stuff to my clients.” via Ardath Albee
46. Asks that are complicated, ambiguous and without deadlines. via Rebecca Lieb
47. Not following up with that blog post, ebook, or copy of the interview the influencer contributed to. Influencers are indeed interested in seeing the fruits of their labors. via Rebecca Lieb
48. Abusing the kindness of an influencer by asking over and over again without showing any special consideration. “Set the tone and rules upfront. Influencers can’t be expected to take part in everything you do, so say that. Set the ground rules and expectations.” via Bryan Kramer
49. Giving up, as in not being persistent (over time) with credible, relevant offers and reasons to engage. “Give them a reason to come back, ask them what they are working on and keep the conversation going.” via Bryan Kramer
50. Spamming. “Signing up for an app that spams your “top influencer” with automated messages is a sure path to a rocky relationship.” via Glen Gilmore

What influencer engagement sins would you add to this list?

But wait, there's more!

For advice on what you should do to earn and maintain great influencer relationships for marketing, be sure to check out Influence 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing (by Brian Solis of Altimeter, Traackr and TopRank Marketing) report and interactive infographic (by Ceros).

If you're working in the B2B space, here's a presentation you might enjoy: Influencer Marketing: Mighty Hype or Great Hope for B2B?

However, if you want to learn about influencer marketing in person, I hope you were able to grab one of the passes for Digital Summit Minneapolis (sold out) happening on August 14-15, 2017. It's going to be great! Seth Godin is doing the opening keynote, Ann Handley is doing the lunch keynote and I will be giving the closing keynote: How to Supercharge Your Content with Influencer Marketing.

If you missed Digital Summit, here are my upcoming presentations on influencer marketing for the rest of 2017:

Sept 5th Cleveland - Content Marketing World Pre-conference Workshop: Creating an Influencer Marketing Strategy: A to Z

Sept 6th Cleveland - Content Marketing World Solo Presentation: Big Brand Influencer Marketing: Trends & Best Practices

Sept 26th New York - Influencer Marketing Days Keynote - B2B Influencer Marketing: Top Trends, Examples and Opportunities

October 3rd Boston - MarketingProfs B2B Forum Solo Presentation: From Why to ROI: B2B Influencer Marketing Case Studies for Success

November 7th San Francisco - Dreamforce Solo Presentation: How Influencer Content Can Drive ABM Success

November 9th Las Vegas - Pubcon Keynote: In Search of Influence

November 13 Milan, Italy - SMXL Masterclass, Panel and Keynote: Content & Influence Integration

I hope to see you at one or more of these events in 2017!