How To Properly Reach Out To Influencers and Create A Long Lasting Partnership

Hi, my name is Adam Andrews. A social media expert and marketer. In today’s article, I write about how to identify good influencers to use for influencer marketing in your business. Whatever business you may be running or looking for influencer advice for, this article covers. This strategy can be used in all different types of industries and works the same across every industry.

So the way I go about identifying GOOD influencers to work with is actually a simple process. I emphasize GOOD because nowadays there are so many fake/saturated influencers. Using these influencers will produce you little to no results and hurt your brand. Here is my process I go through to identify good influencers to potentially form a partnership with.

The first thing I do to begin my research is taking out a notebook in a quiet room without distractions and thinking of whom my ideal influencer to work with would be. It’s like the process I use to find my perfect client profile but less intense. These are just some of the things I ask myself about my perfect influencer. What qualities do they hold? Whom they associate themselves with? What hobbies they may have? What is important to them? 

After I have answered all of these questions and anymore I come up with specific to the niche I’m searching for influencers in I hop on my computer and begin searching for them.

I start searching for them via the use of keywords within the niche they are in. So if I'm looking for someone who is a Shopify Drop Shipping Expert, for example, I would start searching on Facebook via groups. Any good influencer will have a Facebook group or a page where they help the community by spreading their knowledge. I look for personal PAGES that you cannot friend request. That is key because you'll be able to identify that they indeed are, or are trying to become an influencer since the normal FB profile only allows 5,000 friends. 

After identifying several influencers via Facebook groups/pages I move to other social networks. My first go to network after Facebook is Instagram because of the searchability features through hashtags which make it easy to enter a niche and immediately find influencers. I will spend time analyzing the influencers engagement rates via comments as well as likes. I weigh comment engagement a lot higher than likes because so does Instagram’s algorithm.

So after identifying a few (10-20) influencers that way I will start searching within their friend's list and looking through their posts to see if I can identify someone they have a lot of respect for, our work with. If they are working with them or recommending their audience/community to follow them or check out what they are doing within the niche they are probably a good influencer to look at. Look for genuine posts recommending one influencers audience to check out another. Not ones that seem paid for. For example, if the influencer you’re looking at has 310,000 followers and they’re recommending you to go check out someone that has 5,000 followers it is most likely a paid promotion. This is not the truth in all situations but look carefully and try to find this same smaller influencer on the larger influencers social media consistently. The is a strong identifying factor that they are indeed friends or business colleague. If it seems like a genuine post recommending a friend or business colleague then I suggest checking out what that smaller influencer has going on.

After identifying around 50 influencers I will begin outreach. The outreach strategy I use is very "GaryVee" style. I will put together a spreadsheet with the influencers names, usernames & links to their social media profiles, including their emails. After I have down that I will begin my outreach.

One by one I will go down the list and film a video (just a selfie style) explaining why I'm reaching out to them specifically. What I'm looking to do FOR THEM (major key to get responses) and why I chose them to reach out to. I will explain to them that I choose my partnerships extremely carefully and only want amazing people to be apart of what I am doing. I go through the values that I see in them as well as what I think the partnership between each other could mean. (I.E money, free promotions, free merchandise, free knowledge etc. Whatever your partnership entails) Then I close the video by saying thank you for listening to what I have to say and I hope to hear back from you soon as I am excited to start an amazing relationship with them.

I will send this video to their email first and track whether they respond to that or not. If they do not respond to that I will reach out to them across all of their social media platforms to hopefully get in contact with them on one and tell them about the email I sent to them.

***WARNING***

This is a much more time-consuming process than just reaching out to a massive amount of general influencers within your niche. This strategy works and should be used to find valuable influencers to increase your brand reputation while creating value in the marketplace for both you, the influencer and your audience. If you are planning on using this strategy I highly recommend clearing your schedule for a full 8 hours to complete this entire process. After you’ve done that and start getting responses from influencers it’s just a communication game then. Communicate the details of what you’re offering them, how long you see the partnership lasting, etc.

From there it’s up to you to create an amazing, long-lasting relationship with that influencer.

I hope you learned something new today and if not I hope you strive to learn something new today and every day. Have an amazing day and if you have any questions please feel free to comment or reach out via DM’ing me.

Again, I am Adam Andrews and thank you for reading. You can connect with me via the links below.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/adam.andrews.560

Instagram: www.instagram.com/adamandrewsvlogs

LinkedIn www.dhirubhai.net/adamandrewsvlogs

YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIlGmd15MXVA-TnG9S8tUQ?view_as=subscriber&pbjreload=10

P.S.

Don't be a grammar Nazi. I know there are grammar mistakes and I could care less. So don't waste your time commenting. Thanks:)