How to Work With Influencers & Win at Instagram

I’m so excited to answer your questions on ‘Marketing and the World Around It. To get your question answered on the show, write to me using the hashtag #shAMA!

–Episode Questions–

Question 1 from Aidan Sweeney: “Hey Shama, If I’m just starting out, how should I begin working with influencers? Should I look for smaller influencers within a niche and forget about the mass market influencers who have massive companies throwing huge amounts of money at them?”

Lesson #1: “Start with your goals and find the right fit for you.”

Lesson #2: “Influencer marketing takes time, perseverance, and patience.”

Lesson #3: “Showcase the value potential for the influencer.”

Question 2 from An Nguyen: “Hi Shama, My boyfriend Justin has an artisanal woodworking business based in St. Louis, MO and uses Instagram to get his products seen. He was going to pay for more followers but I thought I should reach out to you to ask how he can get busier and more noticed.”

Lesson #1: “Do not buy followers on Instagram!”

Lesson #2: “Create a community based on the stories behind the business.”

Lesson #3: “Consider creating an Instagram account centered around a person instead of the business.”

Transcript

Hey, Zen Nation. Shama here, and it's time for another Ask Shama. You guys send in your questions, and I take the time to answer your questions. Let's get started.

Here's a question from Aden who asked, "Shama, if I'm just starting out, how should I begin working with influencers? Should I look for smaller influencers within a niche and forget about the mass market influencers who have massive companies throwing huge amounts of money at them?"

All right, Aden. As someone who runs an agency where we do tons of influencer marketing, here is what I will tell you. Start with your goals. What is it that you're trying to accomplish? I'm guessing you have an audience in mind and you think leveraging influencers to get in front of them will help further your product, or goal, or sales, and you're absolutely right. It's not about necessarily influencer size. It's not about if they have millions of followers or if they're popular YouTube celebs. What's really important is finding the right fit for your product or an influencer where it is a match made in heaven.

If, for example, you have a cooking app, a mobile game that's a cooking app and you are trying to get influencers to promote that app, you don't want to just find any influencers. You want to look for people who are passionate, who have that audience of gaming intersection cooking interested in that specific topic. That's really the key to make sure that it's a good match.

The other thing is influencer marketing takes time and really a lot of perseverance and patience. Remember, good influencers, people who are out there sharing good content with their community, they get bombarded a lot with different offers. The really good ones are going to be picky about who they work with.

Just make sure that when you do approach them, that you do it not just from a perspective of, "Hey, I want you to do this for me," but look at what's in it for them, what's in it for their audience. For a lot of them, it's more than just about the bottom line dollar. It really has to resonate with their audience because, remember, they're trying to build these communities long-term or most of the influencers we work with certainly are.

Those are things that I would keep in mind. Go after the ones that are good brand match. Don't worry about how big they are. Some of the smaller influencers often have more of an engaged community than the massive ones. Something to keep in mind.

The second question comes from Anne who says, "Hey, Shama. My boyfriend has an artisanal woodworking business based in St. Louis. He uses Instagram to get his products seen. He was going to pay for more followers, but I thought I should reach out and ask you how he can get busier and more noticed."

Anne, so glad you emailed me because you do not want to buy followers on Instagram. I repeat, do not buy followers on Instagram. Remember, Instagram, like any other channel, is your chance to build a genuine community. When you're doing something artistic like woodworking, that's a great opportunity. Some companies, industries have a harder time with Instagram but this is just perfect.

Look at what makes good Instagram accounts grow. It's things that resonate with people. It's the emotion behind the product. If you were just posting pictures of wooden blocks in the process, that's not really engaging. How about inspirational quote printed on a wooden block? How about the story behind how a husband is having something created for his wife for their 50th wedding anniversary? There's so much that really speaks to people. Instagram is a great platform for that so that's what I would recommend to start really looking at creating a community based on the stories behind your business, not just the business that your boyfriend runs.

Also artists have a better chance when they have an Instagram account of themselves rather than the business. That's something also to consider. If your boyfriend is the business meaning he is the guy who's running the business, it may make more sense to have an Instagram account under his name where he can share his story, his inspiration and people are a lot more likely to connect with that versus a company. Just a few thoughts for you there. Hope that's helpful. Don't buy followers. Great brand. You guys can totally do this.

All right, guys. Those are all the questions I had for this episode. If you have questions, ask me. You can ask me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, choose your poison. We will answer them every other Thursday here on Ask Shama. Be sure to subscribe so you know when we post the videos, and you get all sorts of great marketing information. My job and my team's job is really to make your lives easier and make marketing more zen like for you. Remember to subscribe. Until then, market like a Zen Master.

Shama Hyder is founder and CEO of the award-winning Marketing Zen Group, an integrated online marketing and digital PR firm. She is also an international speaker, bestselling author, and a regular media correspondent for major networks ranging from Fox Business to Bloomberg. Connect with Shama on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.