These days there are tons of social media influencers across several different platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube. These social media influencers grow their following by sharing stories, tips, product reviews, and more with their audiences. In this article, we’ll learn how you can leverage social media influencers to promote your online products o
The more an influencer posts the better the connection is that they build with their audience and the more engaged their followers are.
What’s great about this is that businesses selling products can leverage those audiences. In this article, we’re going to outline how you can connect and work with influencers either by using an online meeting software similar to Calendly or just via direct message.
For the purposes of this post, we’re going to use Instagram as the primary social media platform for finding relevant influencers.
Step 1: Determine Your Audience to Leverage Social Media Influencers
The first step in this process is to determine which audience best aligns with your product. If you’ve been selling your product for a while now you should already know this. For example, if your audience is in the baby niche, search for baby-related influencers. If your product is in the software space, search for business coaches.
Just do a quick search for your niche keyword on Instagram and some profiles should start showing up. Go through a few of them to see if they are relevant to your niche. If not, tweak your search term slightly to see if it provides you with better results.
Step 2: Build a List of Social Media Influencers
The second step is to build a list of the social media influencers you want to reach out to. I like doing this in a Google spreadsheet. In my spreadsheet I like to include the following:
- The influencer’s Instagram handle
- Their follower count
- An email address if their bio has one
- The date(s) I reached out to them
Every time you find an influencer you like, it’s a good idea to click on Instagram’s “more” dropdown button to access similar accounts.
This makes it easy to find even more influencers similar to the one you just found. You’ll notice that influencers who have under 10k followers are much more likely to respond and work with you but obviously have less reach. Therefore, I like to find a mix of influencers who range between 5k-50k followers.
Once you have a good list of between 20-30 influencers, it’s time to move on to step 3.
Step 3: Reach out to Those Influencers via DM to Leverage Social Media Influencers
Now it’s time to reach out to each influencer individually. Go back to the list you just created and reach out to the first influencer on your list. The following is a template you can tweak based on your needs to reach out to the influencer:
” Hi [name of influencer] 👋
My name is [your name] and I’m with [your company]. We LOVE your style and your page 😍
We wanted to see if you would be interested in collaborating with us?
Currently, we are collaborating with influencers who would like to receive [your product] in exchange for the following:
1. A picture feed post of you with [your product]
2. A story video of you using [your product[
If that is something you’re interested in please let me know and we can have [your product] shipped out to you. You can check out [your product] here: [your website]
Additionally, we do also offer an affiliate program that provides you with a 15% commission on all purchases you refer to us and also offers a 10% coupon for your buyers.
Feel free to message me back via DM or schedule a call with us to discuss more [link to your meeting scheduler]”
As you can see in the second last sentence we mention an affiliate program to leverage social media influencers. If you don’t have one already it’s a great idea to start one so that your affiliates can earn extra money by promoting your offer to their audience.
In the last sentence, I mention scheduling a call to discuss more. You’ll find that some bigger influencers would rather have a call than discuss the promotion guidelines via DM as it’s more personal.
If the influencer doesn’t respond on the first try, reach out to them two more times just with a friendly follow-up message. If they still haven’t responded, make a note of this in your Google spreadsheet and stop reaching out as they’re likely not interested.
Step 4: Work Out a Product Promotion Deal to Leverage Social Media Influencers
For all of the influencers that did respond, you’ll want to start working out the details of their promotion. Determine which product of yours they want to review and get their shipping address or email if necessary to send them the product or service.
Confirm with them that they agreed to the terms of the promotion and are willing to post on their profile with a tag/link back to your company’s page.
Step 5: Wait for their Post
Once all of the details are worked out, it’s now time to wait for the influencer’s post to go live. Keep an eye out for when their post goes live and try to be an early commenter on the post. Say something like “So great to hear you love our product” to show their follower’s that your company is engaged.
Conclusion
That’s it! Now that you know the 5-step process for how to leverage social media influencers to promote your products/services it’s time for you to go out there and do it! Build your list of influencers and start reaching out to them one-by-one. Once you get somebody who replies, work with them and provide them with a great experience. That way they will relay their experience to their audience and potentially generate a lot of revenue for your business.
