Lots of brands starting out on Instagram have a low opinion of influencers. I really can’t say I blame you because back in the day, bigtime advertisers would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on influencer outreach. At the end of all that time, effort, and money spent, they have very little to show for their investment.
It turned out that lots of those influencers were really as influential as they claimed. In fact, many of their followers were not even real human beings. We’re talking about bot networks. We’re talking about fake followers, as in completely fake. It’s not like they built a following by first buying 1000 Instagram followers and organically growing from there. Instead, many influencers are fake from the get-go.
It was a mess. It was only a matter of time until real big brands completely poured cold water on the whole Instagram influencer marketing idea. They think that this is just fake, or that it’s just more trouble than it’s worth.
Still, enough advertisers stuck around, but they had a weird attitude regarding influencers. These mid-level to low-level advertisers think that influencers would basically just jump on any kind of money you throw their way.
Neither of these situations is good. Let’s just get that out of the way. If you share the latter attitude, you’ve got another thing coming because you’re not dealing with amateurs. Although the influencer market is past its golden age, and advertisers are now more skeptical, the truth is there are influencers out there who are the real deal. In other words, they have a real following. They’re not using bots. They’re not using fake accounts. They have real influence regardless of whether they got their first followers from places like socialshaft.com or not.
Given this reality, if you are not careful with how you negotiate with these individuals, you’re going to have a tough time. You’re not dealing with people who are just so hard up for a few extra bucks that they would bend over backwards to promote your brand. That’s not happening.
Sure, there are some new Instagram personalities that might fit the bill, but in large part, most of the real influencers think that you’re just not worth doing business with. And even if you were to chase after those who are desperate for shoutout or influencer marketing money, these are probably not worth dealing with because their followers are problematic. Either they’re fake, or enough of them are fake for you to not get the results that you’re looking for.
If you want real organic Instagram users to engage with your brand, listen up. You have to do it right. You can’t just believe the hype.
Be a Brand Worth Talking to. The first step is to be credible and authoritative enough to be a brand worth talking to. In other words, do you have a solid product? Do you have a happy customer base? Start with these.
Let Your Fame and Good Will Precede You. Whenever you’re doing niche marketing, it’s always a good idea to be an up and comer or an established player in that niche. In other words, people should already know you, and there has to be some sort of good will that’s been built up around your brand.
Now you may be thinking that this will take forever to establish. Think again. Even if you’re just a new brand, as long as you make enough people happy to get an initial wave of reviews, you will be fine.
Be Ready to Walk Your Talk. The key here is to be ready to demonstrate to influencers that you’re going to approach the monetary benefit your brand will bring to the table. In other words, money talks. So as long as they’re able to give you a decent package, you will let your money talk. Otherwise, they might not take you seriously.
Quick Shortcut. Finally and thankfully, there is a quick shortcut to all of the above. Find the biggest influencer in your niche. This is an influencer that other influencers look up to. Cut a deal with them. Once you’re able to pull that off, everything will fall into place. Why? You have been legitimized.
If that influencer who has so much clout in your niche cut a deal with you, then every other influencer would think that you are worth cutting a deal with. Again, you have to get to somebody that they respect. Given how all this plays out, it’s not a surprise many people find Instagram as the perfect platform for social media marketing.
