The Dos and Don’ts of Influencer Marketing

Have you ever adamantly recommended a restaurant, book, or TV show to a friend because you full-hearted believed that they would enjoy it too? At that moment, you were influencing them to try something that you trusted. Now, how would you like it if you could do this exact same thing but get paid for it if your friend decides to check your recommendation out? Sounds like a win-win, right? You match your friend to an amazing product or service, and the brand compensates you as thanks for making that match! Welcome to Influencer Marketing!

 Okay, this type of marketing does go way more in depth than this. On top of that, there are some rules and regulations that you must abide to if you wish to advertise just about anything online. This article is to provide you a quick overview of Influencer Marketing to help you get started.

This post is sponsored by Intellifluence. If you so choose to participate in some of the resources provided here, we at Kyrabe Stories may receive a commission as gratitude from the partnering brand. Thank you, sincerely, for your support of the community and for your desire to learn and grow!

Are you interested in Influencer Marketing through Intellifluence? Click here to register for free.

  #1 – Do follow the FTC and the CAN-SPAM Act Regulations.

 There are rules and regulations that you must abide to before you promote anything online. I admit that viewing these rules for the first time was a bit intimidating, but here’s a quick summary of both:

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) states that all affiliations with a company or brand must be obviously disclosed to your audience. The general rule of thumb is to add the disclosure before any links associated with the partnership. This could be adding a small statement at the beginning of an article or video that clearly states that the content is sponsored and that you could be compensated for anyone’s participation or purchases. If you’re promoting a product or service on social media, you should add #ad or #sponsored to the beginning of the social media post. If you were provided the product or service for free to review, you must disclose that to your audience. To learn more, please visit the FTC website. 

The CAN-SPAM Act regulations cover the rules for email marketing in the United States and Canada (if your promotions are targeted towards a different country, please check and abide to their regulations). Click here to view the full list of rules. In summary, don’t use misleading headlines or “from” names, let your audience know if the email is for promotional purposes, list your business’s contact information, and provide a convenient method for your subscribers to unsubscribe if they decide that your content is no longer relevant to them. These are just the highlights. Please become familiar with the full list of regulations before you begin promoting through email.

#2 – Do let your audience know about the sponsorship immediately.

Going beyond the FTC regulations, your audience should know when you are being compensated to promote a brand in order to build trust with them. Imagine if a friend raved about a product and heavily encouraged you to buy it. A few days later, you learn that your friend was paid to promote that product to you. Would you feel as confident about the integrity of their recommendation? Maybe. Maybe not.

Disclosing your sponsorship immediately helps to establish that trust. Some new Influencers might fear that being transparent with their audience about the sponsorship will immediately turn them away from the content. That’s definitely not the case! For example, you’re still reading this article although I provided an earlier disclosure that this post is sponsored by Intellifluence.

If anything, your audience will most likely either be excited to see that a brand has reached out to partner with you, or they’ll just be neutral about it and just want to catch up on your new content. Either way, sharing this bit of information immediately demonstrates your professionalism and openness with your audience. If people love what you have to share, relevant sponsorships will just make the posts more special.

#3 – Do your research on the brand and the product/service.

Is the company you’re partnering with very casual and lighthearted or are they formal and direct? Who’s their targeted audience? How long has the company/brand been around? What do other people think about their products/services? Do they have any direct competitors? How embarrassing would it be to read an article for Lowe’s Home Improvement just to discover that their references linked back to their direct competitor, The Home Depot? That would be a cringe-worthy moment.

As an Influencer, it’s your responsibility to do the research on a brand both before the agreement and throughout the campaign. You’re not simply selling a product. As Bandt.com puts it, “… new influencers are delivering tutorial-style guidance with a focus on self-help, mental health, or wellbeing advice.” Your audience trusts you and your content. Make sure you provide quality resources to them.

#1 – Do not forget to identify your proper audience.

No product/service is meant for everyone. It doesn’t matter how useful it is. If your audience is not interested in it, then it shouldn’t be promoted to them. But how do you know what should or shouldn’t be promoted to your audience? Well, this is why it’s important to establish a niche, or a specific area of expertise that your brand specializes in. For Influencer Marketing to be effective, you need to know who you are speaking to and why. What solution is your audience seeking?

As a Personal and Professional Development Blogger, my audience knows that they can trust me to deliver reliable resources for well-being, career, marketing, and affordable education. What is your niche? Who is your audience? What type of information is expected from you?

If you are interested in becoming a Personal Development Influencer, here’s a list of some of the top leaders in this niche to follow.

#2 – Do not make every single post a sales pitch.

As a fellow consumer, an avid reader of blog posts, and an addicted user of social media, I have unfollowed fellow Bloggers and Influencers who have pitched a few too many products to me. It wasn’t that I was mad at their sponsorship. In fact, the first few I was ecstatic about! Then the promotions just kept coming…and coming…and coming!

Imagine if you had a few friends who every time you spoke with them, they tried to sell you something new. You’d probably start avoiding their invitations, right? Well, when it comes to Influencer Marketing, you want to avoid doing this to your audience!

Your audience comes to you to find trustworthy information. It’s up to you to research what will or will not be relevant to them. Check out Influencer Tim Liu’s interview as a Fitness Coach on how he goes about ensuring that the brands that he partners with are relevant and beneficial to his audience and trainees.

#3 – Do not be afraid to admit when you’re wrong.

I love helping to promote small businesses, but there was one that ended up scamming many Influencers, and I was one of them. It was difficult and embarrassing having to send those apology emails and film the apology video and post the social media apology explanations to everyone. Still, it had to be done.

We as Influencers have a responsibility to take care of the audience that trusts our recommendations. Missteps will occur, and we must own up to them. Trust me, it’s a lot better for you to be the first to acknowledge this mistake than for someone else to bring it up first. You are human. You will make a mistake eventually. Own up to it as soon as possible, and your most loyal fans will forgive you.

Now let’s hear from you!

 Have you considered getting into Influencer Marketing? What has been your biggest concern? If you are currently an Influencer Marketer, are there any experiences that you’d like to share? We’d love to read your story in the comment section below!

Are you interested in getting started in Influencer Marketing? You can register for free with our sponsor, Intellifluence!

And as always, remember to live and learn from one story at a time. 

Take care,

Kyndall Bennett from Kyrabe Stories

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