One of the secrets for advertising success is to make brands relevant to the target and connect with their audiences. Whilst the subject of advertising is broad and has evolved today, we will focus on nurturing influencers for your brands.
Social media presents the opportunity to build and nurture relationships at various levels of advocacy for the brand. When looking to building and nurturing brand advocacy online we should look towards:
- Micro and Macro celebrities
- Social media influencers
- Journalists
- Our customers
- Our employees
All these people and more can provide and nurture brand advocacy. Let’s have a look at a framework we normally use when engaging with social influencers/creators.
Step 1: Identify
To identify the influencers, you want to build a relationship with, you need to identify your ideal target audience:
- Who do you want to be speaking to?
- How old are they?
- What are their interests?
Once you find your target audience, then it’s super simple to find your influencers. They will be the ones that your target market is already avidly listening to, and actively engaging with on a regular basis.
Step 2: Nurture
Its Critical to approach the influencers you’ve found with the view to work with them – to nurture their creativity around your brand message.
True influencers are themselves content creators. It will be instantly obvious to their audience if you craft their content for them, and then ask them to simply post an “advert” to their timeline. They have influence because their audience trusts their authentic voice and opinion
Step 3: Measure
This step is a continual process. In order to effectively find the right influencers with a properly engaged audience around relevant topics, you need to measure them on the right metrics.
When nurturing, it’s important to keep a measure on where each individual is at all times on their relationship with the brand. When you first find an influencer, you should investigate how they feel towards your brand – whether they are oblivious to it, positive towards it, or a negative influencer.
By building a relationship with influencers, you are ensuring that they actually become personally invested in your brand. This will then shine through their content to their audience – your target market.
