Influencing the Influencer — A Series: The Next Steps
Of course, there’s more to tell about the ebbs and flows in influencer marketing. Where exactly you need to go doesn’t mean there’s one cookie-cutter way of doing things but rather a multitude of ways of influencing with the content you create. For instance, a philanthropic event like Color The Spectrum, as seen in the photo above, brought together creators in the YouTube and TV entertainment worlds to raise awareness in supporting the autistic community.
A consistent programming schedule can be key to keeping your audience happy (while skirting away from any feelings of burning out), but you know the best in what you are capable of. All it takes is getting by with a little help from your friends. Let’s see how so.
The Next Steps
Expand Your Connections
When you deliver in campaigns and have a brand who’s looking to expand, it’s your chance to prove that more can be done in other category verticals. What if the campaign solely focused on FPS channels opens up to extreme sports channels? How about that other campaign where there are channels who performed very well that could be a great fit? Content creators may start to recognize that a particular brand is finding itself diving into their verticals, which may prompt greater interest to work together.
Beyond the side of content creators doing their magic, you’ll start to feel more connected in the space when you introduce yourself to many brands and agencies striving to make their products and their creators stand out. There’s this saying I like to share about gaming and esports where it is “See it to believe it to do it.”
In terms of esports, once you enter a live esports event, you’ll see and feel the passion of the pro gamers and the fanbase, believe in its potential to grow with more esports enthusiasts, and do what you can to help in making future events even more exciting (and that can start with inviting a friend of yours to check out the next one). When it comes to influencer marketing, for example, once you see the content launch, you’ll believe in it gaining eyeballs and an audience responding. It becomes a network chain that continues to expand. Maybe, you’ll share the video link to your friend to check out that latest video.
Learn From Your Audience
Going back to that example on the audience responding to the sponsored content, it won’t always be positive. In one way, you can look into how to improve this in the next sponsored content (if it performs well); on the other hand, it can get the audience reacting and talking about something that may perform well because of it. Either way, you make sure that the creator is comfortable with launching it and that they feel great about it once it’s launched.
Additionally, brands may notice that the target audience they initially targeted isn’t reaching their performance goals, prompting them to strategize next steps. The brands know their product the best, but it’s important for agencies to lay out the influencer market to tap into places where there could be potential targets to bring the campaign to new heights. For instance, a FPS gaming brand focused on the FPS vertical could work very well with history channels as the game may be related to a certain part of history where that audience also spends time playing FPS-related games. If you’re willing to test these verticals, you’ll learn more about pockets of where your audience will receive well to that sponsored content.
Don’t Go Alone
You’ll notice lots of creators work together to bring their content to more people. The same mentality happens with bridging the gap of sponsorship opportunities: brands reach out to agencies which may need to get to an agency to get to a manager to a content creator to the audience to deliver. While there may be layers of connections to get to the person you’re looking to work with, it’ll get to what you need to get done.
That being said, having a team who supports you and gets you from Point A to Point B in completing a campaign will go a long way. It’s exceptional to have multiple takes on how to lock in a creator to a campaign and figuring out how to make the campaign seamless and most effective with your time. One team member may catch one thing when negotiating while another team member can connect the dots to the content creator you’ve been trying to get a hold of. Once you create together and build from one another, brands will notice these relationships and may open the door to more opportunities.
The Influential Eye
So, here we are, in a world where we look forward to what our favorite content creators are going to bring to the table in their next video launch. We give them the opportunity to work with a brand that has something exciting coming up, and the audience gets to see more content in the making with brands who support them in their content-heavy schedules.
Of course, we live in this Age of Abundance where content is king and the way we consume the content through distribution networks (i.e. social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, etc.) are getting craftier in audience control, flocking to the next “Big Thing” or going above and beyond the platforms to make a difference. Some may say it is shorter forms of content, and others may look to the Metaverse where content creation meets immersion. Either way, we’ll continue to learn a lot about how the latest tech merges with turning more eyeballs into dollar signs.
It is the power of influence that will keep you tuned in to see what will be next. Thank you for tuning in, and let me know what influence inspires you to do next in your career. 😊
