Influencer Marketing from the Influencer’s Perspective: Key Steps

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The best lessons are learned by seeing things from someone else’s perspective. As influencer marketing companies, naturally, we see things from the client brand’s perspective. And the brand sees things from its perspective and its potential customers’. But seldom do we stop to see things from the influencer’s point of view, and understand and learn from that. It would be a good idea to look at the influencer as an artist and businessperson, and look at what lessons we can draw from this exercise.

Understanding the Audience

Before an influencer was the influencer they are today, they were aspiring to be an influencer, looking to set themselves up as a creator and build an audience. They most likely picked a niche they were most interested in, a category like fashion or lifestyle or fitness or craft. Then they must have brainstormed and brooded over what content they might make, and slowly, making that content, discovered their voice and personal brand. This is the quintessential, archetypal artist’s journey.

The top performing influencers, like artists, know themselves—their interests, purpose, creativity, style, and voice—and know their audiences equally well. Brands must consider themselves artists too. The art is the product or the service, and the audience is the potential customer. As influencer marketing companies know, when a brand understands its audience, they are able to match with the right influencers and most effectively leverage the influencer network the influencer marketing company connects them with.

Understanding the Platform

As an artist must understand their medium and a businessperson must understand their market, an influencer must understand their platform. Instagram is different from Facebook, which is different from Twitter, which is different from YouTube. To consistently and regularly post relevant content and get the best engagement rates, influencers study the platform (much like an influencer marketing company). Their content strategy is based on brilliant observations like the fact that, on Instagram, engagement rates are the highest worldwide on Wednesday late morning and afternoon. So it’s a good idea for them to time their post for that time on Wednesday.

It’s not enough that influencers know this, but surely, brands and influencer marketing companies benefit enormously from such insights.

Main Influencer Marketing Takeaways

So, finally, what can we take away from this exercise that we can apply to our own influencer marketing practice? First of all, to understand the brand itself as a creator or an artist, the work of art being the product or the service, and the audience is the public who are potential customers and patrons. When we do this, we start looking at collaborations between brands and influencers as true creative collaborations, and it improves the quality of the content and the brand’s messaging and memorability.

Then, as the brand understands itself as well as an artist or creator understands themselves, it is much easier and more constructive to find the right influencer network matches for the brand. Once this right match has been found, the collaboration may be the start of a lasting creative and business alliance. The influencer’s emotional connection will benefit the brand’s image, and the brand’s goodwill will reflect well on the influencer. As influencer marketing companies understand, good brand-influencer partnerships are not made in heaven, they are made by understanding oneself and the other, and having harmonious purposes.