Building meaningful connections with influencers can be the secret ingredient that elevates your brand, but finding the right approach isn’t always straightforward. How do you foster collaborations that feel authentic while tapping into an influencer’s unique voice? We turned to industry leaders—CEOs and Marketing Heads—to share their proven strategies for working with influencers. From nurturing lasting partnerships to embracing the creativity and individuality of influencers, dive into the twelve expert perspectives that will guide you toward more effective and engaging collaborations.
- Build Long-Term Influencer Partnerships
- Offer Influencer Sponsorships
- Engage on Niche Social Platforms
- Collaborate with Local Influencers
- Host Influencer Social Media Takeovers
- Leverage Influencer Storytelling
- Ensure Influencer Brand Alignment
- Co-Create with Aligned Influencers
- Partner with Traveling Influencers
- Showcase with Tech Expert Influencers
- Collaborate with Micro-Influencers
- Respect Influencers’ Time and Creativity
Build Long-Term Influencer Partnerships
One effective approach to collaborating with influencers is to focus on building long-term partnerships rather than one-off campaigns. By nurturing ongoing relationships, influencers become more authentic advocates for your brand, leading to more genuine content and deeper audience trust. This strategy also allows for more consistent exposure and engagement over time.
Kaumudi Tiwari, Marketing Lead, Zonka Feedback
Offer Influencer Sponsorships
One approach to collaborating with influencers is by offering them sponsorships. Here, you sponsor the initiatives or content creation process of respective influencers that best align with your goals. For example, you can choose to be an official sponsor of a podcast hosted by an influencer or the content they publish on relevant platforms. This boosts your brand awareness and can prove to be an excellent strategy to get more mindshare.
Blair Williams, CEO, MemberPress
One of the most efficient strategies to collaborate with influencers fitting for your brand is to have an active presence on social media platforms that resonate with your niche. This not only helps you discover the right people but also increases the likelihood of influencers reaching out to you for collaboration. By sharing meaningful content through relevant platforms consistently, you build authority and grow your reputation. It fuels the collaboration process and makes it easier for you to come across the best-suited prospects.
Jared Atchison, Co-Founder, WPForms
Collaborate with Local Influencers
One approach for smaller and locally-based businesses is to work with influencers in their area. It’s usually easier to connect with people locally, and they are more likely to have a loyal following. Trying to find more nationally-known celebrities will cost you more, and they’ll have less of a connection with people in your area. Think creatively and look into local entertainers, athletes, authors, or perhaps media personalities.
Kalin Kassabov, Founder & CEO, ProTexting
You can let influencers run your social media for a day, giving them free rein to showcase your products in their own style, basically letting them loose in your “candy store.” In our case, that “candy” was our latest CBD oils and edibles.
We’ve had a wellness influencer do a takeover where they did a day-in-the-life thing, incorporating our products into their routine, letting their followers see our stuff through their eyes, and tapping into their audience too. The key is finding influencers who actually genuinely vibe with your brand, and you also want to give them creative freedom. Have guidelines, but trust them to know their audience.
Dennis Sanders, Founder, Burning Daily
Leverage Influencer Storytelling
We’ve found great success in leveraging influencer storytelling to showcase authentic caregiving experiences. By partnering with individuals who’ve gone through the process of finding assisted living for loved ones, we’re able to create powerful, relatable content that resonates deeply with our audience. This approach not only builds trust but also helps demystify the often overwhelming process of searching for care, aligning perfectly with our mission to simplify the journey.
Justine Underhill, Chief Marketing Officer, Mirador Living
Ensure Influencer Brand Alignment
Part of our social media marketing strategy is building relationships with influencers, which we have seen as an authentic and sustained method of promotion.
One way you can approach the relationship with influencers is to make sure that they are genuinely interested in the brand, your story, and also that they have similar interests at heart. Making sure that you’re connected with your influencer, and their audience, will help build trust. Ideally, the influencer will genuinely love the product and will continue to show it to their followers organically.
If an influencer hasn’t heard of your product before, it’s an easy and good idea to ask them to try it out first—without expecting them to promote it in return. This will give them the chance to try it out with no strings attached, and if they truly love it, then you can start having more formal talks about a potential collaboration opportunity. Approaching it gradually will mean that you have time to build a partnership and make sure it’s natural and beneficial for both parties.
Breanna Hendry, Social Media Marketing Director, Minky Couture
Co-Create with Aligned Influencers
Our strategy for working with influencers is based on building genuine partnerships that complement the influencer’s fan base and our brand values. Engaging influencers in the co-creation of content that showcases our products and authentically connects with their fans is one of our most successful strategies.
Influencers who not only have an engaged following but also align with our brand values are carefully chosen by us. Its impact is increased by this alignment, which ensures that the information feels authentic and natural.
We give influencers the creative flexibility to produce content that blends in perfectly with their story. By doing this, the advertisements start to feel more like reliable endorsements from their audience rather than just advertisements.
Both parties agree on mutual promotion, where not only the influencer promotes the product, but we also highlight the influencer on our platforms. This mutual arrangement raises both audiences’ exposure and engagement.
A smoother collaboration results from both sides understanding the campaign goals, deliverables, and timetables when there are clear expectations and communication from the beginning.
Our strategy has continuously increased brand recognition and conversions by generating high engagement rates and favorable comments from influencers and their audiences.
Nicole Rossi, Marketing Coordinator, Custom Neon
Partner with Traveling Influencers
I’ve found that collaborating with influencers can be a powerful way to grow my ventures. Recently, I partnered with a digital-nomad influencer based overseas to promote our Blue Zone Experience trips. With over 500,000 followers, this collaboration has been a perfect fit. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement—she earns a commission, and we gain access to a broader client base.
This partnership is compelling because she’s already traveling abroad and sharing her experiences. Now, she incorporates our group trips into her travels, offering her followers an immersive experience. For example, she’s moving to Thailand and Bali, so we’ve created trips where her followers can join for two weeks to explore the destination before deciding to move there themselves. This approach has been a win-win for everyone involved: her followers meet her and experience these incredible locations, while we connect with a new audience eager for unique travel experiences.
Working together allows us to tailor trips for two different audiences—those interested in travel and those considering life abroad. It’s a creative way to use influencer marketing that aligns naturally with our goals, enhancing our reach and offering genuine value to travelers.
Tammy Levent, Founder & CEO, Elite Travel Management Group, Inc.
Showcase with Tech Expert Influencers
As the owner of a web design, marketing, and IT support company, I’ve found influencer marketing to be a powerful tool for our clients, especially those in the tech and lifestyle sectors. One approach that has been particularly effective is what I call the “Tech Expert Showcase.”
Here’s how it works:
- Identify micro-influencers (10,000-100,000 followers) who are known for their tech expertise or innovative lifestyle content.
- Instead of a standard product placement, we create a mini-series of posts or stories where the influencer showcases how our client’s product or service enhances their workflow or daily life.
- We provide the influencer with exclusive access to new features or beta versions, making their content more valuable to their audience.
- The influencer creates authentic, tutorial-style content demonstrating the practical applications of our client’s offering.
- We collaborate on a unique discount code or special offer for the influencer’s followers.
This approach has been successful because:
- It leverages the influencer’s credibility in the tech space.
- It provides genuine value to the audience through educational content.
- It showcases our clients’ products in real-world scenarios.
For example, we worked with a productivity app client and a tech-focused YouTuber. The influencer created a series of videos showing how the app streamlined their content creation process. This campaign resulted in a 30% increase in app downloads and a 25% boost in user engagement for our client.
The key is to focus on authenticity and value-adding content, rather than just product placement. This approach has consistently delivered better engagement rates and conversion metrics compared to traditional influencer marketing tactics.
Josh Matthews, Director, LogicLeap
Collaborate with Micro-Influencers
Working with micro-influencers with a collaborative approach often delivers greater value and is regularly overlooked in brand marketing when companies prioritize high-profile collaborations. So, working with micro-influencers is a worthwhile choice for products targeting niche audiences. When these partnerships are treated as collaborative efforts with talented content creators, they can lead to exceptional results, enhancing visibility and interaction for both the brand and the creator.
Micro-influencers have loyal followers who are deeply engaged in specific interests. For brands offering relevant products or services, this means access to a highly targeted audience. In the micro-influencer world, the focus is on engagement and content quality rather than high follower numbers. A smaller account with strong, authentic interaction often drives better outcomes than a larger account with a less involved audience.
Micro-influencers’ followers are loyal and actively engaged, having built a connection with the influencer through genuine, organic growth. Over time, these influencers, whether micro or macro, have gained the trust of their audience by consistently providing valuable content and typically a low volume of sponsored posts. Rather than splashy sponsored advertising or one-off brand endorsements, they turn to organic integration of tried and trusted products. As a result, their endorsements feel more credible and impactful, unlike those that come across as misaligned or inauthentic.
Setting mutual goals from the outset is vital. Embrace the collaborative approach. Have open conversations about post content or stories, and work together to develop content that engages and aligns with the brand’s objectives and the influencer’s genuine voice. Keep in mind that influencers have refined their skills and grown their audience from scratch, which positions them as valuable collaborators in creating content that truly connects with their followers.
Teri Simone, Head of Marketing & Design, Nieu Cabinet Doors
Respect Influencers’ Time and Creativity
Respect is the foundation of strong, long-term relationships with creators. For us, respect means not wasting their time by sending mysterious messages and hoping they’ll figure out what we want. Instead, be clear and direct with your request, while staying friendly. Give them space to be creative, share your ideas openly, and listen to their input. Make sure to pay them promptly and fairly for their efforts. Sometimes, simple politeness is all it takes.
Dasha Arzhanik, Head of Influencer Marketing, HypeFactory
