Finding the Perfect Brand Influencers

Social media is the most powerful tool when it comes to building brand awareness and gaining loyalty. With that, your “brand” is less of how you see yourself, and more of how others perceive your brand. You can, however, strategically guide your audience to perceive your brand in a way that corresponds to your overall vision for the brand. One way to guide this perception is through utilizing brand influencers on social channels to drive recognition and recommend the brand to their audiences. Here are some tips and recommendations for finding the perfect brand influencers on Instagram.

1. Make sure the potential influencers’ online presences align with your core values and target audience. The brand influencers you choose will be a reflection of your brand, and it is important that the partnership makes sense. For example, if your target audience is young, active couples, you wouldn’t choose a middle-aged suburban home-decor blogger. There are plenty of brand influencers out there across so many categories.

2. Check the engagement level of the influencers’ followers. While targeting brand influencers with high follower levels expands your reach, having engaged followers is more successful for your ROI. The number of likes, comments, and tagged photos is more important because your audience is actively engaging with your brand influencers and therefore engaging with your brand. 

3. Authenticity is key. The best and most successful brand influencers come across as friends, not as paid advertisements. Look for users who incorporate real-life, authentic moments of their lives in the foreground of their content and the products in the background. While it may seem like you could get more exposure with heavier, promotional-style posts from your influencers, followers respond more positively to authenticity.

Digital marketing today is a two-way street, where brands and consumers communicate with each other constantly. Brand influencers are amazing to create more conversation and stretch your reach into your target audience further than you could have imagined.

Story by: Clara Sims  

Content originally created for and published on Imagine Media Consulting blog.

5 Tips to Leverage Pinterest for your Business

Pinterest is a great tool to search and organize ideas and products for almost any personal or business-related activity. Businesses are increasingly joining the Pinterest platform to gain exposure and drive traffic back to their website. Here are five ways to make the most of your business page on Pinterest.

1. Add a Pin It button on your site

This is a great way to drive more traffic from pinterest to your blog (or other site), and vice versa. The Pin It button incentivizes your viewers to add your content to their Pinterest boards, and their followers will then be exposed to your images and website as well.

2.  Create boards that reflect your business

It’s so easy to get caught in the fun, diverse, and entertaining nature of Pinterest, but it is important that your business presence on Pinterest stays relevant to your brand persona and your boards accurately reflect your business. Find a balance between what your followers want to see and what you want your followers to see. For example, if your business sells children’s apparel or accessories, pin not only your products, but also articles relating to children’s safety, kid-friendly recipes to try, and DIY birthday party ideas. This will keep your target audience entertained while your products stay fresh in their minds.

3. Use “rich” pins

A rich pin is a pin that has a wealth of relevant information attached to it so that Pinterest users can understand the exact details surrounding your pin. Add information like price, location, ingredients, and then add important metatags to your site.

4. Invite others to post to your boards

Creating a group board allows other users or businesses to collaborate to make the perfect Pinterest board to suite the common interests and objectives of all the users. Some magazine companies use this tactic and collaborate with various brands and designers that are often featured in the magazine.

5. Vary Board Positions based on Season

Pinterest traffic varies based on the time of year, and it’s important to remember that when placing your boards! Holiday seasons are particularly busy times for Pinterest traffic. Highlight popular seasonal activities and products such as Christmas recipes, Halloween decor, or tips for Spring cleaning to stay relevant during important times of year.

There are so many more great tips to utilize Pinterest for your business!

Content originally created for and published on Imagine Media Consulting blog.