How to get the best out of influencers

Brands tread a fine line when it comes to briefing influencer talent. 

Too prescriptive and they shackle the creative firepower they want to leverage. Too loose and they risk their brand having no connection with the content.

Speaking at Campaign and PR Week’s recent Influencer360 event, Aaron King, senior director of influencer specialists ITB explained why it was important to get the balance right.

“The worst brief is no brief at all. If you provide no guidance, then don’t be surprised if the result surprises you,” he said.

ITB, which has worked for brands such as Lego, H&M, the UN, Ugg and Unilever, and has won two Cannes Lions for its influencer campaigns, outlined how a rigorous approach to influencer campaigns could help brands gain the most from this $14bn sector.

Why brief?
A good brief serves both the influencer talent and the brand, creating transparency and a document of record that everyone signs up to.

It communicates the brand’s expectations and ideas to influencers and empowers a brand to challenge an influencer if they don’t meet expectations or the content isn’t right.

For the influencer, it emphasises why they have been chosen, what value they bring, and how they fit into the bigger picture of the campaign – something that can encourage them to go the extra mile.

“It empowers brands to ask influencers to change. If you have an agreement, you can go back and get them to do it again,” said Hannah Scott, account director, ITB Worldwide. 

Brands increasingly recognise the importance of choosing influencers who are right for their target audience. 

“When you’re involved in a paid relationship, you need to understand if it will speak to people you are trying to target to not,” said one panellist.

A social media executive for a financial provider, said: “It’s also important to check back on their past and find out if there’s something from 10 years go that’s going to come back and bite you.”

Where do people go wrong?
The best influencer campaigns stem from creative dialogues between brand and talent, so a one-way email conversation is a dead end.

King is a big fan of making a personal connection with creatives. “Get them on the phone. Give them something visual. Make it a dialogue and make sure they understand what you want,” he said.

Brands that use a singular creative articulation, or who fail to represent the diversity of their audience, miss out on the power of influencer to represent the variety of stories, people, and experiences in the world.

Similarly, applying the same creative to different content formats reduces effectiveness. Make content that plays to the strengths of each platform.

Omitting a creative response before production, and failure to include agreed KPIs are other common shortcomings.

The ideal influencer brief

1. Provide a bespoke introduction – every influencer offers something different, so don’t issue identical briefs unless you want cookie cutter responses.
2. Include brand background – including its stories, values, products, and USPs. The more an influencer knows about a brand, the more they have to work with. Pull back the curtain on the brand to get their creative juices going.
3. What do you want to achieve? – the campaign introduction should spell it out to the talent as this will focus their creative response. 
4. What the influencer brings to the campaign – why were they chosen for this particular campaign? Include references to their work that you like and would like to see for your brand.
5. How the creative should take shape – broken down by channel and platform.
6. What success looks like – explain the measurement criteria that are important to your brand.

Articulating creative ideas
Brand guidelines are important but don’t let them bind the campaign before it starts. Providing multiple iterations of how the brand has appeared will demonstrate that there is room for creativity. 

Explain the mechanics of the campaign but avoid jargon. 

Communicate clearly your dos and donts, including important basics such as the ASA code, music rights, or alcohol guidelines. If they are not checked off, then the content may not be usable.

How to deliver the influencer brief
Share the brief by email with the influencer and then follow up with a meeting or a call to create the necessary dialogue and ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Ask for a creative response to develop the dialogue before content creation begins. This can be as simple as an email with five frames outlined and allows a degree of comfort for a brand.

Make sure captions are included as these can be an afterthought – influencers don’t always understand the importance of call to action (CTA).

Approve the creative response.

This matters
A brief may be the only chance to communicate directly with an influencer so brands should use it to communicate ideas, expectations, and have a record to refer back to. People can forget or misinterpret what has been discussed.

It’s easy to cut corners at the start of a project thinking that you are getting ahead, but saving time on the fundamentals will be a false economy if the content doesn’t meet the needs of the brand.