Finding a niche can make you more appealing to brands because it will be easier to pin point what interests your audience.
No matter what level of influencer you are, it can feel impossible to navigate the waters of large-scale brand partnerships. It can be easy to feel discouraged when you are working incredibly hard to build your content and you aren’t seeing results. Here are a few useful tips you can start using today to improve your opportunity to get the attention of brands for brand partnerships.
Tip 1: Think “brand friendly” not “brand safe”
Being “Brand Friendly” can seem like an extremely daunting task when you first hear it. What does this mean? Well, it’s different for everyone. One way to look at it is if you want to post a picture of you hugging your boyfriend, but you’re in a sports bra, you may be concerned that this isn’t “brand safe”. This would be a point to think ‘if a brand doesn’t like this picture and won’t work with me because of that, is that a brand I want to be working with?” Being “brand friendly” means that you are making yourself “friendly” to the brands you want to work with. Even some brands prefer not to work with vegans, that doesn’t mean vegan content isn’t “brand safe”, it just means that vegan content isn’t brand friendly to that specific brand. Long story short, be appealing to the brands you want to work with. But stay authentic to you. Your level of authenticity and sincerity can lead to long-lasting brand partnerships.
Tip 2: Make it easy for the brand
This may seem like an obvious one, but it can be missed and dismissed by so many. This isn’t 2007 anymore and influencers shouldn’t be afraid to share basic information. The truth is that brands will be looking at your page to identify specific information in order to work with you as a brand partner. These include:
- Your first and last name
- The state/province you live in
- Your contact email
The truth is a lot of the time this information can be found by digging, but a lot of brands don’t have the time and will automatically move on to the next influencer if this information isn’t readily available.
Tip 3: Live your bio
This may seem like an obvious one, but it is super important. In almost every Instagram bio, influencers will list three-four things which describe them. For example, Chelsea Bird lists the following bio, “Desert living with @CitizenHD! Sharing our everyday life, style + home in PHX. Baby boy coming in November”. From here you would expect to see pictures on her feed of her husband, her style, her home in Phoenix and things related to her pregnancy. You will notice from her feed that Chelsea does a good job of including all of these pieces in her content. This positions her well for lifestyle or Phoenix-based brands considering influencers for brand partnerships.
To break it down, make sure you are posting about the topics you list in your bio. A simple way to achieve this is to break each post into categories. If you claim to be “a fashion blogger talking about college, travel and my favorite cat Fluffy” you can schedule content as follows:
- 1st post – fashion
- 2nd post – college/study
- 3rd post – travel
- 4th post – cat/pet
- REPEAT
Tip 4: Know your niche
When first starting your “social journey”, it may be difficult to nail down your niche, but you can’t be everything. Finding a niche can make you more appealing for brand partnerships because it will be easier to pin point what interests your audience. Brands are always looking for influencers posting on specific topics to exactly target the audience for their product. A car company would want an influencer who speaks primarily on cars to promote their product instead of a blogger who loves cars but posts about everything from cat food to laundry detergent.
Tip 5: Engage with the community
An engaged following is always going to be important to a brand. It doesn’t matter if you have a million followers if you are only getting 1,000 likes per post. Taking time to engage with your followers will encourage them to engage with you.
On the same note, engaging with those in your blogging niche can also help get eyes on you. If you collaborate with another blog or often engage with another blogger, you create a chain that a brand can follow. They like blogger A so they look at blogger A’s friends and work their way down the chain until they find you. Putting yourself out in the community helps promote you and improves your chances that brands find you.
Looking to be discovered by a brand? Find Your Influence (FYI) is relied on by many of the top brands across the United States and FYI leverages proprietary technology for discovering influencers, managing campaigns and tracking metrics. In an ever-evolving digital marketplace, FYI manages relationships with brands and pairs them with the right influencers to deliver guaranteed results. Get started and join the FYI influencer network for free today.