With limited time and resources, running a business requires working smarter, not harder. Social media collaborations, influencer marketing, brand ambassadors and even business page tagging are great ways to expand your audience and increase sales.
Social media collaborations
Collaborations between equals on social media are a great way to extend your reach without handing over your hard-earned dollars. But they do require work.
Think of them like strategic partnerships. These strategic partnerships mean you create content together and share it with both audiences for mutual benefit. The best strategic partnerships have similar audiences but are not in direct competition.
Before starting any collaborative campaign, get clear together on the following:
- What you aim to achieve with the collaboration – together and individually (be sure to agree on SMART goals).
- How long you intend the collaboration to last, and precisely what you will each contribute (who will create it, who needs to approve it, when it will be done etc).
- Which style guide you are following, or how you will blend your brand voices.
- Where you will post it, how many times, how you will tag each other, and whether you are cross-promoting to your websites as well.
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing, sometimes referred to as a collaboration or influencer partnership, usually involves paying a person or page with a larger following than yours to get your product in front of their audience.
Choose an influencer with aligned values and a niche audience of trusting followers that align with your ideal customer. The aim is to build trust through their reputation and belief in your brand. The size of their audience is relative to your needs. A local influencer with a small but ideal audience might be perfect for your local small business. Bigger businesses with bigger goals will need influencers with bigger audiences.
Similar to a collaboration, it is important to agree upfront on all the details including how much you are paying the influencer and exactly what they are providing. Think about how many posts they will share, whether you have final approval of what they share, and make sure they are honest about the nature of the paid partnership to meet platform requirements.
Engaging brand ambassadors
Engaging a brand ambassador is like entering a long-term relationship with an influencer. Brand ambassadors can be a single well-known representative, like George Clooney for Nespresso, or teams of micro-influencers like Red Bull college ambassadors.
A big name is great for increasing brand visibility and leveraging the know, like and trust of the big name’s audience. But don’t discount the benefits of many micro brand ambassadors because we are all more likely to buy something our friends recommend than something we know nothing about!
Either way, be clear about what’s in it for your ambassadors, and make sure they are trained appropriately and up to date on your business, so they create up-to-date content for you. These longer-term relationships are a great way to create an authentic story, for the longer your ambassadors work with you, the more authentic their content will feel.
Tagging businesses on social media
Tagging a fellow business or influencer on social media is like a gentle invitation wrapped in a shout out. When used carefully and genuinely tags can expand your audience and show that you are a part of a broader community. They are particularly great for smaller local businesses.
Take my recent business photos, for example. I had a great experience, so I posted a behind-the-scenes video with a shout-out to @hellotraceymurray, who took my photos. A few weeks later, while delivering the final proofs, she tagged me in return. As we both work for small local businesses, my name went out to a new collection of my ideal clients – an easy brand awareness boost. A few nice words from Tracey, and it was a trust boost, too. Everyone wins.
Tagging doesn’t have to be overthought, as you are not paying for it, but make sure to tag value-aligned businesses and keep the content on brand with your values and social media marketing strategy.
At The Social Nest, we love helping clients by giving them a shout-out or sharing where we can. Book a free intro chat today.
