Long Term Influencer & Brand Relationships (for the influencer)
Relationships are everything in the influencer world. As an influencer, you must cultivate your relationship with followers, with other influencers, and with your brand partners in order to create a community and earn trust. The value placed on these relationships should not be overlooked, as it helps to create the best content and generate an ROI that will make both you and your partner brands happy, which is why you should think about taking your Influencer & Brand relationship long term!
To stay authentic to yourself and your following, partner with brands you truly enjoy. When you promote a product, adding a personal touch by sharing stories of your authentic experience helps followers see that your reaction is natural and genuine. By partnering with the same brands multiple times, it is a great way to showcase the loyalty between you and the brand, which is important in establishing trust with your followers. If they see you continuously partnering with a brand, their trust will start to grow and this makes them a potential consumer.
Remember to always be authentic and never lose your voice! Sometimes when a partnership is just a one-off post, your voice can get lost in all of the promotional messaging. By creating a long term partnership, you can spread out the brand messaging through multiple posts while keeping your authenticity. This will also help make the post be more organic and engaging.
When there is trust and loyalty between influencer and brand, you should feel more comfortable asking for a bit more creative control. Because of your existing relationship, the brand is already familiar with your tone, voice, and style. When the brand gives you more creative freedom, you will better be able to really get the message across through an amazing idea of your own that you will know how to execute properly and exceed expectations. Again, more creative control for you means you will be able to create the most authentic content.
On-going, long term partnerships guarantee a source of income for influencers. Whether it is your full-time gig or something you do on the side, knowing that you can rely on that money source is a weight off your shoulders. This is important because as an influencer, you rely on that income to sustain your lifestyle and “influencing” work. Consider financial stability the greatest motivator for you to create amazing content for long term brand relationships.
Just like you create long term relationships with their followers, you should create long term relationships with your brand partners. As you allow your short term partnerships to grow, you will build an even bigger following, a bigger community for the brand you are working with, and help them generate greater ROI.
Image credit: Bruno Leandro, Foodie Tribe Influencer
Dara Schlossmann is Community Manager at Foodie Tribe. In her free time you will find her taking advantage of the sunny Florida weather, traveling, or in the kitchen cooking up a new recipe.