Blog

 and small businesses can take advantage of the opportunity to reach new audiences and increase brand awareness.

If you’re new to influencer marketing, it’s about working with people that are popular on social media to promote a brand or product.

Celebrity endorsements were an early kind of influencer marketing, but it’s no longer exclusively about the rich and famous teaming up with global brands.

 Natalie Sherman explains that influencers don’t have to be famous – they’re simply people that resonate with your ideal customer.

“An influencer could be a local business owner or an individual in the community. It’s purely someone who could have influence over specific people, because they are respected, liked and admired,” she said.

In recent years, influencers with smaller, more engaged audiences have become more popular:

These types of influencers are not only more accessible for small businesses, but they tend to generate higher levels of engagement with their followers.

Nano influencers

Micro-influencers like skin positivity campaigner 

 often have more engaged audiences than bigger accounts

Interested? Like any other kind of marketing campaign, influencer marketing requires some careful planning.

This article walks you through how to research influencers, check their credibility and reach out to them.

The first step is to think about what you want to achieve with an influencer campaign.

Common goals for influencer marketing campaigns

Once you’ve got a basic goal in mind, start thinking about the length of your campaign and the deliverables.

 founder Stefanie Hopkins explains that while long-term influencer partnerships require more time and resources, they can also result in greater audience loyalty.

“Consider whether a longer term relationship with an influencer is a better strategy than a one-off transactional post. Often the only result from these is increased brand awareness or, at best, a one-time sale.

“Establishing longer term relationships may require more time, energy and resource, but it results in greater bonds and loyalty between the business and its audience,” she said.

There are a few different ways to go about finding social media influencers for your small business.

While you might not count a Kardashian among your followers, there could be a nano or micro-influencer already in your network.

Look at people you’re already connected with and anyone who has engaged with your posts in the past. It’s much easier to partner with an influencer if they’re already a fan of your business.

Do you have a set of hashtags you use to reach your target audience? Searching those hashtags is an easy place to start looking for potential influencers.

Bear in mind that broad hashtags like “travel” or “health” are used in millions of posts, so you will need to go more niche than usual.

Most platforms have a feature that provides suggestions of other people to follow. They’re often popular accounts or accounts that your followers have engaged with, so they’re useful for discovering potential influencers.

Okay, you’ve done your initial research – now it’s time to whittle that list down. Here are three important questions to ask:

It’s essential to find out where an influencer’s followers are based before you move forward. If your target audience is British women aged 18-30, there’s no point promoting your product to an audience that’s predominantly based in South America.

You can do some initial research yourself to by skimming through follower lists. However, if you decide to reach out to the account, make sure that you ask them to share a screenshot of their 

Engagement is a vital metric, because you want to see that an influencer’s followers are actually interested in what they’re posting. Lots of likes, comments and shares means there’s a good chance of your brand resonating with people too.

The majority of this research can be carried out manually using the search functions on the platform. Faith PR’s Stefanie then recommends supplementing your research with third-party tools like 

During this process, Stefanie emphasises that it’s important to focus on engagement rather than follower numbers.

“Don’t be seduced by influencers with large followings and the theoretical reach that their branded messages are promised to benefit from. Being popular isn’t the same as being influential.

“Large numbers of followers, impressions or visitors don’t necessarily translate into greater influence. So don’t go for a 40,000-followed account if they’re only getting a handful of comments or likes. That’s a huge red flag,” she said.

Engaged followers

Look for high engagement in the comments, like this post from fashion and beauty micro-influencer 

3. How many brands have they partnered with?

Teaming up with an influencer who’s worked on campaigns before is beneficial, because it gives you an idea of how your campaign might look. But be mindful of working with someone who’s partnered with lots of brands in quick succession – their audience might be nearing ad fatigue.

There’s also a potential conflict of interest if they’ve worked with similar businesses to yours, so make sure they haven’t partnered with competitors in the past.

Once you’ve got a few influencers in mind, it’s best to start the relationship in a way that feels organic. Follow them, comment on their posts and get to know their brand.

When you’re ready to reach out, send them a direct message or look for an email address in their bio. Even if it takes extra time, personalise each message – it’ll show you’re serious about partnering with them.

Finally, be prepared to collaborate. Influencers have spent time and effort building their personal brand, so they will expect a certain amount of say in what they post. And, as Naturally Social’s Natalie points out, this can be beneficial – they know what works.

“Try not to be directional in how you’d like your content to be shared, particularly if you’re gifting items. Influencers know what content works well for their audience so let them do what they do best – create!”

Join Enterprise Nation’s thriving community of small business owners to connect with expert advisers and other founders just like you.

Social media influencer

How to find social media influencers for your small business 

Influencer marketing is on the rise and small businesses can take advantage of the opportunity to reach new audiences and increase brand awareness.

How to find social media influencers for a business

Influencer marketing isn’t just for big brands.

As Enterprise Nation&apos;s Head of community it&apos;s my job to make sure that you’re getting the most from your membership. If you’re a small business owner I&apos;ll make sure that we’re matching you to the support you need to start and grow your business. For advisers, that means making you aware of every available opportunity to promote your expertise to the rest of the community and connecting you with entrepreneurs that are looking for support.

Working closely with our Platform team, I&apos;ll help ensure that you can easily navigate our website and that your user experience is seamless.&nbsp;

Head of community

Meet 10 Enterprise Nation members with something to celebrate

Small business owners share their small wins.

Multi-award-winning named as one of the top 40 Digital UK Women to watch 2020, Business Consultant Online Innovation /Technology Enabler, Digital Transformation and, Marketing Specialist. Specialist areas include Business Systems, Process/Workflow, Digital and Online Business Models, Business Strategy, Demand/ Lead Generation, Marketing Funnels, Business Systems, Processes, Workflow, Digital Business Models and Online Business Strategies, Sales Marketing Funnels.&nbsp;

Supporting Global Clients, Katrina Consult’s, Trains/Coaches Agencies, Corporations, and Business owners with her framework process. With features in Forbes, Psychologies Magazine, and The Times, Kat assists clients to build a plan, solution, and strategy, to increase digital business growth, sales and passive income.&nbsp;

A certified and qualified Adult Trainer as well as being trained with industry experts such as Harvard Online and Silicon Valley Innovation Center.&nbsp;

Blending Academia, Corporate, Business, Practice and Theory, a serial accomplished Entrepreneur and Consultant. With over 22 years of extensive experience as a Marketing Strategist, Project Programme/PMO Manager and a Digital Business Transformation Analyst.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Director - Consulting, Mentoring & Training - Business Consultant | Digital | Senior Marketer

Digital Business and Culture Transformation Hub

We provide training, workshops, resources, expertise, and consultation support in adopting digital, technology, and innovative methods for business marketing, operations, systems, learning, and operations.

Having worked in large packaged food and hospitality companies such as Cadbury, Premier Foods and Pizza Hut for over 25 years I can now bring my expertise to small businesses.
I specialise in helping make companies customer focused by providing consumer or customer insight via affordable market research as a means to enabling effective marketing strategy, brand and company strategy, brand positioning and innovation.
I can...
<ul>
<li>Manage your consumer insight needs and help you become more consumer focused</li>
<li>Develop your long term insight based strategic plan for your brand or company and turbo charge your growth</li>
<li>Develop your innovation pipeline with insight based ideas and prepare for execution with thorough consumer validation</li>
<li>Test your ideas in a robust but affordable way</li>
<li>Plus - Idea Generation - Brand Positioning - Customer Closeness Programmes - Problem Solving Workshops - Concept Writing - Brand/Product Naming</li>
</ul>
My ultimate purpose is to enable businesses to &quot;do the right thing and do things right&quot; for their current and future customers to enable genuine growth.

Owner

Pipeline Innovation Planning

Create your three-year innovation strategy by initially using the Possibility? ViSStA process with particular focus on innovation.

Phase 2 will take the strategy and turn it into projects that will deliver ideas borne out of insight and validated in readiness for launch.

The Business &amp; IP Centre Leeds
Here at the Business &amp; IP Centre we provide support to anyone looking to start, run or grow their own business in Leeds.
We can help you to research your market, protect your intellectual property and learn the skills you need to start and grow a business.
If you have a business idea or you’re wanting some extra help to take your business to the next step, we’re here to help you get there. We can provide access to a large selection of business information, market research and much more. We also run a programme of events and webinars covering a wide range of topics for small business owners.
Get in touch to find out how our free support can help your business.

BIPC Leeds

The Business &amp; IP Centre Leeds
Here at the Business &amp; IP Centre we provide support to anyone looking to start, run or grow their own business in Leeds.
We can help you to research your market, protect your intellectual property and learn the skills you need to start and grow a business.
If you have a business idea or you’re wanting some extra help to take your business to the next step, we’re here to help you get there. We can provide access to a