5 Secrets to Succeed in Fashion Influencer Marketing

Technology has paved a new path for fashion marketing to partner with social media influencers to promote the product or brand. This type of content marketing is a powerful strategy that focuses on specific individuals rather than target the market as a whole. Fashion influencers may look like someone who has a massive following on Instagram or a small niche blogger who is seen by their audience as reputable.

#1 Have a Compelling and Engaging Story

Influence is the ability to actually persuade someone into taking action on behalf of a brand or product. While popular people have built trust with their community and hold some degree of authority, they may not be able to actually influence others to take action. If your target audience matches their engaged audience, the key is to develop an engaging story for the influencer to share. Stories capture attention and emotion. While the influencer may not be able to provide a personally compelling story, sharing one can make all the difference in the action taken by the audience. An effective story and the authority of the influencer is a recipe for successful marketing.

#2 Be Authentic

The best way to partner with a social media influencer is to engage with them in an authentic way. Sending social signals entails engaging with their content and their online brand. When you reach out to them, the influencer will want to learn more about you because of previous rapport. Otherwise, a simple transaction entails offering them lots of money. Remember, social media influencers are popular for a reason, and get contacted by lots of people. Gaining a partnership with an influencer takes social media savvy and genuine interest in their content.

#3 Make Them Shine

Understand your influencer’s personal objectives and show them how this will benefit their personal brand. Social media influencer marketing starts with a relationship that will hopefully lead to a partnership. Allow them to see that your product will benefit their objectives and that their sphere of influence will benefit your brand or product. Be candid about numbers related to your audience and how your product will feature them.

#4 Communicate Expectations

Once influencers start responding to you, don’t be afraid to clearly communicate what goals you expect to achieve by the campaign. Ask if they think your goals are achievable based off of their previous campaigns. This will allow you to gauge the success of your campaign as it wraps in relation to other campaigns promoted by this influencer.

#5 Know The Difference Between an Influencer and an Advocate

An influencer is someone with significant social capital. They tend to have several thousand Twitter and Instagram followers, RSS subscribers and Facebook “likes”. They are frequently retweeted, quoted, invited to speak at events and sought after for marketing campaigns. The relationship between influencers and a brand is built off of incentives. Advocates don’t seek incentives, rather they will talk about the brands they care about, even if the brand never contacts them. Their authenticity is a telling trait and they praise the brand both online and offline.