by Kyle Dulay, co-founder of Collabstr
As a small business, you’re often so caught up in the day-to-day tasks of your business that you never have any time for marketing or creating content, even though you know that it’s a vital part of your business.
Content is everywhere, and without a system in place to create content for your business at scale, you’ll have a hard time building a name for yourself. This is where, as a small business, you can leverage the power of influencers to start churning out content as if you were a large company.
To many, social media influencers are seen as a means to promote products, but this is merely scraping the surface of their potential. We must understand that social media influencers, or content creators, are people that take pride in creating content for their audience on a consistent basis. They understand what good content looks like, and they know how to capture the attention of an audience.
With this being said, let’s dive into the various methods of leveraging influencers as a small business.
1. Promotional Content.
This is the most popular use of influencers today. Promotional content is what most people typically think of when they hear influencer marketing.
Influencers can be leveraged to create content about your small business, or the products and services that you offer. This content is then posted to the influencer’s social media account which drives impressions and conversions for your small business.
For example, let’s say that you’re looking to get more exposure for your small business on TikTok. You can find a TikTok influencer in your niche that is able to create some content about your products or services, and then they can post this content and have it viewed by their audience.
2. Ad Content.
Many brands today will use influencers to create ad content for their business. This can be in the form of photos or videos, and it ultimately depends on the advertising platform that you’re using.
The benefit of hiring influencers to create ad content for your brand is that the content typically comes off as more natural since there is a person on the other side of the camera rather than a brand.
Influencers are also masters of understanding how to capture the attention of the audience. By letting influencers create your ads, they will apply the same techniques they use to build their own audience. This means your ad content will perform better than if it was your typical brand-owned ad content. You can use an online ad maker to modify the influencer content once it has been delivered, so don’t worry about it not being perfect.
By using influencers for ad creation, you’re harnessing their skills when it comes to content creation, rather than hiring that solely for the size of their audience.
3. Testimonials.
Testimonials are an excellent way to increase conversion rates for your small business, but it can be hard to get in-depth video testimonials from your customers.
Instead of relying on customers, try sending your product to some influencers in your niche. In return, ask for an honest 60-second testimonial from them. You can then embed this testimonial on key landing pages for your website, or on your own social media channels in order to increase conversions.
Testimonials help customers feel more comfortable during the buying process, and they also allow you to handle any common objections from buyers before they become an issue. Consumers trust user-generated content, such as testimonials, more than they trust brand-owned content. This is because they want to hear from real people about their experience with your products.
4. Tutorials.
Tutorials are excellent for small businesses that sell products that may require some know-how before making a purchase.
Leverage the power of influencers by having them create high-quality tutorial content for your products. You can post this content on your social channels, or directly embed it right on your website where the product can be purchased.
This gives customers a way to see the product in action, and understand its functionality before they make a purchase. Influencers are great for a task like this because they’re accustomed to creating bite-sized content that is simplified for easy consumption by their viewers.
5. Product Photos & Videos.
Any business that is selling a physical product can benefit from having high-quality product photos or product videos.
Product photos and videos give customers a way to view the product from various angles before deciding on a purchase. By using influencers to create these assets for you, you can get their perspective on what angles of the product are most important since they’re ideally a consumer of your product themselves.
Most influencers are more than happy to create content for brands they genuinely love.
Now that we’ve gone over five unique methods of leveraging influencers, you should be able to effectively outsource a majority of your content creation needs without having to dedicate the time and effort of your team.
Passing on the responsibility of content creation allows you to worry about other aspects of your business, while not sacrificing your ability to constantly pump out more content.
Kyle Dulay is the co-founder of Collabstr, a marketplace to find and hire influencers. He is a software developer and entrepreneur that has focused the last four years on building tools to help alleviate issues in the creator economy, including software that would allow agencies and brands to create detailed reports on social media accounts to software that would help content creators create detailed media kits with minimal effort.
