Influencers are people, too

When seeking influencers to partner with, look for those who share the core values of your brand and audience. This is important because you are all on the same team. Brand partnerships are a two-way street and are most successful when they are long-term relationships.

While there are some occasions when short-term campaigns are the right tactic—like amplifying a cultural moment or driving a time-sensitive call to action—the vast majority of the time a brand will see better results from a meaningful long-term partnership.

To begin establishing these kind of relationships, start with the influencers you have partnered with in the past who drove the results you were looking for and were a pleasure to work with. Think through your business needs for, at minimum, the next six months and build a content framework that can be activated by your influencer partners with a designated cadence or in support of specific campaign moments.

If you are just getting started and don’t have historical performance to learn from, let the influencers know that you are looking to structure longer-term partnerships or a future ambassador program, but would like to start the relationship slowly by engaging them to create a few posts on behalf of your brand.

Plan for archetypes, not individuals

It is often tempting to begin the search for your perfect influencer partners by looking for individuals or accounts that you believe are a good fit for your brand.

Instead, start by identifying three or four influencer archetypes first. For example, a brand that needs to better communicate its product efficacy should consider using influencers who can help credential their claims. In this scenario, your archetypes could be category experts or power users of your product.

Another example could be a brand that wants to drive brand relevance with an emerging younger target. To achieve this objective, your archetypes should be aspirational tastemakers or peers of the target audience.

This approach will help ensure you are clearly defining the role of the influencers you are selecting and that they will help you accomplish your marketing objectives.

Do your homework

Once your archetypes are set, it’s time to start searching for those individuals to approach for a potential partnership. Begin your search by either using the native tools provided by the social platforms or an influencer network to help generate a list of candidates.

During your search, look for influencers who share your core brand values, fall within one or more of your archetypes, have healthy historical engagement rates, and create high-quality and brand-appropriate content.

Once you have a robust list, begin a deep vetting process to ensure they meet your brand’s standards. Use a combination of reviewing their past content for red flags or competitive issues, and conduct searches for more general background information. Typical red flags include previous offensive, discriminatory or highly political content; criminal history; drug use; public influencer-to-influencer spats; or instances of trashing brands in their content (aka de-influencing).