Working with creators and influencers is still massively effective – or at least it can be when you get it right. It’s an excellent way to extend your reach and benefit from their trusted relationship with your shared audience.
A recent creator economy survey conducted by Lightricks with YouGov found that 80% of creators have worked with at least one brand in the past 12 months. And according to the recent State of Influencer Marketing report, most brands that try working with influencers are happy with the results and want to continue to work together. It’s not surprising that the influencer marketing industry is predicted to reach $21.1 billion by the end of 2023, a rise of over 28% from $16.4 billion in the previous year.
Given that each influencer engagement generally costs hundreds of dollars at the very least, you want to make the most of your investment, the audience they bring, and the video assets that you create together.
Of course, the influencer you work with will post the video on their platform(s), and you can both engage with the responses it receives, but there’s more you can do. Effective promotion of video assets requires a combination of strategic planning, collaboration, and leveraging various online platforms to reach your target audience.
Collaborate on posting as well as creating
You’ve collaborated with an influencer to produce a powerful video, but your working relationship doesn’t have to end there. Instagram offers “Collab Posts” for Feed Posts and Reels, where two profiles can effectively author the same content.
With Collab Posts, the same video post shows up on both profiles, and both you and the creator can see all shares, views, likes, and comments. It enables you both to engage freely with each other’s communities and respond to all the comments and shares smoothly. This streamlines the process of nurturing audiences with videos because you won’t have to ask each other to check out a comment or share the most recent metrics.
Collab Posts are great for increasing visibility and reach because your shared audience engages with a single post, concentrating all the algorithm signals in one place. Posts with more engagement get rewarded by newsfeed algorithms, and then reach even more people as success breeds success.
Together, you and the creator can encourage viewers to leave comments and questions or share their reactions, reinforcing each other’s efforts to build a sense of community around the content.
Take an omnichannel approach
Most influencers have a primary channel where their main following is, and that’s where they concentrate their promotional efforts. However, it’s a mistake to restrict their awesome content to just one platform.
Instead, cross-post to other social media platforms where your target audience is active. These should include channels where your brand has an active presence and your influencer’s secondary channels, even if their following is smaller there.
You might need to shorten, edit, and other adapt the video to different channels, like adding or removing captions or stickers.
Don’t forget to think beyond social media. Increase visibility and engagement by embedding videos directly onto your website or blog, so that visitors can view them on site by clicking away. User-generated content (UGC) often converts better than traditional or studio-made content for e-commerce companies. You can also reach out to relevant industry publications, blogs, and online communities to feature your video content.
Optimize video titles and description
Don’t let your SEO chops fall by the wayside when it comes to social video. It’s important to optimize your video assets for search engines by using relevant keywords in the titles, descriptions, and tags.
This is particularly vital if you’re cross-posting to YouTube (and if you aren’t, you should be). In-app search is a huge factor on YouTube, so your target audience is a lot more likely to reach your content if you use optimized titles and descriptions.
YouTube clips also aggregate to Google search engine results pages (SERPs), so good SEO can stretch your exposure even further.
As well as developing compelling titles and descriptions that include the right keywords, it’s a good idea to produce memorable, distinctive hashtags. If possible, include both your brand name and the influencer name in your campaign hashtags.
Cross-promoting can be just as instrumental in raising reach as cross-posting. Look for opportunities to collaborate with other influencers who have complementary audiences, beyond whoever you worked with to create the video.
Cross-promotion could involve influencers featuring snippets of the videos on each other’s channels or social media accounts, providing exposure to new followings.
It works best when you identify influencers who already have a relationship or connection with “your” influencer, but you could also bring together two influencers and help them build their working relationship.
Pay for exposure
When it comes to promoting your video, there’s nothing wrong with paying for a little more attention. In fact, you might be leaving money on the table if you aren’t. Honestly, it’s hard to get true ROI without including a paid component to creator content. Many social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, offer the option of paying to promote a video post so that they reach more eyes.
You can also repurpose your sponsored video post into a video ad, and use it as the foundation for pre-roll ads, sponsored posts, or targeted ads on YouTube and other social media platforms. This might involve cutting the video up into smaller clips for use in different ads and campaigns.
Don’t put an expiration date on your video assets. You can revisit the videos, tweak or update them, and then promote them again in new posts or ads a few days, weeks, months, or even years later than the original production date.
Leverage your influencer videos to the max
Every influencer or creator video that you commission is a valuable asset, so you should make the most of each and every one. Cross-posting and cross-promoting, keyword optimization, and paid promotion should all be part of your video promotion toolbox.
With strategic promotion, you can extend your reach, engage wider audiences, and ultimately boost conversions and revenue.
