How to Improve Influencer Engagement? Avoid These 50 Fails

Brands: Stop Doing These Things!

Influencer Marketing is hot and that means the value of influencer relationships is higher than ever.

Working hard to romance in-demand experts to collaborate, co-create and even advocate can be a substantial investment. The mutual benefit from these long term relationships can mean anything from hugely successful marketing programs for brands to top billing at speaking events, book deals and consulting work for the influencers.

Unfortunately, outreach communications, expectations and negotiations with influencers to work together are often so lacking of empathy, relevant context or even courtesy that the industry expert “checks out”. Losing influencers is sad and wasteful.

But it doesn’t have to be that way if you know what makes them leave. Trust me, I work on influencer outreach nearly every day (sending and receiving) and am both guilty of committing some of these influencer marketing sins and having them committed against me.

So, with a little help from some of my marketing influencer friends, here’s a big list of what NOT to do.

50 ways to lose your influencer:

1. Using the wrong name in a pitch email or other inaccurate information (that should really be correct).
2. TLDR requests that take forever or never get to get to the point.
3. Irrelevant requests that have little if anything to do with the influencer’s expertise.
4. Not making it clear what the value exchange is.
5. Being too familiar and friendly with influencers on the first contact. Hey, we’re not actually friends (yet) are we?
6. Making it difficult by asking numerous, complicated questions, like those fun essays in college.
7. Unreasonable deadlines: “Hi you don’t know me,  but please send me 1,000 words by tomorrow.”
8. No credibility. Emailing a pitch from a gmail address and pointing to a website that looks really spammy or just bad.
9. #influencerstalking Following up one day after the first pitch. Then again the next day. Then again the next day and so on.
10. #failuretofollowup Asking for participation and then never following up.
11. Cold shoulder. Engaging an influencer online several times and then ignoring them when in person at industry events.
12. Lying or being disingenuous in any way.
13. Bait and switch. Offering access to a tool to preview, then requiring an guided demo where the influencer is “sold to”.
14. Bait and switch 2. Inviting the influencer to an event, then requiring attendance of a presentation where the influencer is “sold to”.
15. Micromanage. Requiring an unpaid influencer to cover specific topics in specific ways to the brand’s benefit that are not natural to the influencer (or their community).
16. Taking advantage. Expecting an influencer to do for free, what really should be paid for – moderating a panel, writing substantial content, extensive participation requirements.
17. When a brand takes unearned credit for ideas the influencer created, wrote about and used in their business.
18. Misappropriating. Using influencer content in ways never intended, especially when it is monetized by the brand or someone else entirely. Also, misrepresenting how the influencer’s contribution will be used. For example, saying it is for a public article and then using it for a gated ebook.
19. Making public, disparaging remarks or being disrespectful about an influencer.
20. Not being patient – these people are busy!
21. Switching the conditions of participation – shame on everyone if there is not a written, signed agreement for specific expectations.
22. Not being thankful for the influencer’s efforts. This goes both ways too – influencers should be thankful for the opportunity as well.
23. Failure to communicate. Managing communications and coordination poorly, in a disorganized way and without clear direction.
24. No edits. Publishing influencer content “as-is” without copyediting.
25. Being an asshat. Going over the line with sarcastic humor in influencer communications – you really need to know if they’re in to that.
26. Slimy SEO. Taking the influencer’s contribution and then SEO-ing the heck out of it with keywords and anchor text galore.
27. Backchannelling. Reaching out the the influencer’s “boss” or co-worker to ask why the influencer hasn’t responded to pitch emails.
28. Not being clear about the premise or context of the ask and thereby confusing the pitch.
29. Being one sided. When brands do not follow through on commitments made to the relationship.
30. And you are? Changing the client side contact and not doing any kind of hand off to ensure continuity.
31. Making it incredibly difficult to share the result of the brand/influencer collaboration. i.e. not providing pre-written tweets and social shares, properly sized graphics, embed codes, etc.
32. Inappropriate asks. “As for asks like promoting your product (books, webinars, conferences, etc.) in exchange for affiliate revenue please DON’T.” via Carlos Gil
33. “Out-of-the-blue Asks. I get requests from people I know really well every week. What makes you think I’ll make time to work with you if I’ve never interacted with you before? Take some time to comment on my posts, rate my podcast, review my book. I’ll return the favor in a heartbeat. If you hit my inbox out of nowhere… Delete.” via Drew Davis
34. Too soon. “My pet peeve is when someone follows me on Twitter or Instagram and/or fans me on Facebook and immediately reaches out to me with a request to check out their business.” via Kim Garst
35. “Ask Them To Sell. Your influencer is there to help you increase the awareness, association and consideration of your brand in a certain space – not to shill for you.” via Gerry Moran
36. Using the wrong channels to communicate: “Sending me a message about LinkedIn using Facebook.” via Jason Miller
37. Hello, can I interrupt you? Calling an influencer without an appointment to pitch. via Mark Schaefer
38. Peerless pressure. PR people that try to persuade influencer involvement because their peers are involved too – except they are not. via Mark Schaefer
39. Impersonal pitches. When companies send out generic en masse pitches, like a robo-call, but via email. The personal touch can make or break an influencer’s decision to engage. via Chad Pollitt
40. “Don’t tell me your story, let me tell my story. ‘LESS fabrication, MORE facilitation’ = a boost to your Return on Relationship, #RonR.” via Ted Rubin
41. Lazy duplication. “When you get that really interesting Tweet inviting you to take a look at something and then when you click through to it you also see that they have composed basically the same message to 579 other people on Twitter.” via John Jantsch
42. Delegated and impersonal. “Reach out to me directly yourself. Do NOT delegate this critical step to your marketing agency, PR professional, team member, assistant or intern. Do it yourself and make your note personal. If you want me to respond, I expect you to do the asking yourself.” via Heidi Cohen
43. “Not greasing the skids. Influencers are most likely to add commentary if there is some kind of existing relationship.  This means at least some kind of history where the person reaching out has already been sharing the influencer content.” via Joe Pulizzi
44. “Expecting too much in one ask. For example, writing a 1000 word article on your platform due this week without a previous relationship.” via Joe Pulizzi
45. Misleading opportunity. “Asking for 30 minutes of my time to discuss a “partnership” – which actually means you want me to sell your stuff to my clients.” via Ardath Albee
46. Asks that are complicated, ambiguous and without deadlines. via Rebecca Lieb
47. Not following up with that blog post, ebook, or copy of the interview the influencer contributed to. Influencers are indeed interested in seeing the fruits of their labors. via Rebecca Lieb
48. Abusing the kindness of an influencer by asking over and over again without showing any special consideration. “Set the tone and rules upfront. Influencers can’t be expected to take part in everything you do, so say that. Set the ground rules and expectations.” via Bryan Kramer
49. Giving up, as in not being persistent (over time) with credible, relevant offers and reasons to engage. “Give them a reason to come back, ask them what they are working on and keep the conversation going.” via Bryan Kramer
50. Spamming. “Signing up for an app that spams your “top influencer” with automated messages is a sure path to a rocky relationship.” via Glen Gilmore

Basically your takeaway from this list is, don’t do these things! Learn from these mistakes, pet peeves and advice.

To be successful with an influencer relationship, brands need to consistently make an effort to research the experts they want to engage and find out what motivates them. Create value and set clear expectations. Make working with your brand a very easy and satisfying experience. Listen and communicate in a meaningful way – not too different than any relationship, actually.

For brand marketers that want to point their influencer marketing efforts in the right direction, I recommend these collections of resources for best practices:

• Featured Influencer Marketing Resources – Traackr
• What You Need to Know About Content & Influencer Marketing. BONUS: Case Study and 18 articles – TopRank Marketing
• Influencer Marketing eBooks – GroupHigh
• Influencer Marketing Education – Onalytica
• Social Listening in Practice: Influencer Marketing – Brandwatch

You can also learn more about TopRank Influencer Marketing Consulting.

If you’ve been on the receiving end of influencer outreach and communications, what are some of your pet peeves?

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