A Guide to Instagram Influencer Marketing for Businesses

These days, even if you are not an influencer yourself, you can pay influencers to promote your goods and services. We live in an attention economy where people can literally sell their influence for money, and in many cases, selling their influence (or selling the attention they can gather) is their most powerful method of Instagram monetization outside of OnlyFans.

Try to Sell Your Product With Merchandise

Even the smallest influencer has an ego the size of the Titanic, which is why offering money is almost always a bad idea. They always think they are worth far more than they actually are because they believe their own hype. Every heart shaped like is another step in their ever-growing ego, so when you come along with a reasonable offer, they think it is too little. 

Instead, offer your best merchandise and products. That way, not only do they test out and try your stuff online, but they may also think they are getting a far better deal than they actually are. You are getting the goods at factory prices, but the influencer only sees them in terms of their retail price. Offer merchandise and some money and promise them some social media attention, and you have a winning formula.

Don’t Try to Be Creative

Whenever businesses try to be creative, all they end up doing is pumping out the same old garbage that people are sick of seeing. Once upon a time, there was a marketer called Mark Joyner who released two books espousing the benefits of simply being upfront and honest with your customers.

He would have probably risen to fame and fortune if his third book were more than an overwritten leaflet for the cult he was trying to set up. Nevertheless, we live in a world where being upfront and honest is so lost on us that it is more shocking than any marketing method you can muster on your own.

Believe it or not, this is a problem that has been going on for decades. Even Kermit the Frog brought it up in the 1982 movie Muppets Take Manhattan. The marketing team is coming up with slogans on how to sell soap, and Kermit tries the slogan, “Ocean Breeze soap, it gets you clean.” The satirical gag highlighted a problem then that is still a problem now. Don’t try to be creative because you will just come up with the same old garbage, and more importantly, your influencers will be bad at it. 

Working Within Your Influencer’s Ability

If you are dealing with a seasoned veteran like Joe Rogan or Bill Burr, then you can really push them to work whatever idea you have running and they will go with it and work it because they are experienced professionals. However, if you want to stage an alien invasion (a la War of the Worlds radio broadcast), then the sweaty teen influencer isn’t going to sell the illusion, nor is the inexperienced professor or fitness instructor. 

They may be good at talking to their target audience, but they are not marketing professionals and are not experienced enough to create the desired effect. In short, you need to work within your influencer’s ability, which is another strong reason why you probably shouldn’t be too creative when you use influencer marketing. Be creative in other areas but keep your influencer marketing as simple as possible.

You Will Have to Prime The Pump

If you are paying influencers to drive attention towards your services, brand, product or profile, then you will still need some sort of following and attention-generation tools yourself. Even the best influencers are going to have a hard time selling a product, service or idea if your Instagram is a dead zone. 

Go online and search for Instagram accounts for sale from online marketplaces like Fameswap and buy a few accounts that have a fairly good following. Then, promote and market your content to these audiences a little before re-posting the content that the influencer made for you. This will drive attention toward your primary Instagram account, which helps to convince people that your brand is alive and popular, and it convinces the Instagram search systems that your account is worth recommending.