Influencer marketing is when a brand collaborates with a renowned digital star or blogger, to boost reach on one or more social channels of their choosing. And with the growth of Facebook and Instagram Live, it’s promotional video which has become one of the most popular ways for brands to reach a broader audience.

So how can brands create a methodical video influencer strategy? The first step is to set objectives, from simply gaining online exposure for your company, products or services, to generating sales. From here, it will then be important to choose the most suitable influencers based on platform- these will perhaps differ whether the brand wishes to focus on Instagram Stories or YouTube for instance. Then it will obviously be essential to check their klout score, how influential they are, and their usual audience. After identification and selection then comes outreach, with email contact the most effective choice. When working with video influencers such as YouTube stars, an ideal campaign will take into account the style of the video such as a product ad or “vlog”, how product placement will come into this, and whether promotion will be supported by the influencer’s other social platforms such as a blog write up, and brand mention on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and so on.

Naturally, this can be a time-consuming process, although the benefits are often worth it. Some of the mid-weight and biggest digital video influencers have upwards of 100,000 fans, generally a global following, while their thought-leadership and follower advocacy epitomises the power of word of mouth marketing. However, there’s always a need to make such a process, however successful, more efficient, and brands may soon find their workload in this area significantly diminished, thanks to Adobe’s new product. Currently in the testing stages, Adobe’s new influencer tool, “Project Fleek”, will enable brands to source and manage their influencers, specifically for video campaigns. According to reports from TechCrunch, the programme allows marketers to create their campaigns and then browse a “talent marketplace” of creators, in order to see their reach across various demographics, and their reach on specific platforms. Reaching out and signing contracts with their chosen influencers can all be done with Fleek too. We also like one of the programme’s added features- this will see it able to predict the reach of the influencer campaign based on those chosen. Fleek also provides campaign reports too, ideal for continuous monitoring.

There are of course other tools that already assist in this area. For example there’s Buzzstream, which allows brands to discover relevant influencers, see their domain authority, social klout, and more, and segment by list, relationship stage, or campaign. Ninja Outreach offers something similar, but focuses heavily on the outreach stage, allowing brands to automate email contact with influencers once the email template has been created, and also auto send follow-up emails too. But for end-to-end campaign management and a focus on video, it looks as though Adobe Fleek occupies a niche area, and we look forward to seeing how it will materialise.

For our clients with consumer products, we at The Practice often suggest influencer outreach as part of the brand’s strategy, especially if that product is aimed at Millenials- one of the most active social media user groups. While investment in high-profile influencers can be costly, the return on investment is often enormous. And for content-driven brands too, working with digital creators can be extremely rewarding- a partnership involving content sharing between two parties for instance, can be a lucrative way to gain much more exposure, reach and traffic.

Does your brand regularly work with online influencers? Do you find this to be a helpful way to boost exposure for your products or services? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and share your comments on our Facebook page.