Building Better Relationships with Social Media Influencers

Starting your entrepreneurial journey is challenging in itself, however your first challenge would be creating awareness and building your customer base.

Many Entrepreneurs reach out blindly to social influences for publicity, eager to share their story and promote their new business.

In order to achieve the best possible results you must approach the situation correctly. Building better, more positive connections with people is one of the most important tasks of any entrepreneur. The alternative could be detrimental to your newly formed business.

The right way to building better relationships:

1. Google, Google, Google.

Before you meet, hire or pay a social media influencer to publicize your business, you MUST understand who they are, what they cover, and what the normal transaction rates are. Going in “blind” could potentially damage your business reputation and more importantly cost you a lot of money.

Remember that just because they have a large follower count does not mean that they are good for your company.

Doing a simple google search on them and the articles they have written, videos that they have made or pictures they have made you will have a much better understanding on what areas or industries they are interested in and have a much better chance of building a great working relationship with them whilst also ensure that your business is in good hands.

Do keep in mind that everyone is different and as such approaching them is not going to be the same. Some prefer you sliding into the DMs, others prefer emails and few opt for phone calls.

2. Keep in touch with your network.

Once you’ve started talking with more influences and doing so on a more regular basis it is wise to create a spreadsheet or use a CRM software such as Hubspot to keep track of all communications that you have made, such as their email, previous collaborations that you have done together and also the small details you have learnt about them such as their birthday so that you can keep in contact with them even if it’s not work related.

Doing this will surely help you maintain the new relationships that you have made.

3. Time is valuable.

Remember that social media influencers make their money by “being social” and so they are generally very busy people with very full inboxes. Just like your time is valuable to you, their time is valuable to them, and you should respect it.

Speed is crucial when working with a social influencer and responding to their questions or queries is critical in order to get the best out of their time. Remember that no one likes waiting for answers. Clear communication is the key to stronger relationships with anyone and is vital if you want to build relationships with social influences.

Nobody likes to be micro managed, don’t spam their inbox or call them multiple times. If you don’t get a response, let some time pass before contacting them again. Just like you value their time it is required from them as well, so if the collaboration is not mutual don’t be afraid to take your money and your business elsewhere.