How to Hire an Influencer?

Today, hiring an influencer is one of the best and most effective ways to build brand awareness and reach new audiences, with almost guaranteed results. The right influencer can give your brand access to a vast network of engaged followers who are interested in your product and are willing to learn more about it through the person they like.

But before you start reaping the benefits of influencer marketing, you need to know how to hire an influencer that will be right for your campaign, and with whom you’ll be able to build a partnership that’s effective, meaningful, and interesting. This is probably the longest and most important stage of an influencer marketing campaign, as it’ll determine the success of your campaign later.

This article-guide takes a look at the process of hiring an influencers, and all the steps you need to take to make sure you are on the right path.

Compile a list of potential influencers

When you start thinking of hiring influencers, the first step is understanding who are the creators you can potentially work with. There are thousands, if not millions of creators out there, but not all of them will be a good fit for your business. So, you need to narrow them down.

Your particular business niche is a great place to start. If you are a company producing activewear, the most organic form of collaboration you can have is with influencers in the sports and healthy lifestyle industry. Then, look through their accounts to make sure that the content they create aligns with the values of your brand.

Once this one is settled, you can further narrow down the list of potential collaborations by determining the goals and objectives you want to achieve, as well as the budget you are ready to allocate (more on this later in the article).

Before commencing the process, identify the types of influencers that would be suitable for your campaign. There are 10 types of influencers by the following count. The best engagement rates have pico and nano-influencers as they are very niche related and usually are experts in their niches. To get more reach and impressions you can work with micro and mega-influencers.

After taking all these factors into account, make a list of content creators you think are the most likely to contribute positively to your brand.

Determine the compensation package you’ll offer

Next up is understanding the compensation package you’ll be offering to the influencers. For this goal, you can check our influencer rates sheet.

As the previous section briefly mentions, one of the key steps in determining potential collaborations is understanding your budget. This is particularly important as the pricing of influencers varies greatly depending on many factors, including their audience size, the platform they work on, their engagement rates, the type of content, as well as their niche.

To determine the resources you should and can allocate to the influencers, their audience size is a good place to start. The logic here is simple: the larger the influencer, the more they will charge for the collaboration. Pico-influencers and nano-influencers, for example, who have up to 10,000 followers, can be more flexible with their pricing than mega-influencers who have 1 million to 10 million followers. They can also be ready to cooperate in exchange for gifts or free products, as they are just building their portfolios. So, they can be a better choice if you are just starting out and have limited resources.

Next, if you want to hire influencers who can create video content, it is likely to cost more than the images, as videos take more effort to craft.

Contact the chosen influencers

Once you’ve compiled a list of potential influencers and determined your budget and compensation package, you need to contact the influencers you’ve chosen. You can do this directly through social platforms, email them if contact information is available on their account, or use influencer marketplaces.

Before you start, you need to take into consideration that influencers typically look for opportunities that let them do what they love,  match their values, and give them freedom. So, you need to take some time to consider how you can start an open-ended conversation with the creators to understand what it is that they are looking for. Start by representing your brand, then highlight how your values and audiences align, and how the cooperation can be mutually beneficial. Highlight the past achievements you’ve seen on their accounts that you think may be relevant to your potential collaboration.

Keep in mind to consider past results before hiring influencers. If they are interested, ask them to share with you their portfolio, which typically will include content samples, as well as information on past campaign performances. Ask for data from social media analytics tools to confirm that you have reached out to the right person.

Lastly, when the discussion enters a more practical stage, discuss the prices. Be open to negotiating the remuneration so that you can settle on prices that work well for both of you.

Discuss and agree upon the campaign details

The next stage is discussing the specific campaign details in the frames of which you will be cooperating. As a brand, you’ll have specific influencer contract needs, and it’s important that you let the influencers know about them before hiring.

If you have a campaign brief prepared, it can significantly simplify the process. The campaign brief is a document that includes a more in-detail description of the campaign description you’ve shared in your initial reach.

In case you don’t yet have a campaign brief, it’s still critical that the influencer you are hiring is on the same page about campaign aims, timelines, targets, content production instructions, industry guidelines, and dos and don’ts. This will help you avoid any misunderstandings down the road, and make the entire cooperation process significantly smoother.

Share the project’s objectives and requirements for content creation

In this phase of the process, you need to let the influencers know what it is exactly that’s expected of them. Tell them what are the results that you are aiming for in terms of reach, engagement, and sales, depending on your campaign. Be open to listening to their perspective as well, as experienced influencers have an understanding of the market and can bring valuable insights, as well as ensure that your expectations are realistic.

This is also the stage when you share what are your expectations in terms of content. For example, you might want to specify that the picture shouldn’t contain other branded products. Or do you want to have a specific call to action in the caption or expect the text on the image is a specific phrase, or go with certain hashtags? Communicate this, but also be open to listening to their suggestions. For influencers it’s important to maintain their authenticity, so you need to strike a balance between effective promotion and the authenticity the creators are striving for.

To give a good solution for this problem it’s recommended to create an influencer brief and share it with influencers.

Finalize the agreement by signing a contract

After all the details were agreed upon, the last step of the hiring process is signing the contract with your chosen influencers. These contracts are known also as influencer agreements, and as with any contract, the aim is to protect both parties from any misunderstanding or mismanagement along the cooperation, and ensure that all obligations are met. Additionally, a contract helps to ensure that the content meets the requirements of local trade commissions and regulations, to avoid any false or illegal advertising.

Influencer contracts are tailored to each cooperation, but there are several aspects influencer contracts typically cover. Those involve information about what type and number of pieces of content should be created, timelines and deadlines, content approval processes and who has control over them, expected results, payment details and timelines, information on termination of cooperation, as well as influencer terms of the agreement, including NDA.

Having a legal document that outlines the scope of the work, as well as the obligations and commitments of both parties is always something recommended when entering into partnerships, and hiring influencers is no exception.

Influencer Hiring Platforms

Influencer hiring platforms occupy a special place in the process of hiring influencers. These are platforms specifically dedicated to the process of finding and hiring the right influencers for each of your brand needs. They provide a wide range of tools to manage influencer campaigns from A-Z.

ViralMango for full-cycle campaign management

ViralMango is an all-in-one tool for campaign management on Instagram. With ViralMango, you can create announcements for influencer collaborations, list the details of your future campaign, and accept pitches from 50,000+ creators using the platform to find meaningful and impactful collaborations. You can also look through the creators in your niche, and reach out to influencers with your offers for collaboration. The AI-powered solutions and powerful analytics tools allow you to hire influencers, manage your campaigns, and track their performance all in one place.

Bonus Tools

In addition to these strategies, you can simplify and streamline the process of finding and hiring influencers through a wide variety of online tools and techniques. Here is a couple of them:

• • Hashtag research tools

Hashtags are an inseparable part of Instagram and one of the favorite tools for many influencers. Content creators on Instagram and other socials use hashtags to increase reach, but also as a marketing tool to measure the performance of their posts.

As you look to hire influencers, one of the ways you can look for them is through hashtags. Influencers usually use specific hashtags based on their niche, which you can use to find the creators fit for your business. There are quite a few hashtag research tools out there that you can use to understand which keywords are trending for your niche, and then use them to find relevant influencers.

• • ChatGPT for crafting original and creative email templates

ChatGPT hasn’t been around for too long, but it changed the way millions of people in different industries work daily. It can be of significant help to you too as a bonus tool in your effort to hire influencers.

One of the ways you can use ChatGPT is to craft original and creative email templates for your reach-out emails. These are critical because they are the first step of your interaction with the influencers, and your email has the power to make or break the deal. And ChatGPT is great at writing compelling emails, once given the right prompt. Use it to create several email options, then customize them based on each influencer.

• • LinkedIn for search by industry and position

This may seem like a long shot, but it’s worth covering all bases. LinkedIn search allows looking for people based on their position title and industry, which can make the process of finding relevant influencers less daunting. You can start by searching for “blogger”, “content creator” or any other relevant keyword, then narrow down your search by industry and even location. This tailored search can give structure to the search process, and significantly simplify it.

FAQ

• • How much does it cost to get an influencer?

The prices influencers ask for their services can vary significantly depending on factors like audience size, engagement rate, niche, content type, the platforms they operate on, and others. The payment for a single post can start with up to $50 for pico-influencers and go as far as $250,000 for peta-influencers. The pricing of the collaborations between creators and brands is usually determined by the influencer rate sheets, which is a document that influencers use to determine the pricing for their services depending on different factors.

• • How do influencers get paid?

Social media influencers make money through collaborations with brands in various formats, including one-time sponsored posts, long-term brand partnerships, affiliate marketing programs, official network monetization programs, merchandising, and more. For each of these formats, the payment amount and strategy can vary significantly. Additionally, many starting influencers are happy to be paid for their efforts in brand products and gifts, as well as discounts instead.

• • Should I hire an influencer?

Hiring an influencer is a great way to access a large and established community of potential customers, who’ve shown interest in the type of products your brand produces, through a voice they know and trust. Influencers spend years curating their audience, they know their followers, and they know what kind of messaging resonates with them. Influencer marketing is additionally an incredibly effective channel, achieving 11X the ROI of banner ads, which makes hiring influencers a valuable investment.