Learn how influencer marketing can help you achieve your brand goals, and get step-by-step instructions for setting up an influencer campaign. Customers don’t want to be satisfied with just ads or billboards. They want to feel heard, entertained, and supported. That’s what influencer marketing is all about. Influencer marketing can help you reach new customers, increase brand awareness, and build trust.

Learn how influencer marketing can help you achieve your brand goals with step-by-step instructions for setting up an influencer campaign. Discover real-world examples from top online brands and get expert advice.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is about working with influencers to promote your company, product, service, or message to your audience. These partnerships typically involve a paid contract where the influencer creates content for the brand. Compensation can range from a multi-year cash contract to a one-time product exchange, discount, or voucher.

Influencers are creators and celebrities who have established a reputation in a particular field or have built a significant audience around their personal brand. They create content on multiple platforms, including:

• Instagram
• YouTube
• TikTok
• Facebook
• Blogs
• X (formerly Twitter)
• Twitch
• Snapchat

Instagram is expected to be the top platform for influencer marketing in 2024 and will remain so through 2025.

Benefits of Investing in Influencer Marketing

1. Build deeper relationships

Influencers create deeper relationships between brands and their customers through authentic expression and engagement. In recent years, this dynamic relationship from brand to influencer to audience has become an essential element of media.

Of course, for a deeper relationship to form, the influencer’s personal brand and your brand (values, industry, audience, etc.) need to align. But for maximum effectiveness, your business also needs to provide value to your audience.

2. Expand your reach

Another obvious advantage of influencer marketing is the potential to reach a wider audience. Social media users across platformscontinue to grow . TikTok, for example, is expected to reach 955 million users by 2025.

Despite the potential, algorithm changes, ad fatigue, and privacy concerns contribute to lower return on investment (ROI) for some forms of social media advertising. Influencer marketing allows you to avoid these issues by partnering with creators who already have organic reach. Depending on your goals, influencers with large audiences can help you reach a broad audience, while influencers with small, niche followers can help you target a specific audience.

3. Increase social engagement

Greater social engagement often leads to greater brand awareness. Additionally, brands can gain more brand advocates when they speak the language of their audience.

If engagement is your goal, choose your partnerships and channels carefully. Engagement rates vary across platforms. Audience size also matters, with micro-influencers typically seeing higher engagement rates than mega-influencers.

4. Obtaining high press value

The final major benefit of influencer marketing is the potential for higher ROI from earned media value (EMV). EMV refers to non-paid interactions that occur when an influencer’s followers or followers discuss and connect with your brand. These meaningful connections can lead to increased sales.

By involving influencers in your marketing, you are more likely to increase your EMV. According to one survey , businesses see $6.50 in return for every dollar they spend on influencer marketing.

Influencer Marketing Case Studies

Take a look at companies that have successfully worked with social media influencers to reach their audiences and achieve their business goals. Get inspired by these proven strategies and apply them to your influencer marketing.

Healthish

Healthish co-founders Emily Chong and Nathan Chan worked with Instagram influencers to promote the launch of the brand’s signature water bottle. “We just send [the product] out to different markets,” Nathan explains.

Healthish’s influencer marketing strategy involves sending free products to influencers who are relevant to their target market, such as fitness vloggers and fashion influencers. These creators only share photos and videos of the products online if they like them. “We don’t ask people to post if they don’t want to,” says Nathan. “We just say, ‘If you like the product, we’d love for you to share it with your community, your fans, or your audience.’”

Nominal

Nominal is a jewelry brand that combines culture and fashion to create meaningful accessories. Founded by business partners and life partners Lena Sarsour and Akram Abdallah, Nominal quickly grew from an idea to a seven-figure business thanks to influencer marketing.

“Influencer marketing has been really important to us,” says Akram. “We obviously didn’t have a budget to begin with. We couldn’t afford to give anyone money.” So what did Akram and Lena do? They gave free jewelry to influencers. If they liked the product and thought it was shareable, they would post about the brand on social media. Nominal also asked influencers to repost their content on the brand’s feed. “We didn’t pay them, but now we have [branded] content that a lot of people are following and watching. Having a celebrity wearing our product has built trust.”

Types of influencers

Definitions can vary, but social media influencers generally fall into five categories: nano, micro, mid, macro, and mega. When developing an influencer marketing strategy, it’s important to find the right level of influencer for your project.

Nano Influencers (1,000–10,000 people)

Nano-influencers are regular people with a growing personal brand, usually with between 1,000 and 10,000 social media followers. Their feeds are not flashy or polished, and their photos are mostly unedited. Influencers are not a full-time job. However, nano-influencers can be great partners for ecommerce brands to grow for two reasons:

1. They have high engagement rates because they have built deep trust with their followers.
2. You can use it at the lowest cost.

According to our data, nano-influencers have noticeably higher engagement rates than larger accounts, with an average engagement rate of over 4% .

Micro-influencers (10,000–100,000 followers)

Micro-influencers are social media accounts with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers. They have a smaller, more targeted group of followers than larger accounts, and they have a loyal following that they interact with regularly. Micro-influencers may cost more than nano-influencers, but they can provide a one-on-one feel when promoting your business.

Mid-tier influencers (100,000–500,000 followers)

Mid-tier influencers have communities of 100,000 to 500,000 followers across platforms. While they have a large following, they tend to target a highly segmented audience. For example, a fitness brand might work with mid-tier fitness influencers to maximize exposure to their target audience. This mid-tier group is cheaper and easier to reach than larger influencers.

Macro influencers (500,000–1 million followers)

Macro influencers are individuals with between 500,000 and 1 million followers who have extensive experience working with brands. They know their target audience well and won’t lose the trust of their followers by working with the wrong brand. Working with macro influencers offers several advantages:

1. It boasts a vast reach.
2. The process of working with brands is efficient.

As with all these experiences, the cost is not cheap, with estimates ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 depending on the platform. Macro and mega influencers can be more difficult to approach, as they usually need to be contacted through an agent or representative.

Mega Influencer (1M+)

You’re probably familiar with mega-influencers. Mega-influencers are social media celebrities with over a million followers. Mega-influencers like Ryan Trahan , MrBeast , and Unnecessary Inventions provide brands with massive reach. These superstars use their fame to give brands credibility, and a single mega-influencer engagement can cost anywhere from $10,000 to six figures.

6 Steps to an Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy

Finding and partnering with social media influencers can be a time-consuming and difficult to scale process. Follow these steps to ensure success:

1. Investigate
2. Write a clear brief
3. Choosing the right influencer
4. Learn how to contact us
5. Collaborative Structure Agreement
6. Maximize the value of your content

1. inspection

You can learn a lot from other brands’ influencer marketing approaches. Get inspired by what content is working and which posts are getting the most engagement. You can use tools like Hootsuite to compare your social media metrics to other brands. It’s also a good idea to research non-competitive brands that have similar audiences. For example, if you run a watch brand , you might want to look at Herschel Supply Co., a bag and accessories brand with a similar audience.

2. Write a clear brief

Giving influencers the freedom to create content they love will increase the chances of your campaign being successful. It’s better to trust influencers to create a campaign that feels authentic and interesting to your audience than to assign them all the images, captions, and hashtags. However, it’s also important to provide them with expectations, a brand overview, or a mood board for the campaign so they can accurately represent your brand.

3. Choosing the right influencer

Once you have a clear campaign goal, the next step is to find the right influencer. Choosing the wrong influencer can hurt your reach, engagement, and potential sales. For example, if a low-budget travel influencer promotes a high-end backpack, they may not only be uninterested in your product, but they may also be repelled by your brand.

“It’s important to find influencers who align with your brand values ​​and audience, so that your product feels like a natural extension of your content,” says Ryan Prior, head of marketing at Modash. One way to find the right influencers is to do an Instagram hashtag search to find the most popular hashtags in your market and look at posts that are getting a lot of engagement. Shopify Collabs is a great tool to get started with your influencer marketing journey, allowing you to search for influencers by industry and other categories to find partners to collaborate with. Shopify Collabs is a great tool to get started with your influencer marketing journey, allowing you to search for influencers by industry and other categories to find partners to collaborate with your brand.

“A lot of people make the mistake of just spending money or sending products to influencers who have a lot of followers. This is not the best strategy and is a waste of time and money,” says Akram.

What matters is not simply the number of followers, but how engaged the influencer’s audience is. Genuine, positive comments are a stronger signal of a follower relationship than simple likes. To determine if your brand and influencer are a good fit, ask yourself these four questions:

1. What are this influencer’s interests or passions?
2. Does my brand share your interests or passions?
3. If not, is my brand relevant to your interests or passions?
4. What would it sound like if this influencer conveyed my brand message?

The better the fit between a brand and an influencer, the more authentic the endorsement will feel. And the more authentic the endorsement, the more likely the influencer’s followers will follow the recommendation. For example, Goya Foods’ creative collaboration with celebrity nutritionist Amanda Holtzer is a great example of how important collaborations between brands and influencers can be.

4. How to contact us

It is very important to reach out to influencers and communicate your brand’s proposition effectively.

Approach for big influencers

To work with macro influencers, you will need to work with representatives, primarily agents and managers.

• Agent : Agents find jobs and negotiate contracts for their clients.
• Manager : A manager is like a CEO who oversees the client's business. He or she needs approval to make a partnership happen.

You can contact influencers' agents, managers, and publicists through our celebrity contact database .

Approach for small influencers

One of the advantages of targeting micro-influencers is that you can contact them directly. However, since micro-influencers aren’t as visible as macro-influencers, finding them can be a challenge. To do this, try using BuzzSumo , Shopify Collabs , or other influencer marketplaces. These tools allow you to search for influencers based on keywords in their social media bios, and filter potential influencers by interests, industry, and audience size.

Effective contact message structure

When contacting a big influencer, it’s a good idea to send a concise email to their agent or manager. When contacting a micro influencer, you can send them a direct message via email or social media. In your first message, just provide the following key details:

• Who is interested (for macro influencers)
• What to request and which channel to go through
• How long do you need a response?
• Why the brand is right for you

It’s important to emphasize that there’s a good fit between the brand and the influencer. Managers manage their clients’ careers from a long-term perspective, so they need to be prepared to convince them that this collaboration is a good choice.

Follow-up and follow-up actions

Influencers and their agents are busy, so don’t assume they’re not interested if you don’t hear back right away. Follow-up is perfectly fine. As a general rule, follow-up should be done within 5-7 business days of your first email. If you still haven’t heard back, move on to the next influencer on your list. If you’re working with a macro influencer, your agent will handle the contract. If you’re working with a micro influencer, you’ll usually negotiate directly. In both cases, as long as you’ve made it clear to the influencer what you expect and what you’ll be paid, the paperwork will be straightforward.

5. Collaborative Structure

Once you’ve found an influencer to collaborate with, you’ll need to agree on a collaboration structure. Here are six key aspects to consider when negotiating:

1. Deadline : Make the deadline clear and emphasize that it must be met.
2. Deliverables : Be clear about the type and quantity of content you want. For example, you might ask for one piece of content to be posted on the influencer’s account with a brand mention, and one piece of content that can be used as an additional piece.
3. Content Usage Permissions : Explain in advance what permissions you have for using your content.
4. Compensation : Top influencers will charge you for their services. Sometimes they will accept free products/services/experiences in return. You should negotiate compensation considering the content creation, usage rights, and services that reach new audiences.
5. Sponsored Hashtags : Rules for sponsored content vary by country and are constantly changing. We recommend using #spon or #ad.
6. Campaign Objectives : Communicate clear goals for your campaign, such as increasing followers, driving website traffic, or increasing sales.

Brand Protection: Tips for Instagram Marketing Campaigns

To avoid losing out on your brand when working with influencers, follow these best practices:

• Don’t pay the influencer the full amount until the work meets your expectations. It’s usually a good idea to pay 50% up front as a deposit, and the rest after the work is completed. This payment structure gives the influencer certainty of compensation and protects your investment.
• These influencers are more likely to complete tasks as promised. They are accountable because bad feedback can have a negative impact on their future activities.
• Before signing with an influencer, check for any warning signs from their past influencer marketing campaigns. It’s important to talk to their previous clients to check the quality of their work.

6. Content Value

Create additional value by repurposing sponsored Instagram content across other channels. Here are three ways to maximize the value of your influencer content:

• Post on your product pages : Influencer content provides social proof and can inspire your customers.
• Use it as a Facebook ad : Add influencer content to your ads and test the results. “By using influencer content, we can regularly refresh our ad units, which has resulted in a 19% increase in conversions,” says Neil Waller, co-founder of Shore Projects.
• Post on social media channels : User-generated content created by influencers is more likely to resonate, engage, and be shared. Be sure to secure permission to use the content before posting.

Influencer Campaign Payment Structure

Below are some common payment structures and considerations for influencer promotion on social media.

License and Rights to Content

The standard format for an influencer marketing campaign is when an influencer posts about a brand or product on their social media accounts. You may think that the brand or product is the one who has the rights to the post because it was featured, but in reality, the content creator owns the rights. If an influencer has created a post promoting a brand, they may need to pay a licensing fee to reuse the content on their social media accounts. They may also enter into an agreement where the brand owns the content or has unlimited rights to use it.

Pay per post

The most common payment method is “pay per post,” where influencers are paid a set amount for a set number of posts. The price of these contracts can vary depending on factors such as the number of followers the influencer has.

Costs can also vary depending on the type of post. For example, a travel blogger with over 100,000 followers might charge $1,000 for a static Instagram post (without video or slideshow) or $200 for an Instagram Story. If you’re hesitant about paying per post, temporary posts might be more cost-effective. However, keep in mind that Instagram Stories only last for 24 hours, so your campaign might not get as much visibility.

Add link in bio

A bio link deal involves the influencer adding a link to your brand site to their social media bio, pinning it to the top of their profile, and driving direct traffic to your site. You can set up a custom bio link using Shopify’s Linkpop . Adding a link to an influencer’s bio increases your campaign’s visibility, so most influencers charge up to 40% more when adding this option.

Multiplatform influencer campaign

If you’re targeting influencers with large followings across multiple social media platforms, you might consider a multi-platform campaign that posts on each platform. Many influencers offer bundled pricing for multi-platform campaigns.

Free product as payment

Paying with a product approach requires some effort to find influencers who like your product. Big influencers are usually looking for monetary compensation and may not be satisfied with just giving away a product. “A very popular strategy is gifting,” says Ryan of Modash. “You can either send an influencer a product for free with no strings attached and expect them to post, or you can create an exchange agreement for a product in exchange. This strategy is usually done in bulk, so even if you send 1,000 packages, the cost is just the product and shipping.”

However, if the product value is too high, this method may not be suitable. If the product is expensive, it is better to consider long-term partnerships or paid collaborations to ensure a reasonable return on investment. Another strategy is performance-based payments, where influencers earn money based on sales through promo codes or affiliate links.

Commission

Commission is a structure that provides compensation per sale, lead, or engagement. In this model, influencers are paid only when their promotion directly contributes to a success metric. While the commission structure ensures that brands only pay for results, most influencers prefer a fixed fee. They see no reason to put in the effort to promote a brand without a guaranteed reward.

Influencer Marketing Platform

Finding the right creator partners remains one of the biggest challenges for brands running influencer marketing campaigns. As influencer marketing becomes more popular, companies and apps are continually emerging to simplify the process.

Many of the platforms offer campaign enhancements such as affiliate program management, marketplaces, analytics, and relationship management software.

Here are some of the best platforms to find influencers:

• Shopify Collabs
• Grin
• Upfluence
• Creator.co
• Tagger by Sprout Social

Shopify Collabs

Shopify Collabs is an influencer marketing platform that helps ecommerce brands connect with creators across social media channels. The platform provides a variety of tools to help brands build authentic relationships with creators. You can send creators products and discount codes directly from your Shopify store, or generate unique discount codes and referral links to track sales your creators drive.

Shopify Collabs helps you find creators who are a good fit for your brand and invite them to your affiliate program. Creators can also apply directly on the affiliate program application page. Easy-to-understand analytics tools help you track the performance of your affiliate program and identify creators and products that are contributing to sales.

Grin

Grin is a very popular influencer marketing software for eCommerce brands. It offers over 37 million influencers across various social media platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitch.

Grin offers a range of tools to help brands build authentic relationships and track success. It offers reporting and analytics, content management, payment capabilities, and the ability to manage the performance of influencer-driven sales. Grin also offers It also integrates with Shopify to help you handle shipping logistics when selling through influencers.

Upfluence

Upfluence is a self-service platform for finding influencers, used by brands like Amazon, Verizon, Universal, and Zappos. Users set their own prices and use over 20 advanced search filters to find influencers that fit their criteria. The platform provides performance statistics by analyzing influencer follower size, engagement, and posting habits.

Upfluence also helps you identify influential customers and fans. When visitors shop on your site, you can analyze their social data and add them as affiliates for your campaigns. Whether you’re a large or small business, Upfluence helps you run your campaigns efficiently and maximize your influencer marketing ROI.

Creator.co

Creator.co is a new influencer marketplace with over 500 million influencers. The platform’s automated software helps emerging brands connect with the right influencers.

Creator.co offers a self-service option where users can search for influencers themselves. It also offers a “hands-free” option where you define your ideal influencer and campaign requirements and the automated system finds the best influencer for you. This makes influencer marketing easier to implement.

Tagger by Sprout Social

Tagger by Sprout Social is an influencer marketing platform integrated with Sprout Social’s social media management solution. The platform combines influencer discovery and management tools, enabling you to handle everything from finding influencers to negotiating contracts in one tool.

Improve your social media marketing with influencer strategies

Influencer marketing can help you find potential customers, drive purchase decisions, and ultimately increase your business sales. Influencers can also help you build your brand image and make your products attractive to your target market. With this guide, you can take a step further in increasing your social network followers, generating interest in your brand, and growing your business online.

Influencer Marketing FAQs