Working with Facebook Influencers: What to Do (& What Not to Do)

Shane Barker
By
September 11, 2019 ·
Working with Facebook Influencers: What to Do (& What Not to Do)

Since the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, Facebook has been in a state of free fall. In a bid to win back the trust of their audience, they decided to revamp their newsfeed as well. This, in turn, reduced the organic reach of business pages.

Then, brands started spending more on paid promotions. This led to an increase in the costs of ads on Facebook. Due to these reasons, Instagram remains the most preferred platform for influencer marketing. However, Facebook can also be a profitable platform for influencer marketing. But only if you do it right.

Let’s take a closer look at what you need to do (and what you should avoid doing) when partnering with an influencer on Facebook.

What to Do When Working with Facebook Influencers

1. Plan Your Campaign

When you’re partnering with a Facebook influencer, it’s crucial to plan your campaign in advance. You need to know what you want to achieve from the campaign and how you’re going to implement it.

Decide whether you want to increase reach, engagement, or sales or if you have a different goal, such as getting more newsletter signups or Facebook followers. Your goals will help you figure out what you need to focus on to maximize the results of your campaign.

There are three main ways to manage an influencer marketing campaign:

  • Partner with an agency: There are many agencies that specialize in influencer marketing. You can look for those that work with Facebook influencers and hire them to manage your campaign.
  • Manage the campaign internally with the help of tools: The second option is for your own team to manage your influencer marketing campaign using an influencer marketing tool or platform. There are a variety of tools that can help you plan and manage your influencer marketing campaigns.
  • Manage the campaign manually: You can also try finding and connecting with Facebook influencers manually. And then manually manage your campaign without the help of a tool, platform, or agency. This method is the cheapest but also the hardest and most time consuming way to manage your campaign.

2. Update Your Team

It’s crucial for you to keep your team on the same page throughout your campaign. Communication is the key to succeeding with influencer marketing. And that doesn’t just apply to your in-house team; you need to keep your influencers in the loop as well.

For this, you can use an influencer marketing management tool  such as SocialCert from Lumanu.. This tool allows two-way secure sharing of content, data, usage rights, and audiences between influencers and marketers. Your marketing manager can easily whitelist influencer content and boost it right from the platform as well. This way, you can optimize content while maintaining full transparency throughout the process.

SocialCert from Lumanu
Image via SocialCert

3. Approach Influencers Correctly

After zeroing in on your desired influencers, you need to approach them for collaborations. However, you need to keep in mind that you shouldn’t pitch your ideas to them right off the bat. Before pitching them a collaboration, you should put effort into building a solid relationship with them.

The first step you should take is to find their preferred mode of contact. Check their social media profiles and/or blog and find their contact details. Start following their posts and engage with them. Show your appreciation for their work and concentrate on building a rapport with them first.

Once you’ve established a genuine connection with them, you can pitch your idea to them.

4. Track Your Results

Once you get influencers on board and launch your campaign, it’s important that you track your results.

Tracking the results of your Facebook influencer marketing campaign will help you find opportunities to improve the effectiveness of your current and future campaigns. It will also help you determine your campaign ROI.

Measuring the ROI of campaigns is still the #1 challenge that marketers face when working with Facebook influencers. However, only 27% of marketers measure their campaign’s performance continuously.

What Not to Do When Working with Facebook Influencers

1. Pick the Wrong Influencer

Finding the right Facebook influencer is crucial for the success of your influencer marketing campaign. This is because there are many fake Facebook influencers out there who purchase likes and followers. These influencers have little or no real engagement, and partnering with them will likely not benefit you.

The Facebook influencers you partner with should be passionate about the content they create, and their values should match those of your brand.

However, finding influencers manually can be quite a task. You need to search for influencers in your niche who create quality content. And then you need to go through each influencer’s profile and check if they’re getting real engagement.

To make these tasks easier, you can use tools like Influence.co and BuzzSumo, which can help you find influencers in various niches. 

 Influence.co and BuzzSumo, which can help you find influencers in various niches
Image via Influence.co

2. Spam the Facebook Influencer

One of the biggest mistakes that you can make with a Facebook influencer is to spam them. If you reach out to an influencer and don’t get a response, don’t keep pestering them by sending emails or DMs.

Doing so can put the influencer off. You need to give them enough time to read your email or message and respond. Also, keep your team informed about whom you’re contacting. That way, the influencers won’t get multiple emails from different people in your organization.

Remember, Facebook influencers may get hundreds of emails and messages for collaborations every day. You shouldn’t keep pestering them to try to get a response. Doing so can backfire and the influencers may even call you out just like Charlotte in the screenshot below.

influencers may even call you out just like Charlotte in the screenshot
Image via Twitter

3. Be Unprofessional

Remember, when you do establish a relationship with a Facebook influencer, you need to be professional. Just because the influencer may seem peppy and casual on social media, don’t assume they’ll be the same while dealing with you.

It’s dangerous to think of influencers as amateurish, unprofessional people who just work from home.

They are entrepreneurs and should be treated just like every other consultant or business partner you deal with. If you are too casual with them, you risk ruining your relationship and losing out on a great Facebook influencer.

Final Thoughts

Partnering with a Facebook influencer requires that you have a plan in place. Additionally, you need to find a reliable influencer to collaborate with. Concentrate on building a solid relationship with them first and then pitch them your idea. Treat them with respect and professionalism and make sure you maintain transparency as well.

Finally, don’t forget to track your campaign performance to identify optimization opportunities. To further improve your Facebook influencer marketing campaigns, you can use influencer marketing tools.

Roger Ruttimann
Roger Ruttimann
Originally published September 11, 2019 - Updated December 07, 2022

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Authors
Shane Barker
Shane Barker

Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant who specializes in influencer marketing, content marketing, and SEO.

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