What Public Relations Professionals Need To Know About Working With Influencers

It's not a secret that influencer outreach and engagement is a part of public relations. However, there are often communications misunderstandings in these two fields that are founded on communications. I sometimes see influencers frustrated with publicists and vice versa. As someone who is not only fascinated with crisis communications, I also have a keen interest in the world of influencers and public relations. So, here are my tips for public relations professionals when interacting with influencers.

Be Kind

Kindness and being cordial goes a long way no matter what field you operate in. The same goes for interacting with influencers. Influencers are often really excited to work with a company and when you're not kind, it can have two effects: the influencer blasts the company name on social media or the influencer may warn other influencers not to do business with your company. Both seemingly have a crisis communications issue as a result. So, to avoid all of that together, make sure that you are being kind when talking to the influencer. Make sure you are being clear in your communications and make sure that you're responding professionally.

At Least Give Free Product

In the blogging community, a heated topic is whether or not to pay the influencer. I tend to be on the pay side because what you're paying for is advertising space in my eyes. Others feel that the engagement should determine whether the influencer is paid or not. However, it does seem to be a common dread when companies ask the influencer to not only review a product but also pay for the product. If you truly do not have it in your budget to pay an influencer, at least pay them with free product.

Pay Attention

I love working with influencers, especially micro-influencers because they usually have really good engagement. However, there are influencers who have somewhat cheated the system. Although the number of these cheaters is likely to go down as more social media platforms change their policies, you still need to be aware. This means checking engagement as some influencers buy followers, making sure the influencer is not going to bring negative attention to your brand, and looking for good storytelling and grammar because silly typos are not professional. 

Working with influencers can be really rewarding and I think many public relations strategies should involve them. You can get individual attention and really good engagement that is comparable or even better than news and entertainment outlets. Including influencers is overall a great way to boost visibility, which should really be the core focus of any strategic communications campaign.

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Photo by Philipe Cavalcante on Unsplash