How to engage social media influencers to post about your brand organically

Are you interested in working with influencers, but you’re on a budget? Perhaps you’ve thought of sending influencers free product in hopes they’ll post, but influencers are getting bombarded by pitches daily and are typically looking for more substantial partnerships.

You also know that sending free product to an influencer that you don’t have a relationship with is risky—the influencer isn’t guaranteed to share about your brand and there might be very little return on your effort.

So, what is a brand to do? The key is to go back to the good, old-fashioned public relation skills of building relationships.

The steps outlined below guide you in what I affectionately call “creating Instagram buddies.” The process takes time and effort, but reaps long-term, organic placement rewards.

Begin by building your list of influencers you’d like to engage. Depending on your resources and bandwidth, this list might start anywhere from 10 to 100 influencers.

Like any list-building strategy, make sure to only add individuals that are truly relevant to your brand and your audience. The best question to ask yourself is: “Would my ideal customer follow (or be interested in following) them?”