Looking for ways to promote your brand through increased followers, likes, and visibility on Instagram? An innovative, modern way to connect with your audience and boost the reach of your brand is through an approach called influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing is an effective way to push your brand on social media outlets like Instagram by connecting your audience to a high-profile or relatable individual who markets your product for you on their own social media pages, linking their followers directly to your brand and your products.

A study put together by the blog Tomoson shows that influencer marketing has proven to have the highest levels of cost-effectiveness and growth development compared to more traditional styles of marketing.

Instagram itself is an ideal platform for influencer marketing. With 300 million users a month, Instagram has a higher rate of monthly use than social media sites like Twitter.

A study by KISSmetrics shows that roughly 70% of users on Instagram are already looking up brands and products on the app—they are searching for specific content to see, and if you pick your influencer correctly to approach the right audience, you could find a hotbed of potential consumers. Applied correctly, using this technique on Instagram could quickly and efficiently boost the sales and visibility of your brand.

How to Find and Pick the Right Influencer?

If you’re looking to promote your brand through Instagram, you could seek out “Instagram celebrities”—people with a lot of followers and likes—and work with them to strike a deal that is suitable for you both.

Ideally, to get your brand out there, you could approach well-known celebrities and see if they would be willing to promote your brand. Collaboration can be costly, as Instagram stars usually require substantial monetary rewards. However, some influencers may be willing to promote your brand for free, or for a product exchange, as there is a chance your influencer may gain an increase in his or her audience from working with you. Finding the right Instagram influencers that match your price and your product’s audience is a challenge in its own right.

Whether you have the means to pay your influencers or not, it is crucial that whoever you choose is selected carefully, with the identity and integrity of your brand in mind. For example, if you’re marketing cruelty-free products and you ask a famous hunter to post a picture with your product on their Instagram page, you may receive some backlash and distrust from your audience. Additionally, if your target audience is not in-line with your influencer’s, your visibility and potential sales may not increase much, as your influencer’s post will not resonate with his or her audience.

If you are struggling to make connections or start conversations with potential influencers online, you could try attending conferences or other events where you can meet and form a face-to-face relationship with someone you’d like to work with.

From Negotiation to Relationship Building

If you go into influencer marketing with the motivation of securing an influencer for a one-time post on Instagram, you may be missing out on an opportunity to build a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship. Part of what makes Instagram influencer marketing work is that you are connecting with an audience on a deeper level than traditional advertising, as people are more inclined to follow the advice of someone they know, trust, or admire.

In a world where people are constantly bombarded with ads, a great way to connect with potential audiences—without making them quickly scroll past—is through the vehicle of an influencer who can speak to an audience in a personal way, without the need for glitzy ads and obvious promotions. If an Instagram celebrity posts several photos wearing or holding your product, his or her followers are likely to take notice—and they are increasingly more likely to notice if there is more than one post featuring your brand.

An excellent way to make influencer marketing work is to exchange ideas with your influencer. Perhaps he or she would like you to share a picture of them with your product on your Instagram page, or maybe your influencer knows when the ideal time to post is, based on a number of likes they receive at specific times. Communication and transparency are key elements to making an influencer relationship work.

Beyond communication and selection of an influencer, another significant element of targeting your ideal audience is to discover the most frequently used hashtags within the sphere of your brand or product. Uncovering and using these hashtags could draw in your audience—both gained and potential—and even allow you to see potential influencers who could speak to your audience. These hashtags show you who is already seeking out specific information or products in-line with your brand’s agenda and then allows you to use that data to modify your approach.

It is beneficial for you to use a data collection application to monitor the views of your Instagram page or website before and after you begin a campaign with an influencer, so you can keep track of how much your influencer is helping boost visibility.

Agency Outsourcing

There are many online companies you can consult that solely focused on assisting you in getting a foothold in the field of influencer marketing, and can even get you started in connecting with potential influencers. Some are even tailored to work with Instagram directly. Additionally, several companies that offer ready-made platforms are available online and can be reliable, insightful guides for you as you navigate this process—luckily, not all of these are designed for large-scale brands. If your budget is low, there are several platform based companies that are designed to work with small-scale brands on tighter budgets.

Using the influencer marketing strategy on Instagram can seem financially daunting and a little overwhelming, but the success many brands see in a small amount of time should encourage you to look at this modern, innovative approach to personal, social-media based marketing.

Why not give it a try and see if you can make your brand Instagram popular?

Today’s guest post for the startup page was written by:
Charlotte McCleary is a message-centric brand strategist who works with the marketing teams of start-ups and young companies to streamline their market positioning and message. When not crafting blueprints for marketers she is a keynote speaker and personal branding coach. Twitter