“No
one else knows exactly what the future holds for you, no one else knows what
obstacles you've overcome to be where you are, so don't expect others to feel
as passionate about your dreams as you do.”
Germany
Kent
A little while ago, I wrote a blog post titled: The Most Transparent Blog Post I’ve Ever Written (which you can read here) and in it, I talked about being given – numerous times now – the label of ‘influencer’ by others. I decided to do some research at the beginning of the post, in the hope that it would provide me with evidence to fight me meeting the definition of the label, but instead, I found (in this article) that due to the following of I’m NOT Disordered (2.3 million readers) I’d be deemed a ‘Mega-Influencer!’ And on talking to my Waythrough Recovery Worker, I agreed that my blog is at a standing in terms of both popularity and reputation, that I can no longer demean or deny it. So, here I am(!) agreeing to be an Influencer! Now, this blog post was actually inspired by a recent meeting with a few of Waythrough’s Communications and Marketing team, where the idea of the organisation working with Influencers was discussed. The Manager said that I was the ‘perfect person’ to have involved because of my ability to bring actual, lived insight into this world, and so, here’s the blog post which provides guidance to working with an Influencer…
What To Look For:
Research
is quite obviously – or at least understandably – the first step in working
with an Influencer because you need to establish, before approaching them, whether
they’re even the right person for your collaboration idea. With the majority of
Influencers now doing so via their social media as opposed to having a blog or
YouTube channel, that is likely the best place to begin your search. With my
small knowledge of TikTok in consideration, I’d suggest starting with Instagram
because gaining the information I recommend you research in determining an
Influencer, actually isn’t too difficult to obtain on that platform. However,
another, more general and perhaps less technically advanced idea, would be to
try using a search engine such as Google or Bing – though, I suspect these
might ultimately lead to an Instagram account!
To
determine whether an Influencer works within the right, most appropriate theme
of the industry, for your collaboration idea, you can start by using the
Instagram search function and typing in hashtags relevant to that theme. For
example, where your organisation is centred around supporting those with a
mental illness and drug and/or alcohol problems – such as Waythrough – keywords
to type in would be #mentalhealth, #addictions, and even #recovery because that
would actually provide a better chance that the Influencer is in a safe and
healthy place and that their content is of a similar angle.
If
you come across accounts/names of Influencers, a way to check the theme of
their work, would also be by reading their bio – which is the little
description beneath the profile picture at the top of the account. A lot of
Influencers tend to list the themes of their content here e.g. ‘fashion,’
‘beauty,’ and ‘lifestyle.’ Also, in that area of a profile, which might prove
useful here, there’s a small subheading that’s slightly paler and directly
beneath the profile photo which is usually referred to as the ‘category’ in
your profile settings. A ‘category’ is defined as being ‘what best describes
you’ and the options within it which are most relevant to this blog post,
include ‘blogger,’ ‘digital creator,’ ‘entrepreneur,’ ‘video creator,’
‘photographer,’ and ‘writer.’
Something
which is also worth keeping in mind here though, is being creative with your
collaboration ideas in working with Influencers. This is a quality I pride
myself on and one which I greatly hope is illustrated in the content I create –
particularly the content which is in collaboration with well-known individuals,
organisations, brands, charities, and companies etc. It’s important to get a
balance though in ensuring that your idea isn’t too out-of-the-box in so far as
it perhaps taking a lot of time to explain to an Influencer how they are
relevant to it!
I
remember not too long after I started blogging, I was still a psychiatric
hospital inpatient, and I was talking about a reader milestone when one of the
other inpatients – who also had a small blog – asked why I was so focused on
‘the numbers.’ Now, knowing this girl; the question wasn’t genuine curiosity,
it was meant as a dig to make it seem like I was superficial and shallow and as
though I was blogging for the wrong reasons. Like my motivation or intentions
are ill-informed. But I’m glad she asked because it made me think about it and
it’s something which could very likely and reasonably been asked again
throughout my career (though it hasn’t been).
In my
consideration of the question though, I determined two reasons for my focus on I’m
NOT Disordered’s statistics are firstly that the more readers I have, the
higher the chance I can help more people with my content. Specifically with my
content giving advice and tips around mental health and trauma. And the other
reason, is that I recognise the larger my blog’s following, the larger and the
more frequent the one-of-a-kind opportunities I get. And these opportunities
are usually once in a lifetime kind of things that feel like real achievements
and signs of success, and which make me really grateful for my recovery because
it has enabled me to do them.
As a
collaboration partner, knowing the Influencer’s statistics and insights can
matter for a number of reasons, but the largest is that it’s a tell-tale sign
or hint as to how popular and successful your collaboration content could be. It
will indicate the reach that it might have and therefore the amount of people
it could impact across your target audience. This will also be a great
opportunity to gain expectations into this being a sign of the size, gravity,
and strength of the publicity that your organisation could earn/receive in
working with a particular Influencer.
When
it’s your own account, you can see a lot of statistics or ‘insights’ which you
can’t see if you’re looking at profile which isn’t your own. Typically, all
that you can see is a part of the engagement e.g. the likes and comments that
their content has had. It is important to know what the statistics are that
they can see so that you can be sure that if you were to ask an Influencer for a
particular stat, that you can’t see, you know you’re asking for the right ones
and ones which are actually available to them too. So, the stats of each post that
the account holder can see and brief explanations/definitions as to what they
mean, are:
Views
Within
views, you can see the total view and then it is broken down into percentages
of the views which come from people already Following your account and those which
are ‘Non-Followers.’ There’s also an ‘Accounts reached’ section which is an
estimated figure of the number of unique Instagram accounts that have seen a
particular post. The following information is also available to determine where
the views originate from:
-
Home
-
Profile
-
Hashtags
Interactions
This is
a simpler statistic and is basically more about ‘engagement’ and the number of
people/accounts who are clicking on the various functions of a post. The
functions recorded are:
-
Likes
-
Comments
-
Saves
Profile
activity
This
insight is about the actions that people take when they’ve seen your post, the
possibilities are profile visits, follows, and external link taps (which is
when someone clicks on any of the links you’ve made available anywhere on your
profile).
This is
a pretty obvious consideration to have in determining an Influencer to pitch a
collaboration idea to; and it’s important for a number of reasons:
1.
It
illustrates the quality of the Influencer’s work.
2.
It
provides evidence to the relevance of their content theme.
3.
It
will establish whether this collaboration is too similar to their previous
work.
4.
It
might inspire new or different ideas for the collaboration.
5.
It
will probably provide more information and further details on their journey.
One of
the documents I send to prospective collaboration partners, is an Excel list of
the organisations from my blog’s previous collaborations. I always add this to
my pitches because I know of the benefits above, and therefore I understand and
appreciate that reading that list might encourage a ‘yes.’ Another document I
have for this, is the blog’s Collaboration Pack which includes snippets of
three blog posts in partnership with organisations. The first is: FIVE LESSONS LEGALLY BLONDE HAS
TAUGHT ME | IN COLLABORATION WITTH WHITLEY BAY OPERATIC SOCIETY | AD | I'm NOT
Disordered. The
second is: ALL THINGS TRAVEL & MENTAL
HEALTH | IN COLLABORATION WITH LONDON NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY | AD | I'm NOT
Disordered. And
the final third one: “YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE” | WHY
TEAMWORK IS SO IMPORTANT IN MENTAL HEALTH | IN COLLABORATION WITH LIVERPOOL
FOOTBALL CLUB | AD | I'm NOT Disordered. I chose these three because they’re each so
different and I think all three are great examples of my creativity in making
these organisations relevant in somewhat continuity with my usual mental health
content.
As a
means of quickly scanning through content, an easier way to spot the
collaboration pieces from a ton of normal content, could be to try to see if
the Influencer has used the ‘highlights’ function on their Instagram. This is a
useful way of separating your related content and is relatively similar to the
photo albums feature on Facebook – but arguably easier to navigate, find, and
use. Some Influencers use that function though, to separate content which is
with a specific collaboration partner or for a particular blog post series or
media campaign.
Other important benefits and insight you can gain from looking at prior content and old collaborations, are whether the Influencer has certain, favourable skills and qualities which are, arguably more intimate and personality-driven than things like the upcoming section on their technical proficiency. Some examples of what I mean and that I am referring to, would be: a level of passion and interest, a degree of investment and dedication, and some sort of determination and commitment to their role and/or the industry on a whole.
There have been numerous times that I have commented that people seem to assume I’m good with technology because of the size of my blog’s following, but it’s actually untrue! I’m honestly not that great with a lot of – what I’d define as – technically intense and advanced features of the online world! This lack of talent and understanding of something relatively important to collaborating with an Influencer, might seem fairly off-putting and unattractive in terms of wanting to work with me, but I obviously – and fortunately/luckily – haven’t done too badly in securing partnerships on I’m NOT Disordered! I think a contributing factor to this though, is that I’m a very fast learner and I actually also really enjoy learning too so if I’m asked or required to figure out something new, I’m more than willing – in fact, I’m usually excited to get started!
A great way of determining whether an Influencer has the skill and knowledge or training in being technically proficient, is by analysing the complexity of their previous content. Some of the important questions and areas of consideration in this stage/step can be: Have they used editing software? Will they have needed certain apps and programmes to have produced the content that they have and to the standard that they’ve met/achieved? Did they need to rely on their collaboration partner’s Graphics Designer to have put together the imagery they have published? Have they utilised hashtags, tagging, and specific link functions and other basic features in the publication and sharing of their content? Does their content contain any more advanced options? How much time can you imagine or envision it may have taken to create their content (which can be a sign or hint towards the level of their dedication to the industry)?
10 Important Links for This Part:
https://storychief.io/blog/social-media-algorithms-updates-tips
https://brand24.com/blog/increase-reach-on-instagram/
https://sociallyin.com/blog/questions-to-ask-on-instagram/
https://digitalwellbeing.org/6-tough-questions-on-social-media-answered/
https://www.m10social.com/blog/2021/07/27/10-worst-features-social-media
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-challenges/
https://planly.com/social-media-marketing-challenges/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387837968_Social_Media_Marketing_-_Trends_and_Challenges
https://zapier.com/blog/best-social-media-management-tools/
https://about.instagram.com/features
Some of the most serious and professional Influencers – typically Bloggers who can have this as a page on their site – might have released guidelines and specifications that they look for and require in collaboration pitches from prospective organisational partners. One reason why Influencers might do this is because they are so inundated with pitches and are therefore keen to separate the most valid, serious, appropriate, relevant, and effective ones from those which are less so. This is probably and likely because they recognise that doing this is a much more organised and efficient method to determining which pitches are worth the time and effort that is required of them to read through a pitch and determine whether to contact the pitch author to make further enquiries prior to being able to make some sort of final and ultimate decision as to whether to accept and agree to the collaboration idea or if they can do so without requiring any additional information or details.
Some such guidance could involve a recommended or required format and layout of a pitch such as the preferable subheadings and sections they would like to see as well as the desired route/contact details the Influencer would like organisations to use when submitting collaboration pitches. These rules are likely also to help separate the genuine pitches from the hoards of others which aren’t thought out or very genuine.
Whilst facing pitching an Influencer who has such guidelines might seem tedious or unappealing, I think it’s best to see it as a sign of their professionalism and how serious they take their work and the thought of collaborating with others.
What We Look For:
As important as it is to regard what a potential collaboration partner should look for in approaching an Influencer with a partnership pitch, it’s equally important that in providing this guide on working with an Influencer, I cover what the Influencer is looking for in receiving a pitch. I think this is actually pretty essential because it’s actually half the job in regard to the theme/angle of this blog post!
As much as statistics matters in finding/establishing an Influencer, they’re also an important detail to include in a collaboration pitch in order to actually sell your organisation as a worthwhile partner.
This will illustrate the quality and standard of your content usually and typically and provide insight into your usual theme and the angle you typically take in your posts.
This will evidence that you’ve actually paid attention to what we produce and publish and shows that it’s what you’re looking for.
This will also illustrate that you’ve taken the time and put in the effort to look through our guidance and rules in collaboration pitches and it shows a level of dedication to have taken note of it.
1. Your Statistics (preferably your social media stats and insights)
2. Links to your website and all your social media accounts
3. Details on your collaboration idea including: a brief description, key talking points, approval process, timeline etc.
Please send all collaboration pitches to: imnotdisorderedblog@outlook.com