When it comes to working with influencers, there are several different influencer marketing campaign types to consider. Should you opt for a sponsored ad? Is a social media takeover a better fit? What if your goal is brand awareness —which type of campaign is best? Every good marketer asks these questions before launching a campaign.
Take a look at the four most popular campaign types with examples of how a brand executed the campaign. These campaigns can fit any brand, too, whether you’re new to influencer marketing or have dozens of campaigns under your belt.
4 influencer marketing campaign types
Sponsored posts
Sponsored posts are the most common type of influencer campaigns. With these campaigns, a brand asks the influencer to create and share content that promotes your brand. The brand can provide direction, like what kind of content they’d like, which channel it’s for, what product to highlight, and what @tags and #hashtags to use.
After receiving the product to promote, the influencer creates the content, sends it to you for review, and shares it with their audience.
While sponsored social posts are the most common, you can ask influencers to create blog posts, too. For example, a parenting website that gives parents creative ways to play with and teach their child might publish a blog post featuring a popular toy brand.
Giveaways
You can ask an influencer to host a giveaway on your behalf. The influencer can announce the giveaway, explain the rules, and engage with people who participate.
Giveaways are a brand favorite because they’re easy to coordinate and often result in great brand awareness campaigns. Brands are also likely to see higher social engagement. Likes, shares, and comments will all likely trend upward.
The giveaway should be easy to enter. To reach new customers and increase your social audience, you could ask participants to comment on a post and tag a friend for a chance to win one of your awesome products. Be sure to provide clear rules to enter the giveaway.
What should you giveaway? Whatever you choose should connect to your brand. It might be your best selling product, a gift card, or an invite to an event.
Social media takeover
A social media takeover is another influencer campaign that generates a lot of buzz. During a #SocialMediaTakeOver, a brand lets the influencer run a social channel for a day, or a set period of time. During that time, the influencer can share pictures, stories, answer questions, engage with fans, and might even go live.
As a brand, you’ll provide direction to the influencer about the goal of the campaign, the content that you’d like to see, and any dos and don’ts that pertain to your brand’s social presence.
Brand ambassador programs
A growing number of brands are working with influencers on a recurring basis. These influencers aren’t just fans of a product, they love the brand’s product, support the company and its mission, and are willing to share their positive experiences with others.
These programs are as unique as the brand’s that deploy them. Eddie Bauer’s brand ambassador program called, One Outside, brings together a team of seven outdoor lovers who not only endorse the brand’s outdoor gear, but are helping the company create it. These “world-class guides provide input to build gear and technical apparel that’s accessible for everyone — especially underrepresented cultures in the outdoor world.”
Your brand ambassador program would embody your brand, along with its products and mission.
With these four campaign types explained, you’re ready to dig into your own influencer campaign. If you need some help finding the right influencer to work with, browse IZEA’s Influencer Discovery platform to find, collaborate with, and pay influencers from one central location.
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