Let's get straight to it - influencer marketing has emerged as a powerhouse, poised to redefine how brands connect with their audience. The days of traditional advertising are changing, ushered out by the undeniable impact of influencers who cultivate and engage communities with genuine, authentic connections. For businesses in the UK aiming to amplify brand awareness and carve out a broader market presence, tapping into the potent combination of influencer partnerships can be a game-changer.
Many brands struggle to achieve success in social media marketing because they think it requires a mass of budget and resource to execute campaigns. But if you get the basics right, and with a little help from influencer marketing platforms, you can unlock the potential that content creators can bring.
Where consumers are bombarded by countless marketing messages daily, how do brands cut through the noise? The answer lies in mastering the art of influencer marketing. When using platforms like CreatorOS (that's us - others are available), it’s essential to understand that Influencer Marketing is all about connecting your brand with an expert in content creation; do it right, and you can unlock not just the skills of an expert in your industry, but someone who connects with your target audience better than you can.
A recent study from market research company System1 found that Influencer Marketing has the highest long-term ROI on brand awareness compared to all other media channels. Partnering with the right individuals can put your brand in front of audiences you may not have tapped into previously. Influencer marketing allows brands to benefit from the established trust and loyalty that these opinion leaders already have with their followers. As consumers continue to shift towards authenticity and relatability, influencers become your bridge to a deeper connection.
When you tailor a campaign to leverage influencer authenticity, you aren’t just showcasing your product or service; you’re intertwining your brand narrative into the authentic stories that these influencers tell. The key is that it's their audience you're getting in front of, and that's what sets influencer marketing out from other media channels - getting your brief and message right can massively increase brand credibility, which is crucial in nurturing trust. Getting this wrong can have the opposite effect, which is why some brands are nervous in their influencer approach. Brands ideally want influencers to speak highly of their brand not just because they are paid to do so, but because the synergy between your brand’s values and their persona makes the recommendation feel genuine.
Influencers give brands the chance to reach niche communities in a way that hasn't been possible before. Whether it's owners of a particular breed of animal, amateur gardeners or people looking for a healthier lifestyle, there's every type of creator you can imagine out there. This is key to how influencer marketing works - the social media platforms and algorithms do all the hard work in targeting for you, by helping creators nurture a community of highly targeted people through their content. By aligning your brand’s goals with influencers who share similar values, you ensure that your campaigns resonate on a level that traditional marketing strategies often fail to reach. Businesses see measurable ROI when they align correctly with the right influencers.
Unlike broader marketing strategies that can take months to plan and implement, influencer marketing grants you the agility to react swiftly to trends or cultural events in real time. In fact, much of the influencer marketing industry is designed to help brands execute quickly and stay agile using analytics and data.The key to doing this is being prepared in advance and keeping plans loose enough that you can keep reactive to moments. With platforms like CreatorOS, brands can streamline partnerships by connecting with creators in a matter of hours - whether they're a micro creator with 10k followers or mega influencers with millions of followers.
Here's our list of top, practical tips for getting the most from Instagram influencers - not forgetting TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube as the main social networks. These tips apply whether you're a social media manager in charge or a small SME, up to global brands - the principles of influencer marketing remain the same.
In simple terms, know why you're doing influencer. Agree it internally. Like all other advertising channels, it should fit into your brand mix. You might want to create more influencer content that demonstrates the use of your product, drive reviews, or become well known within a particular audience or market. Knowing what this is will set you up to achieve the goal, but also how to measure it too.
How you approach influencer marketing will define many future decisions in your strategy. Go into influencer campaigns trying to drive awareness, you can begin to plot out how much budget you need, and work backwards from what you need to achieve, down to how you'll achieve it. For example; Macro influencers might offer scale, but nano influencers, with their niche audiences, can drive a more concentrated passion and authenticity that bigger accounts might lack.
It's always tempting to get your influencer search going before you have a fully fledged brief. While influencer searching can be fun, it might be wasted time if you don't have a clear brief yet - and if you reach out to influencers without a proper brief, you're potentially wasting their time too. If you reach out and negotiate prices with influencers, changing details later can also put you at a disadvantage in negotiations - the influencer knows you want to collaborate already, so adding deliverables or extra rights at the 11th hour (sometimes later!) won't give you the best value.
Sometimes you see an influencer you love, and stop looking. That's before you've reached out to them, written a brief and even negotiated. There's now a chance you won't be doing the correct research, brand safety checks or even price comparisons for the campaign because you think you've found the right influencer. Shortlisting more influencers than you need means you have a good base for comparison on things like performance, value, and it gives you options if a deal falls through.
There are so many stats and analytics to consider when choosing an influencer, but so many brands focus purely on follower count. It's always advisable to look well beyond followers! Firstly, follower counts no longer gives an indication of how many that influencer will reach - if you look at their video views, you'll see a variety of performance, with some videos performing much better than others. CreatorOS focuses on average video views and engagement rate as two key metrics to judge how effective an influencer might be, and gives a good base for comparison. Other to consider - the influencers demographics, as well as more creative items like their general style.
When you engage an influencer, you normally like their content as much as their stats. That's because they're great at doing what they do. The important thing to remember is that influencers don't do things you can't see on their feeds - if you haven't seen them do it, don't ask them to - it's a big risk to take asking an influencer to create a style of video that they haven't made before - they might not be a fully professional content creator, and may not have the experience and confidence to push back on a big brand asking them to do something they're not comfortable with. Best practice is to engage with influencers early, and even run them through the brief, letting them consult on the approach - even discussing a range of creative options that suit their style best.
It's absolutely paramount to have a contractual agreement with any influencer you work with. A good contract protects both sides during the campaign, and sets out clear deliverables and terms, including anything from submission and campaign dates, deliverables, through to payment terms and even what happens if you as the brand cancels the agreement after signature. Don't ask for perpetual, world-wide and irrevocable rights over influencer content just because your legal department insist on it - it's not a fair ask and it won't do your brand reputation amongst influencers any good. The CreatorOS platform uses a very balanced and fair contract template, although brands can use custom templates on request. Just remember - influencers talk!
Here's a quick insight to note if you're looking to scale your influencer activity - influencers don't use email. Email is for people stuck in an office, on work computers, having Teams calls all day. Influencers are often part time, don't sit on computers all day and generally rely on their phones (not least because many influencers are under 30). If you want quick responses, get the influencer on WhatsApp, you'll thank us later. CreatorOS has a proprietary messaging system so you can chat live on your PC, while influencers use their phones - clever stuff!
We won't write a long paragraph on how to measure influencer marketing, firstly it would take us too long, and secondly there's enough thought / industry leaders out there sharing multiple opinions on LinkedIn. Ultimately how you measure activity should ladder back to up what you set out to achieve as a brand. Influencer doesn't exist in a vacuum. But if there's one thing we recommend, it's to learn from your influencer performance. It's so hard to get right first time, the best thing you can do is to analyse what you did, and use those insights to be better next time. You may even plan your first few campaigns to use different influencer types, niches and even creative style to see what works best. Here's a pro-tip: analyse deeper metrics like Watch Time and Viewer Retention to see which content held viewer attention, and apply those learnings to your next influencer briefs.
The influencer media kit can offer valuable insights into an influencer’s audience demographics, engagement rates, and previous collaborations. Choosing the right influencers for your brand ensures that your advertising and content reach the intended audience. Evaluate potential partners meticulously, eyeing not only their follower count but also the quality of their engagement.
It's your brand reputation at stake when you partner with the wrong influencer. Brand safety means something different to every brand, and many articles will define it in different ways. Brand safety might be how much swearing the creator has in their content, or whether they have posted controversial, or even political content. Some brands are keen to know if a creator has ever mentioned them, especially if it was negative! It's hard to predict future behaviour too - how likely is the creator to cause controversy? It's always wise to watch a big sample of a creator's videos to get a feel for them. CreatorOS offers brands free, search-level safety checks on creators, and more comprehensive historical video transcription searches for a small fee.
Getting started with influencer marketing journey is as exciting as it is daunting. Brands can suddenly be very risk averse when they decide to get into a new channel, especially one that can feel unfamiliar to the more traditional ones. Sometimes the aversion to risk can ruin the best creative ideas, especially with bigger more corporate brands (much to their agencies frustration). But there are ways to succeed without being too bogged down in brand guidelines and legal advice.
As we've already established, influencer can be scaled up and down, and be reactive to moments. Plan a small budget in your marketing plan to use influencers where you need them. Perhaps an opportunity pops up where someone talks about your brand, and a great brief pretty much writes itself. One case study internally can suddenly spark a hunger at a brand to really lean into something new. Don't overthink giving it a try.
There's so much data available, perhaps even more data than other media channels. Use it to justify your decisions - find research on how much your target audience uses social media to drive consumer behavior, like key decision making, reliance on reviews, trust in influencer opinions and even product research. Match influencers to your audience demographics, and niche. Have a framework for the type of influencers you want to partner with as a business (even large brands sometimes prefer the nano creator approach, spreading their content bets).
If you make one visit to your legal department (or business affairs), make it a visit to agree a policy on brand safety. Do we mind if creators swear? What's acceptable? How much should we vet creator content before we collaborate with anyone? Knowing this up front not only gives you confidence to crack on with your campaign, you'll save time later when your legal team suddenly requests DBS checks on influencers! Plan for those things up front.
Brands can be wary of influencers because of the very reason they like them - their influence. If you get a deal wrong, will they badmouth you to their followers? The only time we see a risk of this happening, it's when brands don't act transparently, and in good faith. Changing briefs and deliverables at the last minute, not respecting contract terms, paying invoices late - all things that can be easily avoided with good practice and honest communication.
Many brands think influencer marketing is some kind of subversive channel. It's a tempting mistake to make, as the collaboration can feel so natural within the influencer's channel, you almost try and "hide" the brand within the content to make it feel authentic. But being authentic doesn't mean hiding the brand - far from it, it's about being honest with the audience about the nature of the content and what their favourite influencer is being asked to do. This goes for brand claims, too - consumers are very savvy with their information and fact checking now, so make sure you're squeaky clean on the facts.
There's been many high profile cases where the ASA has reprimanded brands and creators for breaking advertising codes and regulations. Recently, UK influencer Grace Beverley was called out for promoting her own fashion brand, TALA, on her own Instagram. As well as clearly marking any sponsored content with #ad, many industries have their own regulations on branded content, from Automotive ads to Beauty products, health claims and any products classed as High Fat, Sugar and Salt (HFSS) have their own sets of rules that cover influencer marketing as well as other media channels.
OK, we would say this because CreatorOS is an influencer marketplace that saves you time, budget and lots of pain. But there are many platforms out there that do the same. We work with many brands who do all their influencer marketing manually, from searches through to contracts and even payments, and we can't convey quite how much relief they feel when we automate all the admin for them. Everything is better and more accurate with influencer tech - from searching all the way to real time measurement.
Now, it's your turn: How will you harness the power of influencers to propel your brand to new heights?
Influencer marketing is a form of digital marketing where brands partner with individuals who have significant social media presence, known as influencers. These influencers have the power to sway their audience’s purchasing decisions due to their credibility, knowledge, and relationship with their followers. By collaborating, brands can tap into an influencer’s reach to promote products or services, boosting brand awareness and potentially increasing sales. It’s an effective strategy that utilises the trust between the influencer and their followers, creating authentic engagements that traditional advertising often struggles to achieve.
The 3 R's of influencer marketing are Reach, Relevance, and Resonance. Reach refers to how far your message can spread. Relevance considers how well an influencer’s content aligns with your brand’s values and target audience. Resonance measures the level of engagement an influencer can create, indicating the depth of their connection with followers. Successful influencer campaigns effectively balance these three aspects, ensuring that the chosen influencer can genuinely connect and interact with your intended audience while enhancing brand visibility.
To become an influencer marketer, start by immersing yourself in the world of social media and influencer trends. Build your expertise by understanding different platforms, audience behaviours, and current market trends. Networking is vital—connect with influencers and brands to learn from their experiences. Creating a portfolio showcasing past campaigns, or mock-ups if you're just starting, can impress potential clients. Additionally, refining skills in content creation, negotiation, and analytics will strengthen your ability to craft successful strategies. Staying updated with industry changes ensures your approaches remain effective and innovative.
Influencer marketing payments vary based on several factors, including the influencer’s reach, engagement rate, and the nature of the collaboration. Common payment methods include monetary compensation, free products, or experiences in exchange for content creation. Influencers with larger followings or those operating in niche markets may command higher fees. Payment terms are usually negotiated upfront, detailing expectations such as the number of posts, platforms used, and post-performance metrics. This flexibility allows brands and influencers to tailor agreements that satisfy both parties while ensuring campaign success.
It depends a little on your campaign goals, as you should measure content based on what you are trying to achieve. But there's one particular overlooked metric - known as watch time. Watch time is not a publicly available metric, but you can see this data when you either use an influencer marketing platform, or request it manually from the influencer themselves. Watch time tells you how long, on average, people watched a video for. With most social media networks, a view means the video appeared on a phone for any amount of time, even 0.001 seconds. Watch time tells you the quality of the views you received, rather than just the number. Using watch time analysis, you can learn where viewers stayed engaged, and when they swiped away - which gives valuable insights for improving future content and collaborations.
In influencer marketing, brand safety refers to how safe an influencer is when they collaborate with a brand. Typically, this is judged by measures such as swear words in content, the topics covered by the influencer in their content, and how controversial they potentially are. Some measures include the toxicity of comments on the content, and the nature of the audience who the influencer reaches. Other measures may include things like follower fraud, with bots and fake followers being tracked. Ultimately, brand safety analyses the risk the brand is taking on through doing a collaboration.
CreatorOS is an AI-powered influencer marketplace, that connects brands and creators together in a quick and efficient way. CreatorOS builds tools for both brands and influencers to make collaborations and connections quicker and deeper, allowing creators to work more professionally with brands and make more successful content. Brands can access AI that helps them ideate and write clear briefs, manage multiple deals simultaneously, pay the right price for creators and deliver campaigns efficiently. CreatorOS handles contract and payment admin for brands, and doesn't charge subscription fees or limit access and seats.
CreatorOS was started in 2020 by Tim Mitchell and Will Cookson, originally setting out to create a product that helped social media creators monetise in different ways. After experimenting with products on platforms like Discord, Twitch and Instagram, they saw a big trend in the success for authentic video content, and wanted to make access to technology for both brands and creators more accessible and efficient for both sides. In 2024, Rishi Sharma joined the founding team to lead technology and add AI and machine learning into the platform, and create a more two-sided marketplace which thousands of UK creators now use to power their brand deals.
After years in agencies and brands, we saw how clunky and one-sided creator marketing had become - so we built something better.
CreatorOS focuses on what really matters: creative ideas, great relationships, and tools that make life easier for everyone involved. Simple pricing, connected creators, and a platform that helps both sides move quickly and work brilliantly together.
