Influencer Marketing 101: Drop Your Ego, Boost Theirs

 

Egotistic marketers love to talk about themselves, their achievements, and their brand. It quickly gets annoying. Instead of attracting customers, you’re actually driving them away with all the “me” campaign that quickly becomes nauseating. If you want to stroke someone’s ego, it should be your audience’s or your influencer’s ego.

You’re probably asking why you should stroke your influencer’s or potential influencer’s ego. Well, first let’s clarify what stroking their ego means. It simply means praising them, giving them a plug, or appreciating them, their efforts, and their accomplishments.

Feeding their ego isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We’re humans, and ego is an important driver of our behavior. Every once in a while normal adults need ego boost to feel good about themselves. It’s good for the self-esteem. People work and socialize better when their self-esteem is in good shape.

It seems counterintuitive, though. Why talk about other people when you should be talking about you, your business?

 

The question is, who would listen to you if you talked about your brand all the time?

No one.

 

 

You would irk people before they could check out your business and care. People may want to hear about you, but not from you. They would regard your brand better if they heard about it from someone they already trust. You don’t go directly to them. You go to your influencers and do the heavy lifting for you.

How do you do that?

One, you need to get their attention. You can pay them to act like traditional advertisers. Or you can praise them on your social media channels. Praising works because it is an ego boost. You know that feeling of joy surging through your body when someone appreciates your work and tells their friends about it. We’re all familiar with that great feeling, and we’re easily convinced to do others favors when we’re happy. In other cases, giving someone a plug is an indirect way of telling them, “Hey, check us out.”

Another way is to go about a win-win solution, wherein you get what you want and the influencer gets what they want. This is why you have to know your influencer. Know their hobbies. Know what they like. Check their social media behavior. That way you can position yourself better in “courting” them. In many cases, it feels like a negotiation, in which you tell them what you want and you tell them what they get in return. This is a straightforward approach that works when done carefully. You have to be in the position where you make them feel good.

Really, influencer marketing isn’t about you. It’s about your influencers.