Create Influencer Briefing

1. What is a briefing?
2. And why is the briefing so important?
3. Why should you take enough time for the briefing?
4. Influencer Marketing – where do I start?
5. The Influencer Briefing

I have to be honest, I didn't cover myself in glory with my first influencer campaign. I still believe I chose the right face for the advertising, but the implementation: needs improvement! Unfortunately, the chosen influencer simply and plainly touted incorrect facts. And the content format didn't meet my expectations at all. Instead of presenting the product in detail in his story and embedding a link to our campaign website, he took a photo for his feed and posted it with a careless caption.

A large part of companies now rely on Influencer Marketing as part of their social media strategy and so that you are spared my mistakes, I will reveal all the important aspects you should pay attention to so that your campaign becomes a complete success.

Let's start from the beginning:

What is a briefing?

A briefing for influencers is understood to be a strategic plan that defines how the collaboration between the advertising company and the influencer should proceed. It records all relevant information such as the product to be advertised, the desired formats, time for publication etc. The aim of the briefing is to provide the influencer with all the necessary data so that the cooperation brings the greatest possible success.

And why is the briefing so important?

The short answer is: Of course, to get the best out of the cooperation. In more detail: A meaningful briefing is elementary, so that your idea as an advertising person can be implemented according to your wishes by the influencer. In the best case, the influencer also cares about meeting your expectations as best as possible, but this can only be achieved if you clearly communicate your wishes and requirements. The briefing is so to speak the roadmap to get to the goal.

Why should you take enough time for the briefing?

Since an influencer campaign often requires some monetary resources, you should also be willing to invest sufficient time resources in this project. Because it is obvious - the more careful you create the briefing, the smoother the collaboration usually goes. This eliminates elaborate correction loops and disappointments.

That's it with the basics, let's go into detail:

Influencer Marketing – where do I start?

Define goals

At the forefront of a successful Influencer Marketing Strategy the expectations or goal, which should be achieved with this cooperation, must be defined. The Influencer Marketing Goal and Success Factors ranging from brand awareness to performance.

Select influencer

The second step is to find the right influencer. You can do the research for suitable candidates yourself. For this, Influencer Marketing Tools such as IROIN® Influencer Marketing Suite or influData can help you if you don't want to spend hours researching on different platforms. Of course, you can also get help from agencies.

It is very important in the selection of the right influencers that the chosen one fits the product to be advertised on the one hand, so that the advertising appears authentic to the target people. So it doesn't make any sense to ask the very first celebrity, just because the person is known and has a high reach. A model that is concerned about good shape in everyday life, is just as unbelievable to advertise your chocolate bar, as is the fashionista's laudatory words about your sports clothing, if she keeps emphasizing in her stories that sports are a red rag for her. Furthermore, influencers also have to match your target group - just because the person has a good fit to the product, he or she isn't automatically the right one to advertise for you if your potential customers can't identify with him or her.

Excursus: Be careful - your colleague recently said that he or she already has a good content creator in mind? Have a clarifying conversation, because not every content creator is an influencer and vice versa. However, there are important differences between influencers and content creators. Since the selection of the influencer is made before the briefing, we will help you in another article to find the right influencers.

Contact

Once you've found the perfect influencer, contact them before the briefing. With smaller account influencers, you might be able to reach them directly via Direct Message or email (often listed in the bio of the social media account). In most cases, your request initially ends up with the management. After a few introductory words, you should give a brief overview of your project, briefly introduce your company and the product to be advertised and what you hope to get from the cooperation. Budgets, content formats or similar need not be discussed yet, as it is initially about finding out whether your preferred candidate*in can also imagine a cooperation. If this is the case, the next step follows: the briefing.

The Influencer Briefing

It is recommended to break down the briefing into sub-points. I divide it into 6 areas:

WHAT

As influencers often have more than one collaboration, it is advisable to provide all relevant information in writing, even if you have already mentioned these details when making contact. Introduce your company again in short sentences - this way the selected person can answer e.g. questions from the community during the cooperation and creates the all-important impression that the person knows what they are talking about. Then explain the facts as well as the advantages of the product to be advertised, so that these can be read again at any time. Especially the essential information like product price, discounts and promotional periods should be communicated at this point.

HOW

Once the hard facts have been written down, the information relevant to the individual campaign follows. Even if this probably goes without saying, it doesn't hurt to write down which social media channel the content is to be published (some influencers are not exclusively on Instagram or TikTok, but operate several platforms). This implies the defined content format. Here it is advisable to talk to the influencer or management during the familiarization phase about which formats perform best on the account. What use are the best stories, if later only a handful of people see them? Agree together whether the product or place you want to advertise should be shown in stories or reels. Sweepstakes are also a great opportunity to generate even larger reach.

Especially in times of popular Collab Posts on Instagram, where the post is published both on the influencer's channel and in your company feed, it should also be stated on which language e.g. the voice over is spoken or the caption of the post is written. This is especially relevant if your company's account, for example, communicates in English as an international company, but the influencer's account is operated in German. This way later disappointments are avoided.

For the actual advertising performance, it must also be recorded whether there are special (campaign)-hashtags or links that must be integrated into the content.

BUY OUTS

Another topic that can be placed in the briefing are the Buy Outs of the content pieces created during the collaboration. Clearly, if you are aiming for a collab post, then you also have the influencer's content on your channel. But in case the post / the reel is actually only supposed to be published on the influencer's account, it is worth thinking about whether you are buying the publication rights of these assets or asking for a few more additional pictures for your other channels, e.g. newsletters and website. You could also try to generate user generated content using influencer marketing.

TIMING

The timing of the publication must not be overlooked. Before the shot content can go live, it must be ensured that everything is prepared for the campaign on your part, i.e. that your landing page is live or the advertised discounts apply to the date.

APPROVAL PROCESS

Also specify in the briefing whether, how and when you will check the content of the influencer before it is published. In addition, it is very important to point out to the influencers that the contributions must clearly be marked as advertising.

REPORTING

Lastly, define which metrics, e.g. views, interactions, clicks you want to receive afterwards.

You might be wondering now why no details about the creative implementation are mentioned here and the words mood board, script & co do not drop?

Very simple, the most important thing about the briefings is the artistic freedom. This means: Trust the influencer! Don't dictate everything down to the last detail because authenticity is most important and influencers know their communities best and know exactly which content performs well. By booking influencers, you are sort of not only buying their well-known face, but also their creative performance. Trust that they will advertise the product or service as best as possible - after all, with a good implementation, a longer business relationship may be in prospect. This way, it is not perceived as blatant advertising, but rather subtle and realistic, which is also one of the biggest advantages of influencer marketing. And don't worry, small beauty flaws can still be corrected in the approval process.

Note: This briefing is a subjective procedure and does not replace the official influencer contract, which is concluded between the company and the booked person. The briefing can be seen as a roadmap that offers assistance and documents the creative process.