You know hanging around with folks who are a good influence always made your mama happy. She knew how valuable that influence could be. Do you? Savvy marketers (both brand marketers and influencers themselves) recognize the value influencers can bring to a brand through social media exposure. Partnering with the right ones offers a way of raising awareness, establishing a personal connection and building credibility with an audience.

For a good while now, GMS has been building influencer relationships for our clients. Facebook recently staked its claim on this practice and through the process has increased influencer credibility and visibility. In June Facebook launched Brand Collabs Manager, a tool to help connect brands with social media influencers on the platform.

Whether you want to let Facebook play matchmaker for you, to work with GMS to build your strategy or take on the search for the right partner yourself, influencer marketing is a valuable tool. And with the trend of consumers demanding more and more personalized experiences showing no signs of waning, it’s sure to get even more powerful.

Here are the basic steps GMS recommends for finding the right influencer to tell your story:

Search – If you look around the cybersphere you’ll find lots of voices out there, sharing brand messages. We consider the type influencer to work best for you. It could be a journalist, blogger or vlogger, an expert in a field, a well-known star or a “regular Joe.”

Evaluate – We research their presence, content, audience and interactions. Then we learn about how they work, what kind of resources and investment they require for engagement.

Pitch – Finding the appropriate way to reach out and present the brand and the goals is crucial. Our team has experience in building and presenting propositions that are appealing and effective.

Collaborate – We start a conversation and share ideas for building a partnership that works for our clients.

If you want us navigate the world of influencer marketing for you, get in touch. We’d be excited to work with you.