In our last influencer marketing post we highlighted how important presentation can be when engaging and building a relationship with the new media. Just like consumers peruse products on a shelf, influencers are sizing up your company — how your brand represents itself is huge.

But even with that piece in place, social influencers – especially those who work with consumer-facing brands – are increasingly difficult to pin down. Differentiating your product in a sea of noise and freebies can be next to impossible. Compounding the issue is the high price tags a single Instagram post can carry – upwards of $4,000.

What is a burgeoning brand to do?

Our team has found two roads to success by playing up the lifestyle a product affords. Here’s how we’ve opened the door for influencer engagement through content development and creative product presentation.

A tale of two wins – put influencers on your own stage

Self-publishing offers brands the opportunity to become their own little news houses. For influencers, nothing carries more weight than an opportunity to further build and promote their brand. When blog and social meet, you can help them do just that. Leverage your blog and powers of social promotion to kill two birds with one stone.

Start with what your audience wants to see, learn, or discuss. It’s different for every company – tips on how to raise kids interested in STEM, insight on how to charge your phone battery faster, reviews of the best travel gear? Take whatever will move your consumers and connect the dots to influencers. Make a list of the different spheres of influencers who could extend the reach of their brand using your product.

In Ventev Mobile’s case, all things smartphone reign supreme and its fans want to know all about staying powered up and using their phones to the fullest. With that in mind, we tapped influencers from fashion, travel, media, and more to get their take on how they stay powered up and connected.

Fashion influencer Q&A for Ventev Mobile

Carley Knobloch Q&A blog post for Ventev Mobile

Carley Knobloch retweets VentevGina Doost Q&A blog post for Ventev Mobile

By leveraging the power of storytelling, personal voice, and social promotion, we were able to connect with top influencers, extend Ventev’s brand into new spheres of influence, and give each influencer a different way to connect to their audience. Everyone wins.

Words can only do so much – create a visual story

Sometimes, however, you may yearn for influencers to spotlight your product in their own Instagram feeds, YouTube videos, and Facebook statuses, to wield their special touch and make your product shine. Keying up influencers to create visual content that can be leveraged across social platforms is no easy task when they’re bombarded by promises of free trips, sponsor dollars, and limitless product. What can you do if dropping thousands of dollars per Instagram snap is not an option? Break out the creativity, it’s time to make something memorable. Always remember: Influencers are people just like you and I. What begs you to share a picture or post to your social followers? Something unique or surprising, endearing or thoughtful. Put yourself on the other side: What can you put together that builds the lifestyle case for your brand, but with a unique spin? Here are just a few ways we were able to build lifestyle into portable power products.

Bridal Kits

Instagram stories are getting hotter, and this kit was made to shine in sequence. With a bit of Pinterest flair, a multi-step kit was born, targeting newly engaged, or soon-to-wed influencers. Unwrap one box to find a balloon with instructions to pop, which releases a shower of confetti and a personalized note that directs them to unwrap a second gift. Influencer bridal kit Jessica Naziri Instagram Story

CES Survival Kits

Targeting power-hungry techies, this kit provides everything needed to survive CES in convenient throw-it-in your-bag fashion. CES Survival Kit for influencers 

Summer Essentials Kits

When showcasing the lifestyle for a product, why not situate the goods in relation to trips you know influencers will be taking? Anyone could use extra juice to keep Kindles charged and Snaps streaming from the beach.

Summer essentials kit for influencers

The impact? Not only making someone’s day, but securing an impression that both showcases quality products and conveys the personality of the brand.

Have questions about integrating influencer marketing into your 2017 plans? Share your questions in the comments and we’ll answer them in our next post.