Article #8
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How to Pick the Right Instagram Influencer for Affiliate Outreach

If you're looking to promote a dropship e-commerce store, one of the best ways to do so is to partner up with an Instagram influencer. Influencers are really popular personalities on Instagram who specialize in a niche.

Maybe they focus on luxury watches. Maybe they post a lot of pictures of luxury cars. Maybe they post pictures from their many vacations from different spots all over the world. Whatever the case may be, an influencer has to have two things going for him or her for you to want to consider this person a possible affiliate ally.

First, the person has to be focused on a specific niche. In other words, if a person consistently focuses on vacation pictures and uses hashtags related to the vacation or travel niche, this person would have a specific niche focus. This is definitely crucial.

Second, this person has to have enough real followers. This is very important. There are many Instagram personalities who have a lot of fake followers. They really do.

When you look at their following count, it seems that there's a tremendous amount of people paying attention to their posts. When you pay attention to the engagement levels of their post, you get an entirely different picture. It turns out that even though their follower count is over 100,000, for example, they barely get any likes for their posts. This is a red flag.

Similarly, when they post content and hardly anybody posts a comment, you should be suspicious. You have to understand that there are lots of services online that sell Instagram followers. You have to be very suspicious of such influencers.

Assuming that you have found a number of influential Instagram personalities who focus on your niche in the form of pictures and hashtags and you're confident about the legitimacy of their followers, the next step is figuring out how to reach out to them.

Outreach Must Be Closely Related to Research and Evaluation

A lot of people promoting on Instagram completely drop the ball. They really do. They really screw it up because they don't realize that when you are sizing up different influencers on Instagram, you are also reaching out to them. You kill two birds with one stone. This is how you become efficient at influencer outreach.

In the beginning, it may not seem like you are thinking of advertising with them. This is definitely not the kind of signal you're sending out. But the more you interact with them, the more you figure out what they are about.

They quickly get the idea that you are also credible and authoritative in their niche. You no longer appear like some random person who is completely clueless regarding their niche. Just by reading your comments to these influencers, they will know full well that you truly care about the niche and you have something of value to say.

This makes you stand out, and this actually puts you in a position to determine the level of engagement the influencer has with their following.

Loyalty is Crucial

If you notice that the influencer's engagement with you gets a lot of notice from their followers, you should sit up and pay attention. This tells you that they command a tremendous amount of loyalty from their fans.

This is not a shallow form of loyalty. This is not just a passing kind of influence. When you notice that people truly are engaged with your interaction with an Instagram personality, this gives you kind of a preview as to how well your commercial message would be received if you bought an ad placement with the influencer.

Engage, Assess, and Buy

So how exactly do you pick the right Instagram influencer for affiliate outreach? I've pretty much given this to you already. You have to focus on the niche specialization of the Instagram personality. That's the first thing you need to do.

If they're not in your niche, you have no business even thinking of doing business with them. You're just going to waste your time, effort and money. Don't even think about it.

Next, engage with them. The more you engage with them, the more you will see clues as to how loyal their fan base is. Do they really know what they're talking about? Do they really care about their niche?

Also, when you engage, you get a chance to demonstrate your own level of legitimacy and credibility in your niche. These go hand in hand. You actually increase the chances of impressing your online personality enough for them to want to give you a discount when you ask them if they would like to run your ads.

Also, when you engage with Instagram influencers, they can give you clues as to what campaigns work and which don't. They also can give you important intelligence on the preferences of their fan base. This is solid gold information because you can use this info to craft ads that have a higher chance of succeeding when presented by that influencer.

Don't think that engaging Instagram influencers is a waste of time. It isn't. It's a very valuable time that can teach you all you need to know about succeeding on Instagram.
