Linqia’s goal is to connect brands with quality influencer who are passionate about creating honest and compelling content for their audiences. We work with brands of all shapes and sizes from CPG brands like Nestle and Mezzetta to hospitality companies like Hotels.com, all of which  come to Linqia to run influencer programs. Each brand has specific goals and metrics for the influencer program and relies on Linqia to connect them with influencers whose content will deliver results.

We do our best to keep both influencer and brand satisfaction top of mind. The selection and outreach processes are extensive, as our team and technology are meticulous about selecting the best fitting influencers for each program. Selection criteria can range from nationality/ethnicity to relationship status to children’s’ genders to past affiliations with competing brands. We liken the process to completing a puzzle, where the pieces need to be fit together before we can consider an influencer a match and deem the program “full” and set up for the best possible results.

So how can you increase your likelihood of being chosen for an upcoming influencer program? We’ve put together 4 tips based on aspects we consider when selecting influencers for a program. Incorporate the following into your blogging strategy and watch the program requests roll in:

  • Create Compelling Content: From fresh and engaging written stories to creative and beautiful photos, compelling content is at the top of our list. Many brands repurpose influencers’ original content across their own social channels, website, and marketing materials, which in turn offers influencers exposure on the brand’s existing platforms. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement that stems from the root of what we do at Linqia: enhancing authentic relationships between the brand, the influencers, and their audiences. With that in mind, influencers are often selected for their writing talent or ability to capture emotion in a photo. Make sure your site clearly shows your strengths.
  • Be Reliable:  Our influencer selection has extremely tight deadlines, often with only a few days to fill a program. We are much more likely to select influencers who quickly respond to emails, complete all program requirements to the best of their abilities, and participate in the program for its full duration. While we don’t necessarily add influencers to a program on a first-come, first-served basis, we do take reliability into account when inviting influencers to a program. If an influencer has a history of not responding to our invitations, he or she likely won’t be invited to participate unless it’s a perfect fit. Keep in mind that declining an invitation does not negatively affect an influencer;s future invitations. On the contrary, it gives our team feedback so we can match an influencer with more appropriate opportunities.
  • Fill Out Your Profiles: Complete and up-to-date influencer and community info profiles are the tickets to a program invitation. Do you love printables? Let us know! Just had a baby? You might be a perfect fit for our Gerber programs! But we will never know you’re a program fit unless it’s in your Linqia profile. The more we know about you and your interests, the better we can match you to opportunities that resonate with your audience. Complete profiles help us get a better understanding of what you’d like to write about and what you wouldn’t.
  • Drive Authentic Traffic & Engagement: Bots and click farms continue to plague programs as they contribute fraudulent traffic to performance reports. Influencer marketing programs are appealing because they connect brands with real, authentic, and interested audiences. As a a performance marketing platform, Linqia’s promise is to deliver true value through valid clicks, actions, and engagement. We use internal technology to authenticate influencer traffic to verify the content truly resonates with their audience and the traffic is not coming from bots or click farms. As a result, if a influencer has explicitly asked for clicks or has over a certain percentage of invalid traffic, it will affect their selection for programs. Learn more about what we consider invalid traffic here.

Linqia’s influencers are the key to our success. Brands come to us (and back to us) because our influencer content is genuine, authentic, and truly has the power to influence. It’s our job to match influencers with quality programs so make sure you take the tips above and implement them into your blogging strategy.