You’ve done everything you should when putting together your latest influencer marketing campaign. You carefully vetted the influencers, provided a great creative brief, received beautiful content – and now it’s time to watch the engagement roll in. Right?

So then why is your sponsored content underperforming? It could be that your campaign doesn’t match the creator content – and not in a good way.

What is Content to Feed Match?

Content to Feed Match is when your sponsored post matches the look, feel, and vibe of the creator’s feed. Your brand’s sponsored content blends into the creator’s style, and thus comes across as more authentic – it isn’t a vast departure from what they usually do, and isn’t jarring for their audience. It also allows the creator to be more creative with your brand and product, using it or experiencing it in ways that fit their personal brand.

Why is the content not matching their feed?

Low Content to Feed Match often happens when the parameters of a creative brief are overly specific. The more you can let creators drive the sponsored post, the more in line with their feed it’s likely going to be, and therefore the better the chance their audience will engage with the post. This doesn’t mean you can’t have defined parameters in your briefs, but there is a big difference between guardrails and handcuffs.

Why is Content to Feed Match so important?

Linqia evaluated dozens of posts across Instagram and TikTok, and found that 100% of posts that exceeded our average engagement rate exhibited high content to feed match. Even more, 50% of those sponsored posts exceeded the creator’s historical average. This strong correlation indicates how branded content that seamlessly blends into the creator’s feed has the ability to drive much greater impact.

Best Practices for Content to Feed Matching

Here are three best practices to set up your creator partners for success with a high Content to Feed Match: 

• Personalize your outreach: When sourcing creators, speak to them about the posts that resonated with you and why they’ve been selected.
• Implement creator concepting: After sending creators your brief, ask for concepts that they feel embody your goals and objectives, while still being consistent with the style and format of their content. 
• Match check before approving: Once the creator submits their content, take the time to compare it against their typical post and personal brand. If it’s not consistent, then don’t be afraid to ask for changes. It’s better to get it right before going live. 

Now that you have a best practice guide, take a look back at your previous partnerships and rate the sponsored content in terms of a high or low Content to Feed Match. Then cross reference the performance of those posts and see if there is any correlation. I’ll bet there is. 

If you need help with improving your Content to Feed Match or finding the right influencers to work with, Linqia leverages our platform Resonate to find the perfect creators for your brand and make the Content to Feed Match simple. Let us know if we can help!

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