Social media collaboration is becoming increasingly popular as brands and influencers collaborate to create enthralling and unique content to improve a product's visibility. Partnering with another brand or influencer can help you reach and engage a specialized audience through joint social media campaigns.
And what's more enticing? As per Collabosaurus, a platform for brands looking to collaborate, brand collaborations are up to 25 times less expensive than digital advertising.
While social media collaboration seems like the ultimate solution, many aspects must be considered, from choosing the right brand partner and setting goals to concurring on a framework that aids both parties, which must be finalized before starting the work. This article will explore the tips and steps to plan and execute successful social media collaborations with other brands and influencers.
What is Social Media Collaboration?
Social media collaboration is when two or more brands work together to create content shared on their respective social media platforms. They could include sponsored posts, giveaways, or other content that leverages each partner's audience. The collaborative posts aim to augment reach, intensify engagement, and drive more traffic and revenue for both parties.
For example, when a protein powder brand collaborates with a fitness influencer, the social media collaboration targets a similar niche and audience.
Benefits of Social Media Collaboration
Collaborating with other brands or creators on social media can benefit your business and it's one of the best social selling practices. We have discussed a few key advantages for you to consider. They are as follows:
- Finding New Potential Clients: Brand collaborations can help you acquire new audiences and find potential clients you may not have been able to reach alone. By partnering with brands of similar interests and target audiences, you can expand your reach and boost your chances of finding new customers.
- Ability to Create New Creative Content: Working with other brands presents an opportunity to generate new and creative content to grab your audience's eyeballs differently. You can bring diverse perspectives and ideas to the table, helping to curate more compelling content that stands out on social channels.
- Increase Brand Credibility: Collaborating with other reputable brands shows your audience that your business is trustworthy and has valuable connections in the industry. This can build trust with your audience and enhance your brand's reputation.
- Improved Visibility and Conversions: By engaging with another brand, you gain access to their followers, who may have been unaware of your brand before. This can help you to increase your reach and grow your following.
If you partner with popular influencers in the niche and offer special promo codes, you will likely see a significant increase in sales. A study by Harvard Business Review found that a 1% growth in influencer marketing spending led to a spike in engagement of 0.46%.
How To Pick The Right Collaborator
Once you decide on a social media collaboration approach, the next part is picking the right brand or creator to partner with. It can make or break the deal for both parties if the values and visions are misaligned. Let us delve into some factors you should consider when choosing a collaborator.
Identify Their Target Audience
Make sure that the collaborators' audiences align with your potential customers. Influencer Marketing Report 2019 found that four in five globally surveyed consumers made a purchase recommended by an influencer. Choosing the right influencer that caters to your audience can help increase sales.
Do Your Brand Values Align?
Ensure that your brand values align with your collaborator's values. Join hands with a creator who believes in your product's potential and is genuinely willing to promote it. With mismatched brand values, the audience may view the collaboration as inauthentic, which may harm your brand's goodwill.
For example, if you value sustainability, partner with someone who practices sustainable methods in their products.
Consider Their Expertise
Collaborating with someone who is an expert in their field can bring fresh ideas and perspectives to your campaign. It will help build credibility for your brand when people see a respectable influencer in the industry promoting it.
Compare Skills, Strengths, and Weaknesses
When collaborating, compare your skills, strengths, and shortcomings with your partnering brand. Having complementary skills can help you achieve your goals effectively.
Analyze Their Collaborative Approach
When you start the conversations around collaborations, study their approach.
- Are they open to your ideas?
- Do they value your feedback?
- Are they clear in communication?
It will enable you to comprehend their interests. If someone has an authoritative approach, it can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts. The idea of collaboration is to work together in tandem and create something collectively.
Challenges for Social Media Collaborations
Social media collaborations can present challenges and potential pitfalls that must be recognized and addressed to ensure a successful partnership. Before considering collaborating with someone, you must know their brand image and values.
Communication is vital in any collaboration, and social media collaborations are no exception. Ensuring everyone is on the same page can be problematic with multiple people involved. Miscommunication can lead to misunderstandings, missed deadlines, and even sabotage your brand's reputation. To avoid this, establish clear lines of communication and set expectations for response times and communication methods.
Fixing timelines and deadlines is essential so everyone involved adheres to them. Failure to meet deadlines can lead to missed opportunities and loss of investment.
Measuring the success of a social media collaboration is another challenge. Prescribe precise goals and metrics to track the success of the partnership. It will help you determine whether the deal was worth the investment and identify areas for improvement in future collaborations.
Successful Tips for Social Media Collaboration
Are you wondering how to go about your collaborations? We have provided some tips to start the process of a successful social media collaboration campaign. They are as follows:
1. Fix the Collaboration Type
Social media collaboration can take different forms, such as cross-promotion, brand-to-brand marketing collaboration, co-creation, and influencer marketing. You must decide which type of collaboration is best for your business.
2. Find and Partner With Relevant Creators
According to an Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report, 90% of marketers believe influencer marketing is effective, and most use the same influencers across campaigns.
However, finding these relevant creators and influencers is vital to the success of your social media collaboration. Identify creators whose content aligns with your brand and target audience.
3. Set Primary Goals
When discussing the collaboration plan, define what you want to achieve through the campaign. Keep your goals specific, measurable, achievable, and time-bound.
4. Develop a Framework of Roles and Responsibilities
A social media collaboration between one brand's team and another involves numerous people working together. You need to leverage everyone's skill sets to achieve a successful outcome. Define each team member's roles and responsibilities and ensure they understand their tasks.
5. Make Use of Social Media Collaboration Tools
Today, you can access many advanced marketing tools to streamline your collaboration efforts. These means can help you manage your social media accounts, track your performance, and collaborate with your team members.
6. Exchange Social Media Style Guides
Although two separate brand entities are working together, the collaboration should display consistency in your messaging. Share your brand's voice, tone, and style and ensure everyone involved follows them.
For example, if your collaborator's team is drafting the script for a video post, it should know the USPs, the language to be used, and the conversational tone you follow. The final video should not be distinctly different from what you have created in the past.
7. Discuss the Emotional Plug of the Campaign
Do you want to make your audiences teary-eyed, laugh out loud, or tempt them towards a purchase? You need to identify the emotions your campaign intends to evoke, and your content must align with them. A study by Motista found that emotionally connected customers have a 306% higher lifetime value and stay with a brand for an average of 5.1 years. Discuss and plan this emotional plug at the onset of your collaboration.
8. Make a Calendar for Posting
Your social media collaboration efforts must be organized. You must plan your content in advance, align with the decided timelines, and post on time. This is more applicable if collaborating for a festival or a social media holiday date. You can rely on Highperformr to create a content calendar, schedule posts, and maintain your streaks on social media.
9. Label Your Sponsored Posts
The collaborations done in sponsorships with one another must be disclosed to your audience to maintain transparency. Hashtags or tags like #Sponsored, #Ad, or #PaidPromotion should be used in your captions.
10. Cross-Promote on Other Platforms
The idea of social media collaborations is that both parties share the final output on their respective social channels, increasing the reach among a broader audience. Remember to include links to your website and other social media platforms in your post.
11. Assess the Impact and Share Results
Was your collaboration as successful as expected? Track the performance, analyze your results, and share them with your team and the collaborator. Gain insights into whether it's working so you can plan on doing more such collaborations in the future.
How Does a Social Media Management Platform Improve Social Media Collaboration Strategy
Using a social media management platform like Highperformr can be a game changer. It can streamline social media efforts, save time, and improve performance. It enables you to collaborate with your team members more effectively. You can delegate tasks, track progress, and see the analytics in one place. Stay updated on the progress of your social media performance.
Highperformr saves time and creates engaging posts that resonate with your audience. Its AI tools, like Instagram Photo Resizer, Instagram Caption Generator, YouTube video downloader, etc., can help you produce high-quality content readily and effortlessly.
Highperformr provides additional analytics to track your engagement rates, follower growth, and other key metrics to see how your social media efforts are performing. It can help you identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions about your social media marketing strategy.
Case Studies
Let us look at these real-life examples of successful social media brand collaborations.
- Uber and Spotify: Uber and Spotify teamed up to create a personalized music experience for passengers booking Uber rides. People with premium Spotify accounts could listen to their choice of music on their Uber rides. In addition to that, passengers could adjust the volume to their liking or turn off the audio altogether.
- GoPro and Red Bull: GoPro and Red Bull collaborated to create a series of extreme sports videos for social media. The videos featured athletes performing daring stunts while wearing GoPro cameras. The campaign was a triumph, with millions of views and shares on social media.
In each case, the brands were able to leverage the reach of social media to reach a wider audience and create a buzz around their products and services. By partnering with other brands or organizations, they were able to tap into new markets and create unique experiences for their customers.
