Social Media Influencers – Stage 2: Attraction; Choosing the Right Influencer and Content

Late for your speed dating session? No worries, just hit our TL;DR.

Welcome back. We are glad you decided to come back for your second love session. Still got it bad? Perfect. Because in Part 2 of this series, we are going to cover the second stage of this modern influencer love story you have found yourself in: attraction.  

This phase is all about building trust and rapport. Will they be there for you in hard times? Can you trust them? Will they pick you up when you are down? Will they tag you in their social media posts?

Difficult questions. Not everyone has what it takes to make you happy. But we believe there is someone for everyone, and with that in mind, we are also going to let you know exactly how to figure out if that influencer-situation you are fanning is going to work out in the long run.

What’s that you asked? Did we solve soulmates? Yeah. You could say that. But we’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s dive in.

Understanding Influencer Popularity

One of the biggest considerations about a new potential influencer flame is the size of their following. It is, after all, one of the most important components of what they are offering your practice. But it’s not just about size, screamed every man ever throughout the history of toxic masculinity, it’s also about how much this relationship will cost you.

To understand the relationship between size and cost, here is an easy to follow chart:

*Data pulled from Influencer Marketing Hub

Figuring out which of these options is best for your practice depends on a few different factors, such as:

• Social media positioning
• Allocated budget
• Targeted demographics
• Brand voice
• Content preference

Only you — or your trusty marketing agency — can answer the riddle of your heart. <3

Understanding Influencer Personality

Influencers market their personalities and lives to build a following. Which means that big personalities will be rewarded for standing out the most. You will need to make sure that the influencer you are working with fits the personality of your own brand and practice.

If your practice focuses on providing a comfortable experience for all people, particularly groups that wouldn’t normally feel comfortable seeking out aesthetic treatment, maybe don’t bring a supermodel into your social media program. 

Instead, find an influencer who is a mother or someone who has documented their fitness journey and transformation. Someone more relatable than the chiseled image of Chris Hemsworth himself.

This is just one example, but there are a lot of questions you need to ask yourself about an influencer you are considering. Six questions, actually, if we want to be specific. 

1. What kind of community do they have? You want to know early on what kind of community this influencer has. Are they supportive? Motivational? Keeping each other accountable? What are the interactions like in the comment sections? If their community isn’t appealing to you, it isn’t the kind of group you want to bring into your office and social media presence.
2. What industries do they cover? Medical aesthetics is a wildly popular and ever-growing industry, so it is fairly easy to find influencers who have participated in the space already. It isn’t a deal-breaker, but if you have seen them work with an office before (and the content wasn’t hot garbo) then it is a good sign you’ll be able to forge a good partnership.
3. What is their voice? Is this person sarcastic and witty? Calm and comfortable? Inspiring? Wild and energetic? Brash and to the point? Critical, or maybe even hyper-passive? How do those traits play with your content goals? If you think it can work, great. If not, better to see the writing on the wall before you end up fleeing the altar the day of.
4. What are their values? Most influencers will not make their moral beliefs front and center, but it might manifest in certain ways. Are they always brutally honest about reviews or experience sharing? Do they feel strongly about the negative effects of the beauty industry? Are they body positive? All of these values will have an impact on how your practice and the influencer interact.
5. Are they political? It doesn’t matter what side of the coin you fall on an issue, politics and political affiliations can present some issues for your business, no matter where you find yourself in the world. If the influencer you are considering is taking hard stances and being an activist for a cause you don’t want to specifically also become an activist for, then you might need to find someone less controversial. Unless controversy and politics is part of your brand identity. In which case, politic away. 
6. Do they reach my target demographic? Look, we all know there are a ton of food influencers on all of the major platforms. But do they really hit your target audience? If you treat primarily women, barbecue TikTok probably isn’t where you want to be looking. Earl with the Blackstone makes banger content for sure, but he probably won’t be very good at selling your anti-aging treatments. 

Keeping these questions top of mind as you get to know your potential suitor influencers better will help to ensure you are getting the most out of your efforts.

How to Find an Influencer

There are three ways you can go about making contact with influencers. You can take the organic approach, where you’ll be searching platforms, geotags and hashtags for influencers who interest you. This also means you or your team are reaching out to them yourself and taking care of all the details. 

Or you could take the professional approach, where you use an influencer platform to browse influencers that suit your business. It’s a little weird, in theory, to shop around for people who like products, but these platforms are hugely useful for both influencers and businesses that want to partner with them. You could also hire a professional agency that can handle all the details and discovery for you. 

Unbiasedly, we think agencies, at least one in particular, are bomb.com. 

And for all those couch potatoes out there, you have one final option: you can be hands off and wait for the influencers to come to you. Just like you are seeking out ways to bring more patients into your office, influencers are looking to partner with more businesses all the time. It is likely that, as you get deeper into your social media program, some influencers will come knocking on your DMs. 

How to Use an Influencer

Say it with me: influencers are not people. 

Just kidding, obviously. Influencers are definitely people. So when we say “how to use an influencer” what we really mean is “how to partner with an influencer.” (But that doesn’t have as many search queries, and we are trying to squeeze out as much of that sweet, sweet SEO juice as possible.)

This section is going to be pretty chonky, so let’s break it down into six sections: settling on terms, setting up the treatment, capturing the content, sharing the content, avoiding negative experiences and using your influencer experience to land bigger influencer partnerships in the future.

Settling On Terms

Deliverables. When we talk about what it is the influencer will be providing for you, we are referring to deliverables. These could be social media posts, number of tags on social media, a certain number of treatment visits, permission to film and photograph the sessions, videos, shoutouts, engaging with your social media, etc. Make sure you are getting enough deliverables to have an impact, and you should always aim to tap into as many of the influencer’s channels as possible. Ask about cross posting their content and potentially boosting some of the influencer’s posts yourself to increase exposure.

Timelines. Promising to deliver collateral is one thing, but delivering it on time is another game entirely. Make sure you make it clear what timeline for delivery you are expecting to avoid any friction later in the process. Influencers are busy people, just like you, so their schedules can often be packed to the brim with multiple businesses. 

Payment. Don’t set yourself up for failure. At most, you should be paying half upfront and half upon the delivery of all the agreed  upon services rendered. This will provide you some layer of protection as well as some incentive for the material to be delivered in a timely manner. There is also the possibility of swapping services. A little medical aesthetic treatment for a little influencer marketing is a perfectly acceptable quid pro quo.

Once all of these have been covered, you will need to draw up a contract and have everything signed. Plus, you need to spell out clearly what will happen if those terms aren’t met (breach of contract, for all you armchair lawyers out there). You might be able to work with an attorney to get this set up, but any incredible reputable marketing agency will have this covered already. 

(If this sounds dangerously close to a prenup, that’s because it is dangerously close to a prenup.)

Setting Up the Treatment

This is prework, and we just have a few notes for you to make sure you are making life easy for yourself. Ignore this section entirely if you enjoy having a difficult life, though. 

1. Have the consultation and treatment on the same day to prevent losing momentum if doing a nonsurgical procedure. 
2. Create a treatment plan during the consultation and do your best to schedule some follow-up treatments.
3. Schedule your A-team for any influencer who is coming for treatment. We know you have a team of rockstars, but it might be better to pick those more sociable or knowledgeable peeps in this scenario just in case.

Capturing the Content

What good is a new relationship, romantic or influencer, if you can’t capitalize on those cute new couple selfies? It’s basically the whole point, right?

Correct. So be diligent about capturing the content you are working hard to set up by paying attention to these categories and suggestions:

Filming

• Plan out your shoots in advance
• Ready your equipment well ahead of time
• Consider having supplementary lighting
• Get amateur and professional footage 
  • Important to cover both social media and more formal marketing material
• Film everything: the arrival, sign in, explanation, consultation, treatment and departure
• Film multiple angles — close ups, mid distance, far away
• Film in horizontal and vertical orientation, simultaneously if possible
• Film the reaction to the treatment to highlight lack of pain

Follow-Up Content

• Document the progress and results
  • Great marketing tools for social media highlights and stories 
• Document the recovery of surgical procedures — timelines are gold for audience attention
• Make sure the treatment plan and follow-up appointments are crystal clear
• Have a team member follow up regularly with influencer to confirm appointments

Unique Content to Create With Influencers

• “Influencer” Journey — documenting the story and narrative of the experience
• Interviews, video, audio and written formats
• Q/A sessions and content
• Endorsements/testimonials

Sharing the Content

There are four main places you will be sharing content created by influencers: social media, website, email and advertisements. Understanding these platforms will help you determine how much value your potential influencer can provide and if they will be worthy of reaching that third and final stage of love. 

Social Media

This is the one, the place where influencers provide the absolute most value because of how integrated they are into the ecosystem. They can send new audiences directly to your social media profiles and give you an immediate boost in exposure. Just make sure you aren’t limiting yourself to only your main platform — growth and virality can be achieved anymore, so you don’t want to limit yourself. TikTok, for example, offers some of the best opportunities for new growth and creators, but many people don’t jump in because it isn’t their usual focus. 

Website

When potential patients have moved past the awareness stage of the sign up journey and are now considering your practice, there are few things that can convince them you are the practitioner for them as well as testimonials and patient experiences, particularly if that experience is from a public figure. You can also create captivating narrative content called Patient Journeys that will work wonders when it comes to converting new patients. 

Email

Your email marketing program is still hugely valuable, even today in a world with more digital options than ever. But finding compelling content to include in those monthly blasts or drip marketing is… strenuous at worst and time consuming at best. Influencers spice up life though, giving you plenty to talk about in that email campaign. Make sure of it to the best of your ability.

Advertisements

There are a lot of ways to transform influencer content into advertisements. Social ads and post boosting are the most obvious, but display ads and ads on search engines are also hugely beneficial. You can highlight the influencers experience and leverage their notoriety to convert potential patients anywhere there is a WiFi connection. The trick here is to know what ad options are best for your practice. 

Avoiding Negative Experiences

So here’s the thing: not all couples are meant to be, and breakups aren’t always amicable, either. Occasionally, even the most suitable influencer/practice relationships will be strained. But there are some things you can do to handle that conflict in a professional way that will not harm your practice or brand. 

1. Be thorough about your paperwork. Have every detail in the agreement, and then have a (consensually) recorded video meeting to go over each point to avoid confusion and ambiguity. 
2. Don’t allow yourself to get bullied. You might have built up a grand image of the influencer in your head or get a little starstruck when they arrive. Most influencers won’t exploit this, but some might, using the moment to bully you out of agreements or creative decisions or just to be difficult. Stand your ground, and be professional about the interaction.
3. Be apologetic. This is Customer Service 101. By apologizing and accepting responsibility, even if you believe you are not responsible with every fiber, every atom of your being, deescalation is easiest when this olive branch is extended.
4. Never go head to head with an influencer. Drama and controversy is beneficial for an influencer’s career because it draws attention to their brand. But drama and controversy is the last thing you want as an aesthetic practice looking to convince patients you are a reliable option. 
5. Hire an influencer/social media manager. Whether it’s an agency or in-house employee, having a single point of contact can reduce tension, provide a more powerful working relationship between the two parties and expedite the creative and business process. Here is a link to our favorite social media and influencer management agency: BEST AGENCY EVER.

Landing Bigger Influencers

Once you’ve worked with a nano or micro influencer, you will have some experience under your belt on how to manage the situation and partnership. From there, you can use that knowledge to land yourself an influencer with an even bigger following. 

We don’t recommend this strategy with dating or love though. It’s generally not successful, unless your name is Pete Davidson.

TL:DR

Stage 2, attraction, is about building trust and rapport and figuring out if you can offer each other your long-term needs. Influencer popularity, cost and personality are vital to understanding what kind of influencer you need. Understanding their community, industries, voice, values, politics and ability to hit your demographics are necessary. When looking for an influencer, you can peruse social media, use an influencer platform, hire an agency, or let them come to you. Use influencers the best you can, but, like, not in a bad way. Settle on terms like deliverables, timelines and payment early and then get it all in writing. Consolidate as much of the treatment and consultation as possible, use your A-team with influencers and make sure to create a treatment plan for long-term results. Prepare your shoot and filming early and thoroughly, follow-up regularly and make sure you are sharing your influencer content to all your platforms. Be respectful and never, under any circumstances, get into a Twitter beef with an influencer. Pete Davidson is a magician.

We See You There, Blushing at Your DMs

Look, Stage 2 is a big deal. When it comes to longevity, attraction is way more important than lust. And if all the stars align and you and your influencer-to-be offer each other what you need out of the relationship, you should celebrate that. 

And celebrate quickly because the third and final stage, attachment, is rapidly approaching. We cover that here in Part 3. Brace yourself for heartbreak, though, because not all love stories have a happy ending.

Need a pep talk? Want to review your pro/con list with a friend? Let us know. As always, our educators are here to answer any questions you have, anytime, for free. Give us a call at (800) 949-0133 or schedule a one-on-one.