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Content is the outward face of any brand. It’s what customers see on websites, blogs, and social media to form their opinions of a company. Having great content is extremely important for any brand, so brand content collaboration is a great way of making sure your brand looks exciting.
Many people think content collaboration is as easy as an influencer posting a photo with the brand’s product and some Instagram graphics, but it actually takes a lot of planning and consideration. Read on to discover the steps you should take for a successful brand collaboration.
What is brand content collaboration?
Brand content collaboration is working with people inside or outside your company to produce content. It can be a fun and creative marketing tool with endless possibilities, from ebooks to Instagram posts.
Whilst you can conduct collaboration in-house, most often, content collaboration means working with influencers, YouTubers, industry leaders, and podcast hosts to get your brand into the wider media. This is an effective way of gaining ‘organic’ marketing and building brand awareness.
Why try brand content collaboration?
Whether you’re working with people in or outside your company, collaboration is a great way to inject some creativity into your marketing strategy. Bringing new people together can generate new perspectives, ideas, and challenges which could take your brand to the next level.
You might decide to bring colleagues together who have never crossed paths before. This will allow you to see your brand from various perspectives and generate diverse ideas for your content. But it’s important to keep in constant conversation with your team to allow them to work closely together, using software like a Microsoft Teams Phone System.
While influencer marketing and brand collaborations are often associated with e-commerce, they are equally effective in physical settings and B2B environments such as coworking spaces. By partnering with industry leaders and influencers in these areas, brands can foster a sense of community and trust, attract new clients, and enhance their reputation.
However, this effect is amplified when you work with someone outside your company. They will bring their unique experiences, expertise, and ideas, as well as an unbiased and honest take on the project.
Collaborators outside your business might include brands and influencers. This establishes audience trust and brand awareness. As a BusinessWire study showed, 61% of consumers trust influencer advice, while only 38% trust branded content, so working with people outside your company could be a great way to boost sales.
However, before you embark on a collaborative project, it is essential to decide what your goals are. Do you want to reach more people on socials? Boost your sales? Outlining your goals can help you to choose the right format and create a solid plan to deliver your project effectively.
Step One: Consider your goals
The key to any successful marketing strategy is knowing your goals, so make sure to set out key performance indicators before you begin your collaboration. These might include:
- Sales: number of sales, repeat customers, value-added items.
- Brand marketing: brand preference rate, retention, and awareness.
- Customer service: customer satisfaction rate, return rate, refund percentage.
Although some of these goals may seem unrelated to content creation, content actually influences many aspects of your business. As we said, it is the outward face of your business.
Having great content is linked to sales, marketing, customer satisfaction, and more. So, if your goal is to turn clicks into sales, make sure to consider how to increase your conversions when making your content strategy.
If your goal is customer satisfaction, consider creating blog posts on how to take care of your product, as this will help users feel they are getting better value for their money. But if your goal is sales, consider collaborating with an influencer to get your products on the TikTok shop.
@jennifermika_ THANK YOU @yumikoworld !!!!!! younger me would be in DISBELIEF 🥹🫶
Equally, if your goal is to improve customer service, make sure the whole team knows about your content. For example, if a customer calls your company after seeing a CPaaS campaign to ask ‘What is CPaaS and how can it help me?’, but your agent can’t answer, this will frustrate the customer and make the brand look bad.
So, consider your goals in terms of content creation, as the content you create influences your whole brand.
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Types of brand collaboration
Once you have considered your goals, the next step is to decide what kind of collaboration you would like to achieve.
Often, the type of content you create will depend on your aspirations. If you want to increase your sales, you might work with a TikTok influencer on a viral video. Equally, if you want to increase brand awareness, you might appear on a podcast related to your industry.
One of the most popular forms of content collaboration is blogging. Invite a popular blogger to do a guest post on your website to gain traffic from their followers. Alternatively, ask to feature on their website so that your brand appears credible to their audience.
Similarly, case studies and interviews with clients are a great way to show customer satisfaction and increase brand loyalty. These could be used in a multitude of ways, from social media to blog posts, for maximum impact.
Interviews might also offer an opportunity to appear on a podcast. This form of collaboration is a great opportunity to show off your brand. Find an industry-specific podcast; for instance, if you’re a finance brand, why not appear on a podcast about crypto? This can increase your brand credibility whilst leading new customers to your business.
Finally, one of the most well-known and popular methods of brand collaboration is influencer marketing. Today, 59% of the world is on social media, so it’s no surprise that 93% of businesses have tapped into this marketing strategy.
@issaokamoto @bloomnu getting me through my cheese bender #bloompartner
Because influencers establish themselves as authentic voices for their niche, their audience trusts them, allowing your brand to target specific groups and gain organic reach. What’s more, you don’t have to work with big names like the Jenners to be noticed, micro-influencers can be just as effective if they are a trusted voice in their field.
Some examples of the types of campaigns are product placement, giveaways, and account takeovers. So, there’s always an option to suit your brand’s mission. You could also get featured on an influencer’s ‘best of’ list, for example, the ‘Top 14 Best Event Ticketing Software Apps in 2022.’
If you are hosting an event and want it to sell out, there are platforms to help you manage the whole process to sell event tickets online.
Choosing the right partner
After you have decided on your collaboration format, it’s time to find the right partner to achieve it. When it comes to finding a great collaboration, you must consider personality, professional experience, and reach, amongst other important factors.
In general, a successful partnership requires communication, idea sharing, and working creatively to achieve a mutual goal. Therefore, it’s important to find an open and respectful collaborator.
Of course, it’s also key to consider your partner’s professional expertise. Do they know lots about a topic you need assistance with? For instance, if your company is trying to promote a new accessibility feature, you could bring in an expert on inclusive language to help you manage the marketing.
Further, if someone is seen as an authoritative voice on a topic, your brand will gain credibility by working with them. For instance, this could be a LinkedIn influencer for the industry you are targeting or a podcast on a topic related to your brand.
You should also consider your partner’s reach. If they have a small but dedicated following, you might not gain many sales but will be trusted within that industry. However, if they have a large following, you are likely to gain sales quickly but might be forgotten by their next project.
In short, make sure to consider your goals when choosing a partner, but always make sure they are communicative and creative, as this can make managing a collaboration easy.
How to successfully manage a brand content collaboration
Now you’ve decided on the collaboration and partner, it’s time to go through the collaborative process.
The first step is writing a creative brief. This outlines your ideas and goals for the project. Make sure to share this with your team so that everyone has a clear idea from the get-go.
Then, use this creative brief as a jumping-off point to map out the project. Create a project plan with tasks, deadlines, and complimentary activities you could do to support the collaboration. For instance, you might decide to use programmatic ads alongside an influencer post to ensure brand awareness turns into a sale.
Laying out the exact tasks that need to be completed is a great way to encourage accountability and set deadlines. This is especially important if your employees work from home, so everyone can clearly understand what is expected of them. You might also consider using coworking space software to create a co-working environment for remote colleagues.
Collaboration needs great communication, so stay updated on any problems and adapt plans accordingly. A great way to do this is by using a call system. However, it’s important to be aware of ethical issues in communication which can lead to more issues.
Finally, it’s important to have a review process during and after the project to assess its success against your goals. This can help to improve and grow in future content collaborations.
Key Takeaways
Ultimately, the key to any collaborative project is communication. It is only with great communication that the best ideas will come to light, problems will be solved, and projects will go smoothly.
And finally, have fun with it! There are many different approaches to brand content collaboration, so the possibilities are endless. Start a TikTok trend or launch a podcast, but make sure you’re as creative and unique as your brand.
Author Bio:
John Allen – Director, SEO, 8×8
John Allen is a driven marketing professional with over 14 years of experience, an extensive background in building and optimizing digital marketing programs across SEM, SEO, paid media, mobile, social, and email, with an eye to new customer acquisition and increasing revenue.
