Specialty Food Magazine

What are some best practices for engaging with social media influencers? Q: Gracie Aaronson, on behalf of Rumi Spice When working with social media influencers, our priority is authenticity and it's extremely important to ensure they are authentic to both their own brand and to ours. While metrics, demographics, archetypes, and location are all priority factors for vetting potential partners, authenticity is what truly helps a campaign succeed. In our previous partnerships with influencers, we've evaluated this in the content an influencer posts and their tone, as well as the brands they promote. Before engaging, we ask: Does the influencers' content seem genuine and resonate with their followers? What does the influencer care about and what do they share with their followers? What brands does the influencer work with and is there a true connection with these brands? At Rumi Spice, mission and purpose are at the core of everything we do. From day one, we've been committed to economically empowering Afghan farmers and supporting the Afghan women who help with our harvesting and processing through direct wages. When searching for influencer partners, we want individuals who genuinely connect with this purpose and can be credible to the work we do in using spice as a force for good. We look for influencers who care about our mission as much as our products. By placing authenticity at the forefront of these efforts, we've found our campaigns to be extremely successful. Tarah Boyleston, marketing director, Callie's Hot Little Biscuit The most important practice for engaging effective brand influencers is to put authenticity first. Do your research on the influencer. When you know their values and what their followers value, you can better create an authentic relationship that promotes your brand in a way that will connect with the influencer's audience. At Callie's Hot Little Biscuit, we always ask ourselves "How can we become an asset for the influencer?" and "How can we take the collaboration one step further to really engage our audiences?" We often have brand influencers ask to visit our eatery in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. Rather than providing them simply with a great meal of hot and ready, handmade biscuits, we sometimes offer to ship them our packaged goods upon their arrival home if they've enjoyed their visit. Providing an extra value beyond the initial ask helps earn brand loyalty and offers an extra piece of content for the influencer to share with their following. With this additional perk, we may not only gain inclusion in their Charleston Travel Guide, for instance, but we might also be featured in a gifting special about how to bring a taste of Charleston home with you! Ultimately, brand partnerships start with great communication. The more you get to know what the influencer or brand partner's goals are, the better the outcome will be for both parties. Vanessa Chang, marketing director, Cowgirl Creamery Cowgirl Creamery has been fortunate in that we have brand influencers reaching out to us because they're already fans of our story and cheese. And while we'd love to work with them all, as a small (and mighty) team we've learned to prioritize who we work with and how we work with them, during the past two years especially. What's worked for us are three things. First, being clear on expectations. Not just deliverables and timelines, but who we are and what we're trying to share with an audience. Utilizing these amazing content creators and connecting with their audience needs to be authentic to all parties involved and relevant to any campaigns. Some influencers intuitively "get us" more than others. Others really need a solid brief as a roadmap. Second, we work with influencers who have an engaged audience. The scope of audience can always be impressive, but we're looking for people who've provided real value for their audiences. Do they trust them? Do they look to them? Do they interact and click through? Third, we work with influencers who aren't always in our lane. We love working with cheese influencers, but also know that there are so many FALL 2021 51

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