If you’ve been following our blogs, you should know that influencer campaigns involving experiential events help you build stronger, more authentic relationships with them while delivering plenty of photo ops and organic brand exposure. Why wouldn’t they? At events, you’re engaging with them in person rather than just over email or sending PR gifts hoping for (or paying for) a moment in their spotlight. After spending some time together, influencers often gain a deeper understanding of your brand’s values and mission, making them more prepared to represent you.
But what kind of events would you actually have? What kind of events promotes your product while being fun, engaging, and exciting to attend? There are different types of successful events brands have put on that probably ended up on your Instagram feed. These events give influencers several other (organic) reasons than merely free products to show you off! What route you choose should depend on your brand’s needs, your audience, and what kind of creativity you feel like exploring.
One notable example of a larger scale influencer event is the Revolve Festival, a music festival with about 140 well-known guests including Kendall Jenner, Aimee Song, and some of the Victoria’s Secret Angels. But with several vendors, celebrity performers, and guests you’ve probably heard of, this can take a lot of time and money to plan. Starting with smaller events, here are some types of influencer events you can plan to supercharge your influencer marketing strategy.
Brunch or Dinner
A small-scale, intimate way to bring influencers together is through a networking brunch or dinner at an Instagrammable, trendy restaurant. This allows the opportunity for influencers to have face-to-face time with you, each other, and your brand and build a genuine connection to your products and staff over some delicious food.
You’ve probably seen tons of unpaid brunch posts on Instagram at well-decorated restaurants from your friends, so influencers might do the same if you pick the right restaurants.
On February 27, we hosted a brunch at Margot to celebrate the launch of Jolii Cosmetics’ new clean beauty line where 40% of the proceeds were to be donated to Love Leo Rescue. The brunch brought together the founder of Jolii, the staff of Love Leo and Irose, and influencer supporters. You can read a blog post recap of it here.
Meet & Greet
If you’ve got a store location, setting up a day or two for a meet-and-greet with one or more targeted influencers would definitely draw attention to your brand. Unlike brunches or dinners, meet-and-greets are accessible to the public, which means plenty of people posting and tagging you while getting to meet their favorite influencer.
A benefit of meet-and-greets is to attract new customers in-person, no need for them to have any plans to purchase anything from your store. Once physically in the store, perhaps they wouldn’t be able to resist the sparkling new display of candles by the door that social media hadn’t made them aware of!
Influencers usually announce these events on their social media so tagging you won’t hurt. Since they’re using your store space, it would allow plenty of geotags due to their followers asking them where the photo was taken at.
Panels & networking events
As we’ve discussed before, some influencers use their platforms to discuss various educational topics and social issues relevant to their field. If you want to take an informational, deeper route with your influencer campaigns, try a panel. These events are great ways for influencers to give advice and discuss interesting, complex topics in-person to attendees. For example, you could host a panel on diversity and inclusion in the fashion and beauty world, something plenty of influencers have first-hand experience with. Other influencers are great picks for discussing entrepreneurship.
The panel can be part of a networking event complete with food, champagne, photo ops with a step-and-repeat, and gifting. It’s also a fantastic way for the public to get to know their favorite influencers on a more deeply personal level!
Large Scale Parties
A large scale party is a fun way to get everyone together and is the best route to optimizing organic brand exposure. Unlike the previous options, a party will most likely give you a bigger space to set up multiple aesthetic photo ops. And as we all know, influencers love a good photo op!
FabFitFun annually invites several influencers to celebrate alongside their employees at massive holiday parties that involve several gifting brands, photo ops, catered food, and a headliner of an A-list musical performer such as Tyga. These definitely aren’t your typical company party at the office!
Staycation
Even if you and the influencers aren’t jetsetting far away (you might still be in the same city), that doesn’t mean there can’t be some luxury and new experiences involved. Some nearby resorts offer insanely aesthetic pools, spas, restaurants, golf courses, views, and other Instagrammable characteristics on their own. No plane ticket needed! If you’ve ever been to some resorts out there, there’s no way you wouldn’t want to post a photo of you lounging around that 5-star luxury. With this option, you don’t have to put together too much decor yourself, as the resorts will be enough.
We hosted a staycation a while back at the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Niguel, Orange County. Although we were quite close to our Los Angeles home, we still had plenty of travel influencer-esque photo ops.
Seasonal events
Some moments that are guaranteed to be organically posted on social media are holidays as well as other special events, such as music festivals and fashion weeks. Since attendees often spend a lot of time getting ready for these memorable, usually yearly events, you can host your own events to celebrate. For example, PopSugar hosted a Coachella pre-party at a fancy hotel hosted by Emily Ratajowski.
In regards to national holidays, you can find a way to promote your brand in a way that relates to those holidays. For example, you can host a pop-up shop with special holiday packaging with stocking-stuffer sized versions of your products.
International travel
They say you don’t really know someone until you’ve traveled with them. An international trip has you with the influencers almost 24/7, giving you plenty of time to get to know them on a deeper level. Stunning beaches, temples, jungles, statues, and other tourist attractions you can’t find at home are pretty much guaranteed photo ops. An international getaway doesn’t just guarantee photos, it’s likely lengthy vlogs will be made as well. Make sure you hit up all the hottest tourist spots as well as some underrated, off-the-beaten-path gems.
Since these trips involve a foreign country, the videos can even attract people who have never heard of you or the influencer but were searching for videos of your destination in general. It’s a great way to get discovered.
In the end, whichever type of activation you choose is up to your brand’s budget and creative direction. If you’re a newer, smaller brand, you might want to start with something smaller such as a brunch or dinner to introduce influencers and staff to each other. Once you have a strong network going on, you can move on to a party or a more costly event. If there’s a social issue you feel really needs to be discussed, gathering the right influencers for a panel would be ideal in this case.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to us for a free consultation on how we can create for you a custom event tailored to your brand’s needs, mission, and aesthetics!
