So there are a few ways to work with dog influencers (a.k.a. dogfluencers) that are pretty low-hanging fruit. Of course, there are other ways to do this, but I'm speaking for 99% of the brands that want to take notes and get started on this tomorrow.
First, let me clarify something. We're not just talking about influencers—those dog creators with many followers and influence. In this email, we're also discussing creators just starting. If you're confused, don't worry about it. I'll repeat it at the end of this email, and you'll understand by then!
Let's talk about traditional dog influencers first. Here are eight super easy ways to work with them.
Eight ways to work with dog influencers.
Whitelisting
You've likely seen ads as you tried falling asleep on time but couldn't stop scrolling Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter. With whitelisting, brands create content with an influencer, aligning themselves with the content created by the influencers and their values, ethics, morals, etc.
For example, when Smoofl partners with Golden_LewisThey're not just getting content from it; they're also borrowing the trust Lewis has built with his content around what he consumes and how the dog owner does her diligence for dog products. With all that, they also get a piece of content run as an ad, coming from Lewis's account, and blasted to their chosen audience.
TL;DR: Ads that come from an influencer to sell a product — that's influencer whitelisting.
Product Seeding
If you have a dogfluencer involved on your cap table (an investor or advisor) or a massive brand fan, it can create an opportunity to send products out to their friends (other influencers). You also don't NEED to have an "influencer" or celebrity in your reach to do this… if you have a super well-connected investor or advisor, work with them to create special shipments that go out. The costs of doing this is the COGS + any special packaging you want to include.
Collab Product
This is an excellent option if creating a new product is not a massive (costly) lift in your supply chain. Essentially, please create a new product/SKU/variant of a product with an influencer or celebrity (at this point, they're the same thing), and then blast that out to this celebrity's network of influencers or famous friends.
Giveaways
Dog influencer giveaway.
If you have a dog influencer who's a huge fan of your brand, there's a good chance they have already spoken about it to their dog parent audience and would be interested in a giveaway on Instagram.
While these work for boosting followers (since a part of the rule to be entered to win is to follow the brand and the influencer, leave a comment, and maybe something), the quality of the followers is usually not that great.
Similarly, when doing giveaways where you're collecting people's emails, the quality of those emails is generally poor — they bring down your overall revenue per user, open rates, click-through rates, etc. I'm not a big fan of these, in 99% of instances, but if you have an influencer who you feel is super aligned with your brand, this could work well.
Create a contest
This can be done in a couple of ways.
One way to do it is to work with a dog influencer where the dogfluencer would announce the content and encourage people to create content to contribute to the contest.
Another way would be for the brand to announce the contest but then have a bunch of dog influencers ready to contribute. You mainly see this on TikTok when brands announce hashtag challenges, and they'll have 20-50 influencers ready to put up paid content they've already approved. It also tricks their (the dogfluencer's) audience into contributing to the contest. This is more of a brand play, unlike the whitelisting, where you're running pretty much a mid/lower funnel customer acquisition campaign.
Dog Content Creators
Ok, so those are some easy ways to work with dog influencers. Now, let's talk about creators.
Aussie is unboxing a themed box from the dog brand Snuffelbox.
Generally, dog creators who are pretty good at content creation (as freelancers) also have a small following. For the record, we love to see the validation of a small following because it means that in addition to creating content, they know what seems to work on the social platform — hence, why they have a following. Here are some low-hanging fruit ideas:
Whitelisting
Even if someone doesn't have a huge following, you can still whitelist the content they create, especially if it's authentic and good content.
What matters is that someone is good at articulating the benefits of a dog product, why the person loves it, and why you might love it as a random dog person scrolling Instagram. It drives clicks, sales, and revenue, and it's not coming from the brand's page, so it feels natural (aka contextually native) in the feed.
Commercials or Testimonials
The dog owner films a customer testimonial.
Similar to whitelisting, getting testimonial-style videos or stories outlining many things you see in customer reviews, creators are a great way to fill this. Most commercials you see on TV do the same thing — they figure out what people love about Verizon, then they pay some family to come and say the same thing, they record it, put it on TV, and you pay for Verizon.
UGC Reviews
Creators with 10k to 50k followers on a social platform are generally not seen as influencers, so they are usually down to create content, like a product review or product-in-action video, in exchange for a free product.
If you've ever wondered how dog brands can create, launch, and test new content so quickly, it's because they have a network of creators they've built themselves or they leverage a network like Dogfluence.com.
Why do we love dog creators?
We love all dogs, but the exception with creators vs. influencers is that they're generally an all-in-one production company, meaning you're not paying for a wardrobe person on set, a hair stylist, makeup, etc.
You pay (or barter with) the creator, and you get pre-production, scripting, content, editing, post-production, and (in most cases) posting to their socials.
That said, make sure you pay your creators correctly and fairly. If a platform does not facilitate paid sponsorships, sponsor a decent amount of products. Word travels fast about which companies compensate pretty and which try to rip creators off. You do not want to be a company known for not paying creators properly; in fact, you should do everything to make sure you treat creators better than any other company can. You're playing a long game here. Once a post or campaign is done, it doesn't end the relationship. You'll likely work with creators for years to come.
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Dogfluencer network.
Hopefully, this article has given you some ideas. In case you are still looking for dog influencers to collaborate with. Register your brand on Dogfluence.com and connect with thousands of potential brand ambassadors for your dog brand.