Have you been curious about partnering with the hummingbirds and wondering if your brand is ready?
Here are the top five things we encourage our clients to understand and look at before bringing hundreds or thousands of new visitors to them.
1. You have an active and engaging Instagram Profile + Facebook Page.
When our local influencers start talking about your brand on social media, the ultimate intention is to get their followers excited enough to buy from your brand.
But the first step that happens when someone sees your brand tagged in a hummingbird’s post is… they click to your profile.
If your social profiles aren’t in tip top shape, or you don’t post often, or engage in your audience, that’s your first step to show your audience and local community you have a digital heartbeat.
Hummingbirds are sending you dozens if not hundreds of potential new followers and buyers. Make it a priority to ensure your profile is primed for high traffic.
2. Your perk is easy to experience and talk about.
Hummingbirds get an experience with your brand and talk about it on social media. If your offer is difficult to explain or hard to pitch, the hummingbirds might not be the best fit.
Some perks that are super simple to understand and talk about: free pizza, complimentary movie tickets, free supplements, a 5-pack to a cycling studio.
The simpler your perk is, the more birds will be interested and able to articulate how others can (and should!) also experience it.
3. You understand that the birds know their audience the best.
Hummingbirds are active social media users. They know their followers and friends much better than you do, so the way they talk about your brand is up to them.
We share brand information and messaging consideration, but at the end of the day it’s up to our hummingbirds to express the experience from their own unique perspective.
Wondering what happens if they didn’t absolutely LOVE their experience with you? Instead of posting, we ask for honest feedback that we share directly with you. We don’t need that type of negativity on the internet!
4. You don’t rely on the hummingbirds as your only marketing strategy.
We’ve been met with a few desperate business owners, hoping this will be the thing that moves the needle for them. While we are confident the hummingbirds will add visibility to your brand unlike any other marketing strategy, it’s one tool in the communications toolkit.
Giving the hummingbirds a fantastic experience, commenting on their posts they spend time writing and sharing, sharing their content (perhaps adding it to your Highlights) and following up in their DMs to continue cultivating the relationship is how you take a one-time experience and build long-term loyalty.
Remember, these are people who have a choice to come back, and refer you to their friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors. We can send you the business, it’s up to you as a business owner or marketing team to deepen the relationship.
5. You understand that local influence isn’t about follower count, likes, and comments.
When you’re working with hummingbirds, you appreciate that these are everyday people with a few hundred followers or a few thousand. Expecting to find local influencers with 10k followers from a specific community is unrealistic. If a hummingbird has over 10k followers, it’s likely many of those followers are from outside your specific community.
So what happens when someone with 150 Instagram followers is a hummingbird during our partnership? The clients that understand the value of local voices talking about local experiences understand that’s a small part of potential success. For example, let’s say Sophie is partnering with you and has 200 followers.
If she had a truly meaningful experience with you and loved the perk, couldn’t she come back and spend more money at your business? Couldn’t she be a customer for life? Couldn’t she leave a review that her friend Susan happens to see on Google that helps Susan say yes quicker? Couldn’t she tag your brand when someone is looking for a recommendation on Facebook? Couldn’t she refer lots of people outside of Instagram to your business?
Ready to take flight?
If you’ve got a social media presence you would love to send more traffic to, a perk that is easy for hummingbirds to try and post about, and an understanding of who the hummingbirds are and how valuable they can be in a local market, take the next step and book a conversation with our team!