The Power of Brand Collaborations

By Irene Phung

Looking for new ways to boost your Instagram engagement? One of the most popular ways to grow your platforms and promote your brand online is through collaborating with other brands. And you’re in luck because the holidays are quickly approaching and it is the perfect time to run one. 

Not to be confused with influencer partnerships, brand collaborations are when two or more businesses join forces to create a product for a campaign and mutually benefit from each other. There are a variety of brand collaborations you may be familiar like Instagram giveaways and takeovers, a joint product released, and product shoutouts. 

The Benefits of Brand Collaboration

One of the important benefits to keep in mind is that you can save a ton of money when you do a brand collaboration. According to Collabosarus, their research found that brand collaborations can be up to 25x less expensive than digital advertising. 

Didn’t convince you enough? Here are some more benefits that you should know about:  

• Attract publicity and build buzz around your brand 
• Reach new potential customers through cross-promotions
• Discover new content for your brand 
• Boost in sales and social media engagement
• Grow your social media community and followers
• Opportunities to engage with your audience 
• Encourage user-generated content 

If these all sound great to you and you’re considering partnering up with another brand, check out some tips to help you succeed in your campaign! 

Tips to Run a Successful Brand Collaboration on Instagram

1. Set your campaign goal

Be mindful that you should not just collaborate just because you see other brands doing it. Instead, start with understanding your marketing and PR objectives and how a brand collaboration can help you achieve your overall goal. This includes growth in specific social media channels or email lists, increased website traffic and product sales, content creation, and more.

Knowing your goals will also help you find the right collab partner to keep your campaign running smoothly. 

2. Find the Right Partner 

So, how do you choose the right partner? Besides having goals that align with each other, you should also brand with a similar target audience and those that are in complementary industry spaces. These elements are important because cross-promotion on each other’s Instagram page will be extremely valuable to both communities and help each other grow in numbers. 

We recommend spending some time researching the social media analytics of your brand and potential collaborators. It is essential to note if the level of post engagement matches with their follower count and yours. We must ensure mutual benefit because a more popular brand would not benefit from collaborating with a smaller brand. 

3. Understand Your Value

You should never underestimate the value of your skillsets that can give you leverage in a brand collaboration. It does wonders if you already know what you can bring to the table prior to contacting your collab partner. The brand’s product, services, and venue space, and your PR expertise in social media, content creation, email marketing are all extremely valuable assets to guarantee a successful collaboration. 

4. Be Human When Reaching Out

One good thing to remember is that there is a human behind the brand you are reaching out for a brand collaboration. When writing your introductory email, try to be personable yet professional and make sure the brand you want to collaborate with knows that you have done your research. This will likely make the brand pique interest in you since you will come off as friendly and knowledgeable and not someone leeching for free benefits from a successful business.  

5. Be Open to Negotiate

We know the saying that “it takes two to tango.” This applies to brand collaborations as well since they can get tricky sometimes. You may have this fantastic idea for a campaign, but your partner could also have other ideas in mind. We recommend thinking about your goal and remaining flexible when it comes to creative execution. Keeping an open mind and negotiating will help you build a stronger relationship with your partner and keep things fair on both sides. 

6. As Always, Measure Your Results

Results are everything in PR. Before starting the campaign, you should set social media KPIs (clicks, likes, comments, shares, brand mentions, profile visits, etc.) that you can measure to indicate your success. With your goal in mind, monitoring your analytics throughout the campaign is very helpful since you can adjust your strategy if needed. In the very end, you can learn so much and improve your strategy to create more successful collaborations in the future. 

Good luck and don’t forget to have fun!