We know you have seen them. Wish you were at them. These fabulous, over the top influencer events have us in awe all over social media.

Influencer Events have become the newest marketing tactic for brands to focus their marketing dollars. 

In case you live under a rock, ID Agency describes Influencer Events as a way “to create buzz & awareness through exclusive events that connect your business and influencers together.”

While YouTube played a major role in launching the influencer phenomenon in the digital age, the integration of influencers into brand strategies is still a relatively new concept. Influencer events have quickly become one of the most popular forms of experiential marketing for brands looking to connect with their audience.

Many beauty, fashion, and lifestyle brands are now incorporating influencer events into their campaign launches, seeing immense value in the exposure and engagement they bring. If you're looking to elevate your brand's visibility, influencer events are the way to go.

In this article, we’ll explore why influencer events are so effective and how you can incorporate them into your marketing strategy to boost brand awareness and drive consumer engagement.

Why to Prioritize Influencer Events?

There are a number of benefits that brands gain through influencer events. 

Brand Awareness

These events allow both the influencers and their followers to get a feeling for what the brand is all about. 

Credibility

We know it will hurt your feelings, but many consumers can’t take brands for their word. We like to see others that we feel related to, recommending their favorite products. Consumers following influencers at these events feel like they’re right alongside them getting a behind the scenes look at the brand. 

Content

These amazing events open the door for content to be used on brands' socials and websites for later use.

Relationship building

Influencer events are beneficial both ways. It allows influencers to meet the faces behind the brand and network. It also allows the brand to do the same in hopes of working together in the future. 

Trending Influencer Event Concepts

Product Launch Party

When you scroll down your Tik Tok For You Page, you are almost sure to come across one titled “Come with me to an influencer event”.

These are the most common influencer events that brands have begun to implement when launching a new product. Every campaign’s goal is to increase awareness of the product. 

These events are a great way to showcase their products from multiple perspectives before it even launches on its website. 

While there is of course no right or wrong way to throw one of these events. There are the Do’s and Don’ts of Hosting Influencer Events. Here are important considerations to take into account.

• Provide an Engaging Experience

You want your event to be memorable. There should be an experience connected to your brand that excites the attendees. An exciting experience means more content being taken from their overall experience. Are you a beauty brand? Have a color matching foundation experience. Does your brand sell cologne? Provide an experience to personalize your product.

• Keep in mind the aesthetic of the experience

It might sound cliché, but when it comes to influencer events, everything truly is about the aesthetic. From the decor and food to the goody bags, every detail matters in creating an unforgettable experience.

For content creators, the key to successful influencer events is ensuring that prospective consumers are captivated by the product and the event itself.

When influencers showcase your product through stunning content, you want viewers to be in awe, leaving them eager to explore more about the event and your brand.

A visually appealing and engaging influencer event can drive significant buzz, boosting your brand’s presence and attracting a wider audience.

• Don’t Lose sight of your Brand

It’s easy to get caught up in the glitz and glam of organizing influencer events, especially when you’re aiming to provide an unforgettable experience that puts your brand in the spotlight.

However, the main goal of influencer events should always be to build strong partnerships and enhance brand awareness. While the aesthetics and excitement of the event are crucial for engagement, remember that influencer events are an opportunity to form lasting connections with key influencers, expand your brand’s reach, and ultimately foster genuine relationships with potential customers.

By staying focused on these objectives, influencer events can become a powerful tool for growing your brand's visibility and impact.

• And of course, Don’t forget about the lighting!

Enough said!

Seasonal Events

Coachella. The Super Bowl. New York Fashion Week. 

These events all have something in common. Around these annual events, brands host many parties surrounding it in hopes to align their brand to the mass spectacle. 

Think of the Revolve Pool Party surrounding Coachella. Fenty Beauty Tailgate surrounding the Super Bowl. Amazon Fashion surrounding New York Fashion Week.

Many brands capitalize the frenzy off of these large scale events to create exclusive events that will optimize organic brand exposure.

• Many scrolling want to see the “behind the scenes”, “individual experiences” surrounding these events

• Utilization of the hashtag of the larger event, gets your brand and content in front of your target market and potential new niches not previously tapped into

Brand Trips

Just admit it. We all wish we got that invite to the Tarte Dubai Brand Trip. 

Although in recent news this type of influencer event has garnered some backlash, if done correctly, brands can still take advantage of the brand exposure these trips bring.

In the end, these trips have 2 goals: build relationships with influencers and get their content in front of the brands target market

How to:

1. Thoughtful Itinerary

2. Thoughtful branding of the location

3. Relationship Building with Brand

4. Assist influencers in taking content

Meet and Greets on location

Day of shopping + Meeting your Favorite Influencer = Where can we sign up?

This influencer event tactic is a great way to fuse the influencer world to real life consumers. Hosting a meet and greet in a store location puts your brand and product quickly in front of niche targets.

Influencers starting the buzz of an upcoming meet up almost guarantees a crowd of people. Once physically in the store, it would be very hard to resist enticing displays of your product.

This is a great opportunity to generate organic content from consumers in attendance. Make it so that the consumers feel like they are the influencer at an event. They will post about their experience and will tag where they were. 

This is a great way to open the door to UGC, User Generated Content. Post event, you can sort through the posting of consumers that came to the event. This may be a gateway to reach out for them to become a UGC creator for your brand. 

Make your Meet and Greet activation a hit with these helpful tips!

1. Include a fun Photo op

2. Set up a product demo or enticing display 

3. Include limited time goody bags to first 50 people in attendance

4. Use Geotagging so their followers know where they attended

Influencer event No-No’s

In this day in age, Influencer event’s can make or break your campaign or reputation. Influencer marketing started as a great tactic for consumers to feel that they were consuming authentic content, apart from celebrities marketing products to them. 

• No-No: Over-the-top Events

Brands have started receiving criticism for their events being too over-the-top and too out of reach. Influencers going to events or on trips, similar to the Tarte Dubai Trip, lose credibility due to followers not seeing the organicness of the relationship. 

If someone paid for an all expense trip to Dubai to promote a brand, we would be at the airport with bags packed no matter the brand. That takes away the credibility of the influencer actually being a fan of the brand apart from the glitz.

The relatability to an influencer is their super power. Put them too high in the clouds, consumers will view them as celebrities, and we’re essentially back to where we started in marketing. 

• No-No: Huge Guest Lists

We said it before and we’ll say it again. Influencer events are about building relationships with the influencers that promote their product and brand. It is difficult to build those relationships if the party size is too large. 

We’ve seen this with the Revolve Coachella party. The brand over extended the invite in effort to take over the social media feeds with their content. This backfired!

Influencers in attendance became frustrated with the conditions and the competitive nature. How to prevent this you may ask? No matter the size of your event, keep the invite list at an appropriate level to ensure relationships are being built not only with the brand, but also the other influencers present. 

Future of Influencer Events

Trends fade. The marketing world is constantly evolving. In order for your influencer events to continue being effective, consider these factors:

• Power of community

These events are not only beneficial to brands, but also the influencers. They are able to make connections with each other to elevate their brand and inspire potential collabs. 

• Building genuine partnerships

Foster those relationships in building a genuine partnership with an influencer in hopes of continued work. It is much easier to keep on an experienced influencer that you have worked with, than trying to look for others. 

• Don’t forget Micro Influencers

Micro Influencers are very valuable. They come with a niche market that is sometimes difficult to push specific messaging to when working with larger influencers. Including micro-influencers in these events bring a specific niche of eyes onto your brand. These influencers can promote specific products that they believe their followers would be pulled to.

Stay ahead of the game in learning these Influencer Event Secrets to make sure yours is a success!

✍️ Written by Jasmin Wells