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o you’ve researched the virtual influencer industry significantly, and potentially even sponsored a virtual to test the waters. Ask yourself, what’s next? Where can you go from here? Virtual influencer strategies are new and sometimes hard to grasp, but don’t worry—we are here to share our experiences and research.
If you are yet to research virtual influencer marketing, we are here to make it as easy as possible for you. In the past, we’ve covered 3 ways your brand can work with virtual influencers.
Let's review—you can...
- Sponsor a virtual influencer
- Sign a virtual influencer
- Create a virtual influencer
Today, we focus on the easiest steps towards signing a virtual influencer.
Tip: Shift Your Perspective
For these tips to be relevant, you should be familiar with virtual influencers by individual research, reading our research, or potentially sponsoring a virtual influencer. Now, it’s time to shift your perspective on virtual influencers and think long term.
No one style or storyline exists by which a virtual influencer must be created—their architects can change and write their lives to meet almost any campaign style you need. That being said, virtual influencers are a dynamic, powerful asset for your brand to leverage long-term. This is especially the case since virtual influencers can be evolved and shaped to meet your dynamic needs.
Traditional, human influencers don’t offer this level of direct control over their lives.
Think about how long term virtual influencer partnerships can aid your long term growth, versatility, and allure in the eye of the consumer.
Tip: Treat Virtual Influencers as Brand Reps
To fully shift your perspective of virtual influencers to a long-term based scenario, consider a virtual influencer as a brand representative rather than a one-off campaign partner.
Look at behemoth athletic brands such as Nike and Apple, and you’d notice athletes make up a larger percentage of their associates (rightfully so). Most of these athletes serve as brand representatives, operating under long-term contracts for a multitude of product launches, commercials, and social media posts.
Many athletes, such as Serena Williams, Usain Bolt, Lebron James, and Colin Kapernick, all started their relationships with these major brands as one-off influencers, launching a single campaign before growing their relationship into something long term and more significant.
These big companies recognize the strong impact that major athletes have on their audiences in longer-term capacities as opposed to one-off engagements. Therefore, there is an opportunity to take advantage of converting a short-term engagement into a long-term fan relationship if the influencer is right.
In all, this same mindset applies to the virtual influencer world. Find your fit, and make a move to engage long-term. Like customizing a video game character, your brand can customize a virtual influencer’s entire life.
Are you a shoe company who wants to sponsor shoes? Contact the team and lock it in. Want to plant your shades in this virtual influencers’ life? Reach out.
Tip: Get to Know a Virtual Influencer Better
Get to know the virtual influencer(s) you hope to sign by trying to understand where they hope to be in one month, six months, or even a year.
Your brand partnership can help them get there, so by partnering with a virtual influencer long-term, you set yourself up for a win-win situation. Thus, the virtual influencer is happy, you are happy, everyone is happy.
If you’ve already partnered with a virtual influencer, you are probably familiar with this growth which is as a result of the combined PR power, and the high glance value of the virtual influencer in your amplified content. This is your chance to keep growth momentum strong, and at a larger scale. It all starts with really getting to know the virtual influencer’s long-term goals.
Tip: Assure the Architects' Creative Freedom
While you want a virtual influencer to serve as your brand representative, it’s important not to constrict the creativity of the architects. Virtual influencers are popular because of their distinct look and the life their architects choose for them. By putting a cap on that creativity, you may break the audience’s immersion in the influencer and, in turn, your campaign.
Communicate with the creative team on how you’d want the virtual influencer to represent the brand, and let their creativity flow freely to meet your objective the best way they know how. Besides, they are the ones who created the virtual influencer in the first place, so they understand how best to adapt the virtual influencer in a bid to fit your brand’s needs long-term.
Tip: Identify the Virtual’s Grander Value
The final tip we have towards establishing long-term partnerships with a virtual influencer revolves around identifying the larger value of virtual influencers.
Because virtual influencers have such strong glance value, throughout the extent of your campaign, you should make sure you’re pushing PR on all fronts as well as shopping for new partnerships with ally brands to elevate the campaign even further.
Consider roping in multiple virtual influencers into the equivalent of a “crossover episode” of these fictional storylines, or plugging in new kinds of media such as a song drop or a TikTok presence.
Virtual influencers serve as a functional way to catch eyes, gain massive PR, and engage young audiences—it’s up to you to champion the partnership during the months of your campaign and seize as much value from the experience as possible.
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Now you have our key tips under your belt towards creating and maintaining long-term relationships with virtual influencers, signing a virtual influencer should be pretty seamless. The stronger the relationship, the greater results in terms of authenticity, brand-loyalty, long-term value, and high-quality content.
If you want to partner with or create a virtual influencer, contact me directly at christopher@virtualhumans.org, or by using this contact form.
We handle all stages of virtual influencer creation, from targeting, to ideation, to design, to storytelling, to publishing, to growth. Let’s tell your story.
