The ultimate guide to influencer marketing for media & entertainment brands

Learn how entertainment brands work with influencers to generate buzz about events, drive consumer engagement, and reach wider audiences.

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Media and entertainment have seen significant shifts in recent years, causing brands to lean more into digital promotion. But even digital promotion presents challenges: remaining authentic, reaching the right audiences, and remaining competitive.

For an industry that relies so much on opinion, taste, and passion, it’s critical for brands to strike the right balance of authenticity and quality content. With engaging content and authentic word-of-mouth recommendations, entertainment influencers reach the right audiences and stand out in one of the largest, most popular industries.

Brands are seeing overwhelming success by tapping into influencer marketing as their primary marketing channel. Influencers know their audiences and know how to leverage content that attracts their senses and encourages them to make the purchase. 

In this guide, you will learn how entertainment brands of all kinds from streaming, to gaming, movies and live performances can work with influencers to spread the word about new releases and events in order to drive engagement and reach performance objectives.

 

What is entertainment influencer marketing?

 

Entertainment influencer marketing is when brands strategically cast influencers to promote new releases, events, or products through authentic, quality social media content in the context of influencers sharing their lives and preferences. Entertainment brands include anything from book publishing to filmmaking to sports entertainment.

For brands in the media and entertainment industry, the keys to growth and success are:

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BEING ADAPTABLE
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GENERATING AUTHENTIC BUZZ
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CAMPAIGNING HEAVILY ONLINE
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RECOMMENDING THROUGH WORD-OF-MOUTH, SHARES, AND REVIEWS
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LISTENING TO FANS
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ENTERTAINING CONTENT
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THINKING DIFFERENTLY ABOUT EVENTS

Traditional marketing tactics fall short in one or more of these approaches. Influencers help streamline digital marketing for artists and entertainment brands by creating eye-catching content catered to their audience (who are more likely to convert).  

LTK found in a recent national study that Influential Shoppers™, influencers' most loyal followers, amplify influencer sales and engagement by 2X. This means not only are influencers the most believable and engaging source on social media above all other options, per the LTK study, but they also are the gateway and tipping point to significant and meaningful amplification for entertainment brand communication. 

What is an influencer marketing platform?

 

An influencer marketing platform is one of the best ways for businesses of all sizes to increase brand awareness and online reach. Not all influencer marketing platforms are built the same, learn more about why LTK is the #1 influencer marketing platform in the world. 

 

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What engaged fans want

 

Fans of streaming TV, film, music, video games, sports, literature, and other media all have this in common: they are passionate and want to be entertained. The question is, what entertains them? The answer comes from an influencer’s direct line to their followers.

Influencers live online, amidst their audiences who are expressing themselves and connecting with one another. These content creators make it easy for entertainment brands to join the conversation, get answers, and quickly resonate with fans.

The difficult part of reaching certain audiences is that your impact as an entertainment brand is determined entirely by opinions and personal preferences. 

The benefit of being a brand in this industry is that audiences of media content are also fans. They’re intentional, seeking content and media that brings them joy, content they can collect and share.

While every consumer’s preferences vary, you can improve your brand’s chances of growth by connecting with these values:

1

Convenient and flexible booking

Entertainment properties that offer fast and easy registration, purchase, and cancellations will be remembered for it. Influencers can promote the ease of working with your brand to eliminate any doubt or friction.

2

Safety and security

Before the pandemic, safety and security were a top concern– now, even more so. Work with influencers to promote the safety, hygiene, and security protocols your brand has in place. Live experiences like book signings, theatre, movies, concerts and other performances, for example, may require more sanitisation stations and signage that encourages safe distancing practices.

3

Exclusive access, deals, and giveaways

Fans are looking for unique and memorable experiences, which they sometimes pay more for. Act early and share your message for special access. Some also look for special offers and giveaways. Promo codes and exclusive access to early bird tickets and contests can attract more attention. Influencers effectively promote not only your entertainment property, but also special hooks to drive greater engagement and participation.

4

Mobile mindset

Engaged fans tune in via mobile for announcements and seek out updates, releases, tour dates, and behind-the-scenes content. They expect to see and engage with their favourite entertainment properties and influencers – at all times. Influencers can accomplish one because of the other; they can keep your brand engaged and top-of-mind because their followers keep them in their feeds.

 

5

Interactive Experiences

Brands that try to entertain at every corner will see engagement levels rise. Whether it’s the gamification of certain digital activities (e.g. Spin to Win), an AR/VR experience (e.g. Instagram or Snapchat filters), or pre-event and post-event engagement opportunities (like polls), you can engage fans in a more meaningful way. Simultaneously, you can fulfil any sponsorships your brand may have.

 

6

Swag and Merch

Entertainment is personal. Fans invest in the artists, films, sports, and games they love on a personal level. Many fans collect items that remind them of these experiences. Give influencers the power to promote your brand through memorable merchandise across social media.

7

Authenticity & Relatability

Passionate fans are looking for content that they can see themselves in. That’s why diversity in branding and promotion is so critical – to truly represent the world we live in and make sure you’re showing your brand as universal.

Working with a variety of lifestyle and entertainment bloggers and content creators from all backgrounds will keep your brand diverse and authentic.

8

Recognition

Your fanbase will likely share and reshare your content, especially if it’s already shared by their favourite influencers. This takes a lot of fan investment and should be rewarded – because they’ll do it again and again. Top entertainment influencers can help your brand respond to and engage with consumers, rewarding them in a way that'll turn them into superfans.

9

Storytelling

Entertainment consumers want to be moved through storytelling. Influencers spend their career telling stories that matter to their followers– what story do you want influencers to tell about your brand?

 

What is an entertainment influencer?

 

An entertainment influencer has an established following based on their lifestyle preferences – niche and broad. They leverage their authentic connection with their followers to promote products and services they believe in, working in partnership with brands. 

Entertainment influencers are:

  • Genuinely interested in whom and what they promote  
  • In tune with their followers’ tastes and spending behaviours
  • Excellent digital content creators and brand collaborators 
  • Curators of aesthetic inspiration, entertainment, and escapism 
  • Are able to demonstrate experiences effectively and in real-time 
  • More influential than paid advertising according to LTK’s national shopper study
  • Trusted for their reviews, opinions, and recommendations 
  • Adaptable to changing trends and consumer demands

Entertainment industry bloggers promote artists, publishers, and events through strategic, authentic campaigns. Sometimes, entertainment influencers are also lifestyle influencers, sharing daily content about makeup, travel, health routines, and more.

Entertainment brands work with influencers to:

  • Keep audiences engaged during content and event lulls
  • Build a trustworthy library of reviews and social proof
  • Effectively sell merchandise, tickets, and products 
  • Stay on top of media and entertainment trends
  • Help consumers feel at ease about in-person events
  • Help consumers engage virtually 
  • Build positive brand associations
  • Produce reusable content for owned channels

Entertainment influencer content

 

Entertainment influencer content is about appealing to followers’ emotions through the senses. Content must be engaging to watch and listen to – yet not overly produced. 

Contrary to popular belief, consumers put a lot less stock in polished corporate content. Entertainment influencer marketing campaigns cut through the facade. 

Most content in influencer marketing campaigns is raw and unrehearsed, and it’s common for influencers to post their thoughts and reviews while going about their daily lives. From an in-depth analysis of performances to book recommendations and top-10 movie lists, this content is easily skimmable and entices action as well as shares. 

Unlike traditional marketing content, entertainment influencer content is binge-worthy, bright, colourful, relatable, inspiring, and fun: everything today’s passionate superfans want.

Entertainment influencer content:

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INFORMS CONSUMERS OF NEW EVENTS AND EXPERIENCES
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FUELS URGENCY AROUND RELEASES AND OFFERS
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ANSWERS QUESTIONS FOR THE HESITANT FAN
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TAGS AND HIGHLIGHTS PRODUCTION GROUP MEMBERS AND PARTNERS
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IS INTERACTIVE AND HEAVILY VISUAL
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INSPIRE FOLLOWER FEEDBACK AND USER-GENERATED CONTENT

 

What influencers want in an entertainment brand

 

Influencers have worked hard to monetise their influence on social media, which is built on their authentic connection with their followers. To lose that connection through inauthentic promotion would lose sales for many brands. This is why influencers are selective about the brands they work with.

Here’s what influencers are looking for in entertainment brands:

Brands and entertainment properties they can be fans of

Influencers partner with brands that make sense for their personal aesthetic, public media preferences, and their lifestyle. Working with an expert in influencer management helps you sift through the sea of influencers for best-fit casting from the start.

Entertainment-allieprovost-3

 

Entertainment-colormecourtney

 

Creative flexibility

Entertainment influencers are passionate content creators. They know what their audience is passionate about and what they could be passionate about. Trust that relationship and give influencers the freedom to interpret campaigns through their personal creative lens while still maintaining your brand identity.

Diversity and inclusion

Influencers want to work with brands that promote representation and operate by high moral and ethical standards in their business, messaging, and their visual content. Artists, writers, and gamers come from all backgrounds. Brands that work with a diverse mix of influencers to incorporate diversity and inclusion into their content and philosophy will reap a successful influencer strategy.

Entertainment-abcdefgina

 

Entertainment-howdoyouwearthat

 

Constant communication and updates

In the world of entertainment and media, events and releases are cancelled or moved, tickets are sold out and then reopened. Influencers need constant communication about availability and changes so they can keep their followers up-to-date and engaged whilst maintaining their reliability.

Artistic experiences

Content creators are looking for the next entertaining show, band, and artistic experience to fuel their image and inspire their followers. Where possible, tap into your most unique services, events, and offerings to highlight across your influencer marketing campaigns.

Entertainment-saragailvickers

 

Entertainment-mimosasandlipstick_

 

Safety initiatives

Does your brand have strong ethical and safety protocols that are core to your brand identity? Paid influencers are looking for brands that have a positive impact on their followers and can spread the word about how you’re making experiences safer and more convenient for passionate fans. 

The world’s most successful global creator network.

 

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Can your entertainment brand benefit from influencer marketing?

 

Every entertainment brand has a lot to gain from influencer relationships: increased site traffic, brand awareness, sales, and proven marketing spend and ROI.

Why Invest in Influencer Marketing Now

Helping smaller entertainment brands grow

 

News travels fast in entertainment and media. Influencer marketing can put a small brand on the map by spreading brand awareness across social platforms. 

Your small brand will see success by leveraging both global and local influencers who have historically driven revenue for your industry.  

Highly engaged influencers can review a show, share a playlist, or post a TikTok with the latest single. Then, it’s on their followers’ stories minutes later. In this way, influencer marketing has helped entertainment brands reach wider audiences and even gain new partnerships and sponsorships. 

Don’t have the budget for a full influencer campaign? LTK offers other placements at lower flat fees to help spread brand awareness.

Helping larger entertainment brands scale

Larger brands have their own challenges to overcome in the entertainment industry: staying competitive and first-choice. Paid influencers help large labels, venues, ticket sale sites, artists, and more to scale by expanding influencer campaigns for increased reach and revenue. 

Through influencer marketing management, large brands build and maintain relationships with content creators and identify effective brand ambassadors to increase viewer ratings, drive merchandise and ticket sales, and attract lucrative sponsorship deals. 

These brands work with us to develop a layered, full-funnel approach to scale their influencer marketing programme with new influencers, test new channels and verticals, and create multi-channel campaign strategies.

 

Casting influencers for your entertainment promotions

 

Casting influencers is a complex process that requires data, a solid influencer network, and the ability to facilitate, establish, and maintain the influencer relationship.

Whether you’re trying it alone or working with an influencer marketing partner, consider these best practices for casting influencers.

 

Overcoming influencer marketing challenges

 

Many entertainment brands try influencer marketing on an independent basis. This approach can be tedious and overwhelming as you attempt to narrow down 30 million influencers to find the best fits.

In-house influencer marketing programmes can suffer from:

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THE WRONG INFLUENCER RELATIONSHIP
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INCONSISTENT INFLUENCER OUTREACH
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UNCLEAR INFLUENCER-BRAND COMMUNICATION
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LACK OF ROI
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MESSY INFLUENCER CONTRACTS AND PROPOSALS
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LACK OF CAMPAIGN FOCUS

 

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WASTED TIME ON THE WRONG METRICS

Avoid These Five Influencer Marketing Mistakes

By leveraging an influencer network platform and expert in creator management, you can confidently execute a successful influencer marketing strategy based on unmatched influencer data in the media and entertainment industry.

Join the most impactful influencer marketing platform.

✓ Hundreds of thousands of lifestyle creators globally

✓ Advanced Audience Reporting™

✓ One million brands worldwide

GET STARTED WITH LTK

 

Creating successful influencer marketing campaigns

As you consider influencer marketing as a channel to appeal to your audiences and potential sponsors, keep these tips in mind. 

1 — Think ahead about your budget.

Set aside enough of a budget to achieve all of your campaign goals. Brands that stretch a small budget across too many goals will not yield the results they’re looking for. 

2 — Give your influencers and fans free stuff.

Free swag, merchandise, tickets, and experiences can sweeten the relationship you have with influencers, but it can also make it easier for them to spread the word about your brand. 

Offering discounts or deals can help influencers incentivise their followers to risk leaving the brands they know to try yours.  

3 — Offer talking points and guidance.

Start your collaborative partnership with a clear contract and conditions. Provide your influencers talking points, brand information, and helpful tips for deliverables without being too prescriptive. LTK can help you with facilitating communication and creating an influencer proposal template using our leading influencer marketing software.

4 — Grow influence. 

When managing your influencer marketing campaign, return on ad spend and results don’t always happen instantly. Influence and reputation, just like with other marketing media, are built over time with lifestyle influencers. 

The LTK team goes above and beyond to identify progress and areas for improvement to reach optimal performance. The LTK Score™ is a benchmark score comparing your property to others in your category to help GROW (Gather, Reach, Optimise and Win!) your influence and provide insights into how your brand’s influence ranks and the best opportunities to improve.

Learn More About LTK ScoreTM

 

5 — Geo-target for events and local promotion.

Geo-targeting branded content can be very beneficial for entertainment brands, especially those looking to focus on specific markets. Consider your promotional goals and cater your campaigns to certain locations, online, or in-store for quick wins.

6 — Embrace that “the show must go on”.

As powerful as influencers are, unexpected things happen. Try to stay positive, diversify your influencer mix, and roll with the punches. Should any issues arise, the LTK team goes above and beyond to troubleshoot and find a solution during an influencer campaign.

 

Benefits of an influencer marketing management platform 

To conduct a successful influencer marketing campaign, you have to:

  • Determine goals and budget
  • Conduct influencer research and casting  
  • Determine target deliverables
  • Write and facilitate contracts 
  • Negotiate influencer rates 
  • Ensure contract fulfilment
  • Monitor budget and prove ROI 

It’s a lot to handle alone. LTK can help all of your departments every step of the way and amplify your in-house efforts. As an influencer marketing platform designed for creator management, we help you do it all, so you have the influencer intelligence to run effective influencer marketing campaigns without completely outsourcing to an agency.

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Where to start your influencer marketing journey

 

If you aren’t sure where to start with an influencer strategy, consider starting with a test campaign, guided by influencer data.

As the leading influencer marketing hub for the last 10 years, LTK has solved influencer marketing challenges through:

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AMPLIFIED DISTRIBUTION THROUGH THE LARGEST CREATOR SHOPPING CHANNEL: SHOPLTK.COM WITH 30M+ MONTHLY SHOPPERS
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FULL-SERVICE CREATOR PROGRAMmeS THAT DELIVER ON YOUR UNIQUE OBJECTIVES
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STRATEGIC PLANNING BASED ON HISTORICAL BRAND PERFORMANCE DATA
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EXPERT BRAND CONSULTING, PLANNING, EXECUTING, AND REPORTING
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END-TO-END CAMPAIGN EXECUTION AND INFLUENCER CASTING
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ACCESS TO THE MOST SUCCESSFUL INFLUENCER PLATFORM IN THE WORLD

 

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LICENSED IMAGERY FROM PREMIUM CREATORS FOR YOUR OWN MARKETING CHANNELS
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CONFERENCE AND EVENT INTEGRATION TO BUILD LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIPS
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ACCESS TO REAL-TIME MEASURABLE RESULTS ON THE TOP INFLUENCER CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

 

Use your test campaign as an opportunity to discover best-match lifestyle influencers who convert. As you think longer-term strategy down the road, our influencer marketing platform will help you secure those influencers as your ambassadors.

Connect with top-performing influencers. Grow your entertainment brand.

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GROW with the LTK Score™

 

LTK Score™ is an industry-first benchmark to show where brands are with influence amongst peers and the best strategy to GROW influence.

Gather the right curated creators with Advanced Audience Insights
Reach with automated influencer management tools and payments
Optimise with simplified creator communication and integrations for better execution
Win! Advanced Audience Campaign Reporting to achieve better results

Learn More About LTK ScoreTM