4 ideas to collaborate with influencers during the summer

It’s sunny, it’s hot, summer is just starting, and Instagram, TikTok or Pinterest news feeds have taken on beautiful and warm colors: sunset sea view, cocktail in the pool, first swimsuit looks… Influencers are ready for summer.

Brands are redoubling their imagination and creativity to launch influencer campaigns in line with the long-awaited beautiful season.

How to collaborate with influencers during the summer? What kind of campaign to run during this time of the year? Discover our 4 tips to create effective partnerships that will seduce content creators. Warm-up!

The summer season: A key moment to diversify your offer

This time of the year is a real opportunity to propose refreshing content to avid network users, and run original campaigns for brands.

There are many ways to engage your favorite influencers and collaborate with them on unique campaigns during this time of year. Subscribers, in search of entertaining content on social networks, have a ringside seat: press events, contests, organized trip, capsule collection… Nothing gets past them.

Follow our tips to conduct exceptional campaigns during the summer and activate influencers adapted to your target.

1 – Pay attention to commercial highlights

The year’s calendar is full of key dates to be aware of in order to collaborate with influencers at the right moments and create impactful content. 

Summer is punctuated with key events that you should not miss, and if you are abroad for this period, be careful to follow the calendar of the country you are in. Indeed, the events are not the same, and it is therefore necessary to adapt to the latter at the risk of missing an opportunity. 

Save the date! Here is the list of summer commercial highlights to note in your diary:

• July 1, Canada’s Independence Day. This day is marked by multiple ceremonies and festivities. Highlight Canadian traditions in your marketing campaigns!
• July 4th, American Independence Day, celebrated since 1776, is synonymous with barbecues and fireworks. It’s a good time to honor the American flag.
• July 29, Lipstick Day, a crucial moment for cosmetic brands to communicate about their products to beauty addicts.
• July 30, Friendship Day, during which brands can encourage influencers to participate in events or contests with their friends.
• August 19th, the photography day or the right moment to realize campaigns on social networks, and collect beautiful UGC to reuse for your website or in your newsletters.
•  August 31, World Blogging Day: the perfect opportunity to get in on the writing game. Write about your bestsellers, your feedback on a product or your new favorite recipe. Your blog posts, if they are well referenced in SEO, can even allow you to get a good positioning and appear in the first results of Google search.
• Finally, September 1 marks the end of summer and the beginning of back-to-school preparations. This is the time to propose content in line with the “back to school” movement, such as back-to-school looks, ideas to get organized, or do-it-yourself (DIY) which consists of making everyday objects or creations.

Communicating on these special occasions is a real asset for brands, acting as a powerful growth lever: thanks to their universal character, many brands launch operations at these times. As for consumers, they are on the lookout for product launches or promotional offers that flourish on all e-commerce sites or social networks. 

Launching influencer campaigns during key dates or events is a way to get closer to your target: last summer, during the International Friendship Day, Walt Disney proposed to Léna Situations, a French influencer with 3 million followers, to celebrate this special day with her group of friends. These content creators who are raving among GenZ and Millennials were able to enjoy together, each person representing a character from the Mickey gang, having rocked our childhood. 

Carrying out influencer campaigns during these key days allows you to obtain a significant strategic advantage. This strategy is also a good way to gain visibility thanks to the strong prescription power of influencers, new partners for brands.

These influencers are also seduced by campaigns conducted during key moments: the perfect time for brands to activate several categories of influencers, from micro to nano-influencers, and launch different campaigns simultaneously. Ultimately, these campaigns will allow brands to reach their objectives set before the brand-influencer collaborations.

2 – Create a unique capsule collection and bet on ephemerality 

What better time than the summer to create a capsule collection in partnership with creators or influencers? A capsule collection can be defined as the creation of clothes or products in limited series over a short period of time (from several days to several weeks). These creations are integrated as the exclusivity of a store, outside the “classic” or seasonal collections.

For example, Belgian macro-influencer Claire Marnette, better known under her Instagram pseudonym @milkywaysblueyes, recently created a swimwear collection in collaboration with clothing brand Kaly Ora. A sunny collection suitable for all bodies that combines two worlds and focuses on timeless and sophisticated pieces. The models of this new collection were disclosed via Instagram posts and Reels on the account of the content creator as well as the brand. 

These publications invited followers to adopt the outfits and combine them according to their desires: isn’t summer the perfect time to dare?

This type of powerful co-creation is particularly popular with consumers. Indeed, the commercialization of items, valid for a limited time, brings a sense of rarity to the ephemeral product. Consumers, for fear of missing out on an opportunity, want to get the product before stocks are all sold out and unreleased items become a distant memory.

Brands, in addition to rolling the dice by making ephemeral collections that are perfectly suited to the season, have a strong interest in leveraging influencer marketing to promote this content. Influencers, as part of marketing campaigns, can receive the product, present it to their community by giving an authentic and sincere opinion.

This is the case of Oceansapart, a sportswear brand, which has partnered with the influencer with a million subscribers, @noholita, in the co-creation of a capsule collection dedicated to the brand’s 3rd birthday. 

The result of this partnership? 3 exclusive outfits in 3 different colors are marketed, designed by the content creator. Noholita also presented this capsule collection to its loyal community via an Instagram Reels, a new dynamic and impactful video feature.

Fittings that invite users to create their own looks from these pieces and imagine a comfortable and stylish outfit.

3 – Organize a travel event to answer the need for escaping of influencers

Summertime is all about relaxing and getting away from home: this period of travel is a great opportunity for brands in this trendy sector. Hotels, airlines, or special event launches abroad are all opportunities for brands to collaborate with influencers ready to travel. 

Tourism, a sector in great trend, continued to make envy during the lockdown: 44% of influencers continued to travel thanks to brand partnerships conducted on social networks. Instagram, a key platform, is the most popular network for this type of collaboration: 90% of travel or lifestyle partnerships are made there.

The famous London hotel @langhamlondon invited the influencer Zoë Sugg, creator of the lifestyle and cosmetic brand Zoella with millions of subscribers, to come and enjoy the services and setting offered by the hotel.

A precious moment of relaxation much appreciated by the content creator who was able to visit the city of London during 2 days. She posted some photos of her trip on her Instagram account, thanking the brand for the invitation and the gifts.