Once API’s influencer cohort ended their experiments last fall, they were encouraged to expand their retrospective beyond assessing what worked and what didn’t, instead considering value creation questions. Was the experiment was valuable for the newsroom? Their community? The influencer? How could similar campaigns be more valuable in the future? Below are some ways to approach a retrospective on an influencer partnership, and examples of insights the 2024 cohort walked away with.
Get creative with your retrospective
Start considering these value-creation questions as you reflect on the experiment — they’re a great way to change the focus of your creative problem solving and collaboration.
- How could an influencer collaboration be even better for me? This is initially a private conversation with yourself. Dream big and ignore roadblocks — this is a creative phase that you should enjoy.
- How could an influencer project or commitment be even better for them? Watch for pitfalls: Not everyone has the same interests as your organization. Some partners will want to minimize the hassle instead of maximizing the outcome.
- Who else could benefit from a community engagement project like this? This is a private brainstorm first, and then a research mission as you’re in conversation. Who can build on your idea to make it better? Who can be better by collaborating with you?
Hopefully these questions can help provide more discussion points to reflect on during the wider review. Consider breaking your retrospective into two categories:
- The results: This will be focused on your success metrics, such as reach or new followers. You might find that while you underperformed on one metric, you overperformed on another. Capture all of that.
- The process: A lot of work went into making this happen. What worked well? What was rocky? What did you forget to plan for? Was anything a last-minute scramble? Consider inviting the influencer to this part of the retro or collecting their feedback to share with the team.
The API cohort distilled their learnings with the following mad lib, which you could try too:
You probably spent a fair amount of time getting your newsroom on board with the idea of working with influencers. Don’t forget to close the loop by sharing with them what worked, what didn’t and what you learned from the experiment.
This could be as simple as an email memo. You could consider doing an organization-wide discussion that allows them to ask questions and make suggestions for ways to collaborate with influencers in the future.
What others are doing
Here are some madlib-style takeaways from API’s influencer cohort:
When it comes to influencers, if I knew then that I could probably be more creative with how we view alignment with content creators, I’d explore engaging with more people in wild ways that still stay true to our editorial value.
When it comes to influencers, if I knew then that people take so long to complete the proper paperwork… I’d have set earlier deadlines for said paperwork.
When it comes to influencers, if I knew then that influencer reach is as random and erratic as legacy news org social reach… I’d form this as more of an experiment and diversify both influencer and topic area differently.
When it comes to influencers, if I knew then that my company had mushy guidelines around working with influencers and had many legal questions that remain unanswered… I’d discuss before agreeing to things differently. ☺️
When it comes to influencers, if I knew then that not every influencer views themselves as an influencer, I’d approach them differently with more structure and different terminology.
