Brands have been trying to connect with health & wellness influencers by sponsoring them on their fitness campaigns and partnering with them to promote their Marketing Strategy through UGC. The more companies are in the fitness, health and wellness space, the more opportunities there are for brands to find influencers that match their products. The most popular social media network where these influencers operate is Instagram, where up to 36% of all adults are active every day as of December 2015. This post will go over how brands are creating connections with social media influencers through UGC (user generated content).

Typically, brands tend to seek out influencers who have a large amount of followers on social media as this is directly correlated to their ability to influence a larger audience. Reality television contestants, athletes (olympic, sports, etc.), and models are who these companies tend to partner with especially in the fitness and wellness space as many promote a lifestyle that they feel is in line with the products they offer.

One social media influencer who was previously a contestant on the reality tv show (the ABC owned franchise, The Bachelor) is Hannah Sluss. After the show had wrapped with filming Hannah was able to expand her social media follower count to one million. Her social media presence focuses largely on cooking and fitness while still incorporating personal aspects of her life such as chronicling her vacations and time spent with her boyfriend in an effort to make her persona feel more relatable and her lifestyle more attainable.

She posts a number of short cooking demonstration videos where she cooks the recipe and tags the instagram handle of the brand or company she is trying to promote. She has created UGC for Home Chef (@realhomechef), Walmart (@walmart), and Banza (@eatbanza) to name a few. Most of the brands she features have also provided her with a unique promotional code that she is able to share with her followers. Her videos also strategically include brand appearances by Bounty and other cleaning products as she is cleaning her kitchen after meal prep to serve as subliminal marketing.

When brands give social media influencers more freedom to add their own personality to their UGC and speak in a conversational way, they are able to appeal to their audience more effectively compared to if the videos came across as more scripted. It has been proven that customers learn from example and are more likely to adopt the behaviors exhibited by an influencer they admire by observing what they post on social media. This is why it is critical for businesses to select a suitable social media influencer with the ideal target audience to create UGC to accurately portray and promote their brand and products to increase brand awareness, the number of loyal customers, and ultimately sales.