A takeover is a marketing tool. It’s giving someone else the temporary control of your platform or taking over theirs for a specific allotted time.

 

You can invite someone to do that for your account or you can accept an invitation to do it on someone else’s profile. If you’re on the fence about how well you’d like this kind of endeavor, once you learn what a takeover can do, you won’t be.

 

A takeover isn’t about struggling to increase your

influence all on your own. You get to mesh with another

influencer in a combined endeavor. You’ll be able to

take your brand to their followers and they’ll essentially

get their brand in front of yours.

 

Takeovers aren’t just for growing your brand though.

Sometimes, a business or company will ask you to

temporarily take control of their platform as an influencer

for an agreed-upon amount of time. Some influencers

takeover a brand’s profile for an hour or two. Depending

on your industry, a brand may ask you to do a takeover

that lasts 1-2 days.

 

It’s essential that you choose to do takeovers that are

relevant to your niche. If a brand that’s known for puppy

food wants you to do a takeover and your niche is yoga,

then that mix may confuse followers.

 

One brand that’s smart about takeover is Sony Alpha

(@SonyAlpha). They invite photographers to takeover

their Instagram account, sharing their latest photos, and

explaining how they got the shot.

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Because their followers are photographers, their

audience loves these takeovers. It boosts the popularity

of both Sony’s account and the influencer who is posting.

 

A takeover can also raise the level of interaction with your

own followers. If you do a takeover on someone else’s account, they can follow you over there and engage while you’re interacting with the brand’s audience.

 

There are a lot of fun things you can do during a takeover. You can host giveaways, have a live chat or do a behind the scenes video. You can also post funny (or serious) selfies, share how you use the brand’s product, or share a tutorial that the brand’s followers can use right away. Remember the content that you provide during the takeover should be something that has value enough to persuade your fans to join in.

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You gain a lot when you engage in a takeover. If you partner with another influencer, that person can bring awareness to your platform and introduce their audience to your brand. If you partner with a brand, you can earn money or other perks for your participation.

 

However, it’s not all fun games. There are some steps you’ll need to follow in order to have a successful takeover.

 

First, decide who’s going to do what. If you’re allowing someone to takeover your platform, you want to be sure that it’s an influencer you trust completely.

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You also want to be sure it’s someone who has the same commitment to excellence and can stand up to public scrutiny. You don’t want any ugly skeletons coming out of the closet and negatively affecting your reputation.

 

If you’re going to takeover a brand’s account, then decide ahead of time what your content is going to be based on what the other person’s audience enjoys. You can figure this out just by doing a quick search on which of their posts got the most attention.

 

If it was a video, a live chat, or a short, inspirational speech that resonated with their audience, then you want to present the takeover in the same format.

 

Next, you need to sit down and plan a takeover strategy with the influencer or brand that you’re working with. Otherwise, your takeover could quickly become chaotic and you’ll be running over the other person or confusing your followers.

 

Choose a specific time frame for the takeover. Sometimes it’s for a certain time slot like a couple of hours out of the day or it might be for the entire day.

 

You need to know how much content is expected from you. For example, a company may think that you’ll be posting 6 times in a day as their last influencer did. However, if you don’t know this information in advance, you may only post four times, which is frustrating for you and the brand.

 

Cover your bases during your strategy session. Consider whether there’s something that the brand doesn’t want you to post. One fashion company might be strict vegans and opposed to the use of furs. If you post a picture wearing a genuine fur coat, followers may get angry and you may damage their brand.

 

Likewise, if you’re letting someone else do a takeover on your account, consider what you don’t want to be posted. You don’t want to alienate your audience because the takeover resulted in the other person sharing something that wasn’t cool.

 

After you get the details ironed out, you need to decide how much of the account you need access to. Different brands have different preferences. One brand may simply hand you their password and change it again once your takeover is finished.

 

Another brand may want you to send the content you plan to post to their social media consultant who will schedule the posts for you. It all depends on what you and the brand decide to do.

 

Remember a takeover works best when it’s a give-give relationship. If you decide on a takeover, think about the benefits for both of you. Are you doing this to boost your followers? Will you use this opportunity to send traffic to a specific link? Are you looking to profit from your engagement?

 

When you’re clear about what you want, you’re less likely to be disappointed. You’ll also enjoy the takeover more and be able to clearly measure if it was successful.