Influencer Marketing Trends in 2025
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Brand ambassadors are the influencers you invest in for the long haul. They don’t just post once and disappear—they exceed your expectations, know exactly how to connect with your target audience, and consistently amplify your brand message. Influencer marketing has driven brand awareness for years, but the campaigns that really move the needle are the ones that build consumer trust and inspire purchase confidence.
So how do you identify, engage, and nurture influencers until they become true brand ambassadors? In this article, we’ll share three proven strategies—communication, relationship-building, and co-creation—to help you transform a one-off collaboration into a deep, mutually rewarding partnership. Follow these steps, and you’ll be on your way to creating ambassadors who not only raise awareness but also cultivate lasting loyalty and drive sales.
Marketers are well aware of the importance of brand awareness. However, creating a unique brand is about more than having a recognisable logo and a catchy slogan. To succeed, your brand must differentiate itself from its competitors.
Users are swamped with marketing messages, ad placements, and paid content on digital media. Advertising is everywhere: on bus stops, pop-up mobile ads, text messages, in their social media feeds, and on TV.
The overabundance of both newer and more traditional advertising has rendered people immune to their messaging. As a result, marketers today need more than just a good message to capture attention.
So, how can you increase brand awareness and, ultimately, your ROI? One solution is to work with influencers and grow them into brand ambassadors, developing trust with audiences over time.
Brand advocates, brand representatives, brand associates, brand ambassadors, and influencers — these terms are often used interchangeably to describe individuals who work with companies on a paid or unpaid basis over longer periods, with the aim of increasing brand awareness and trust.
These bloggers genuinely appreciate the brand and are happy to recommend it regularly.
While brands might work with influencers on an ad-hoc basis, brand ambassadors are deeper connections.
Use this guide to differentiate influencers and brand ambassadors:
In fact, a brand ambassador may not be an influencer prior to the collaboration. Often, ambassadors are brand employees, business partners, or clients.
This is particularly common in B2B marketing, where corporate ambassadors are often employees who share content about their roles. Companies encourage these creators to develop educational and informative content that humanises the brand and builds a community.
A one-time collab isn’t enough to turn an influencer into a brand ambassador. The goal is to develop long-term relationships and promote influencers who complement your brand identity.
Here's how to develop a strong bond with an influencer to turn them into a brand advocate.
First and foremost, the influencer must have a positive experience with your brand. No late payments, ghosting, or scope creep.
Use this step-by-step guide to build a personal relationship with the creator:
A good brand ambassador will likely have a few brands interested in them, even if they aren't popular celebrities or stacking huge follower counts. You need to respect the creator's time, effort, and achievements at every step.
Frequent collaborations with influencers signal that you value their work. Renew collaborations with your favourite influencers during key time periods and keep them up-to-date with what’s new at the company.
You want them to be invested in your brand.
Use these tactics to strengthen your relationship with influencers, even during downtime:
Most brand ambassadors will be true fans of your brand. They’ll enjoy trying new products and may even mention them spontaneously in their posts, organically increasing your brand’s visibility.
While sending gifts can be useful, remember to value your brand ambassador's time. Don't expect free posts. Creating a clear payment schedule will strengthen their loyalty to your brand.
Offer influencers premium consumer experiences. This means more than new products presented attractively. It means personalising gifts and products to suit their needs.
For example, a skincare brand can match the beauty products it sends to the influencer's skin type. On the other hand, a local restaurant should take note of the influencer's dietary preferences, favourite menu items, and allergies.
Personalisation helps the influencer understand and appreciate your products, as it gives them access to the parts of your brand that best suit them. It's also more likely to encourage them to share about your brand on their social media channels and through word of mouth.
In addition, collaborating to create AI-generated logos that reflect your brand identity is an effective way to strengthen recognition and make content more visually engaging.
One case study is the beauty brand T.LeClerc's brand ambassador program. It activated its ambassadors with a ‘digital wheel’ which delivered personalised recommendations for foundation colors based on the user’s preferences. The bloggers posted about the wheel and its recommendations, encouraging their communities to do the same.
Offering these unique experiences is a powerful means of differentiation. It's important to be innovative and work with your brand ambassadors on co-creation or co-marketing opportunities.
After all, shared values and combined audiences will help both the brand and influencer grow their follower count and awareness. Fashion retailer NA-KD often uses this strategy to launch collections co-created with brand ambassadors.
Finally, be sure to involve your brand ambassadors in the planning and strategy of your campaign. They have valuable insights and understand their audience better than anyone.
So, who is the right candidate for your brand ambassadorship? Answering this question takes more than finding the biggest name or skimming through their online presence.
The ideal brand ambassador will closely align with your brand's style, have the reach to attract new customers, and create genuinely engaging content.
We'll break down the key things you need to know to connect with the right ambassadors.
It's essential to thoroughly vet potential bloggers before hiring them as brand ambassadors.
Check that the person can do the following key brand ambassador tasks:
Put simply, the influencer must align with your brand in terms of ethics, aesthetics, and persuasiveness. Sometimes it takes having a conversation to know which influencer you connect with. However, the most effective way to ensure the influencer can positively impact your target audience is through data.
Finding the right brand ambassador involves identifying someone who can effectively represent the brand as a public figure and opinion leader across various online platforms.
Sometimes, brands think they can rely on their gut instinct or personal preferences to guide their decisions. But often, appearances are deceptive. Even a datapoint as straightforward as follower count can be inaccurate due to inactive or fake accounts.
In truth, vetting influencers is the most important step. But it's a challenging task, and many companies seek help, usually from agencies or platforms.
Let's explore the benefits and drawbacks of influencer marketing platforms and agencies.
The latest platforms allow you to search through thousands of creators in a few clicks. With AI-driven search engines and filters, these influencer marketing platforms let you get specific.
Here are the most useful filters:
And there are many more filters than turn a brand ambassador search that could take days into minutes.
With your shortlist ready, you can begin reviewing profiles. Immediately gain insights into how credible their audience is and deep audience insights. Search through their past content by keywords and analyze how their past sponsorships played out.
You can even conduct social listening to check which influencers your competitors have activated and how it has worked out for them.
When your campaign is running, you can easily track its progress with real-time graphs and insights. The performance of each influencer is tracked, enabling you to manage all your ambassador relationships on a single platform.
If that sounds interesting, book in for a free Kolsquare demo now. Working with a platform saves time and resources, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your marketing strategy.
Brand ambassador agencies specialise in recruiting and managing ambassadors for various brands.
These agencies have teams of professionals who scout, vet, and onboard suitable candidates, ensuring they align with the brand's values and marketing goals. Agencies handle the logistics of ambassador programs, including contract negotiations, campaign planning, and performance monitoring.
By leveraging their industry expertise and extensive networks, brands can match with high-quality ambassadors who can effectively promote their products or services. However, it's the most expensive choice as the agency takes on the bulk of the work.
Like most promotional strategies, working with a brand representative typically incurs a cost. Although the form and amount of payment can vary widely based on several factors.
Many brand ambassadors are paid a salary or an hourly wage, especially those hired for the long term. These roles may have heavy monthly requirements and ongoing engagements, making them closer to part-time employees.
In addition to a base salary, ambassadors may receive performance-based incentives, bonuses for meeting specific goals, or additional perks such as complimentary products, travel opportunities, and exclusive access to events. Ambassadors may also receive payment in the form of a flat fee for specific campaigns or posts.
Alternatively, a company may choose to collaborate with its brand ambassador by sending free gifts and invitations. This, however, is less rewarding for the creator and won't develop the strongest partnership.
The amount of compensation can depend on the ambassador's experience, the industry, the brand's size and budget, or the specific responsibilities of the role. Typically, the size of the influencer's audience is the biggest consideration. Organisations will generally pay more to work with influencers with substantial reach.
Ultimately, whether a brand ambassador gets paid and how much they earn is influenced by the brand’s budget, the ambassador’s negotiating power, and the mutual benefits derived from the partnership.
To get the best price on your collaboration, learn more about negotiating here.
The hiring process for a brand ambassador can be lengthy. This is because it's a long-term role that impacts how your brand is perceived.
Here's a guide to hiring brand ambassadors:
Similar to an advocate, a brand representative actively promotes a company’s products and services to boost visibility and build positive customer relationships. They may engage with customers in person or online, demonstrating products, answering questions, and addressing concerns. By participating in events, trade shows, and social media campaigns, they increase brand awareness and drive sales.
Brands are refining how they deploy ambassadors. For some, it’s a matter of exclusivity and image. For others, it’s about reach, relatability, and ROI.
For luxury brands, ambassadors with large audiences amass prestige. But mass market brands can target relatability, casting a wide net, and activating many influencers long term.
Let's explore the unique brand ambassador tactics of four popular brands.
Gucci’s current ambassador, K-pop artist Lee Know (@realstraykids), adopts a clean, understated aesthetic. His Instagram profile is minimal, often opening brand posts with a black carousel slide. It’s a quietly striking way to reinforce the luxury label’s artistic edge.
With Rihanna (@badgalriri) back in the fold, Puma’s ambassador programme has regained cultural heat. Her Fenty x Puma campaign fuses fashion and performance, pushing the brand into luxury-sport crossover territory — and landing viral moments in the process.
LV's partnership with Zendaya (@zendaya) continues to deliver. Whether fronting campaigns or seated front row, she blends old-Hollywood poise with Gen Z relevance. It's an ambassador-as-muse, with global reach.
Boohoo’s strategy combines affiliate hustle with ambassador glam. Alongside one-off celebrity collabs, the brand leans on a network of micro- and nano-influencers — often customers themselves — driving conversion through discount codes and relatable content. The result: scaled visibility, at pace and budget.
Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, offering a data-driven solution that empowers brands to scale their KOL (Key Opinion Leader) marketing strategies through authentic partnerships with top creators.
Kolsquare’s advanced technology helps marketing professionals seamlessly identify the best content creators by filtering their content and audience, while also enabling them to build, manage, and optimize campaigns from start to finish. This includes measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors.
With a thriving global community of influencer marketing experts, Kolsquare serves hundreds of customers—including Coca-Cola, Netflix, Sony Music, Publicis, Sézane, Sephora, Lush, and Hermès—by leveraging the latest Big Data, AI, and Machine Learning technologies. Our platform taps into an extensive network of KOLs with more than 5,000 followers across 180 countries on Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat.
As a Certified B Corporation, Kolsquare leads the way in promoting Responsible Influence, championing transparency, ethical practices, and meaningful collaborations that inspire positive change.
Since October 2024, Kolsquare has become part of the Team.Blue group, one of the largest private tech companies in Europe, and a leading digital enabler for businesses and entrepreneurs across Europe. Team.Blue brings together over 60 successful brands in web hosting, domains, e-commerce, online compliance, lead generation, application solutions, and social media.