It’s looking like influencer marketing will be here to stay for a while. While there are certainly some dangers involved, an influencer marketing campaign can be incredibly successful when executed correctly. By far the most important part is to select the right influencer to post about your product. With more people becoming influencers’ every day though, it can be hard to find the right ones. Here’s what you should look for when selecting an influencer.
1. Bots Beware
When starting off, many influencers (as well as brands and individuals) will buy bot-followers. It makes sense in the beginning, after all, who wants to follow and engage with an account that no one else is. But while bots will increase follower count, they typically don’t like or engage with content and seeing as they’re not real people they have zero value to a brand trying to reach audiences through an influencer.
Take a look at an influencer’s follower count and compare it to engagement on their posts. If the number of likes and comments seems low compared to their followers, chances are they’re heavily using bots. These are the type of influencers you want to avoid. Look for influencers that get around 10% of their followers to engage. So if they have 40,000 followers, you should expect roughly 4,000 likes and comments.
2. Trust and Target Audience
It’s important your hire an influencer that your target audience trusts and connects with. Sometimes it’s obvious if an influencer fits your brand message, but other times it can be more difficult. For example, if you were an organic food company and want to target young moms, a health and fitness influencer would fit. But that influencer is only valuable to your brand if their followers are moms, not college kids. This part may take a little research but click on the profiles of some people who liked the influencers post. If you find most fit your ideal market, it sounds like a match!
3. Contract Terms
Absolutely take the time to write up a contract between your brand and the influencer you choose. This is to protect both parties, but it also clearly lays out what is expected. This is where you specify how many posts, what type of posts, what platforms and other details.
Without a contract, both the influencer and your brand can end up unhappy. For example, you may send them a free product for review, but they don’t actually review it. Or you pay them to make one Instagram post, which they do but they remove it a day later. All these small details should be carefully hammered out in a contract just like you would with any other advertisers or brand ambassador.
4. Matching Brand Images
Influencers are just like any other company in that they take the time to carefully craft their brand. This is more than just what sphere of interests they have. It’s their whole persona. Many brands make the mistake of just looking at the pictures an influencer posts and not their caption. Some influencers may swear, or make jokes, or be more controversial than others. It’s always a good idea to know this before getting into a partnership with them.
Influencer marketing campaigns are just a digital form of classic brand ambassador ones. Instead of a movie star, it’s a YouTube star. But the same level of risk is there. If the influencer you use does something negative that could potentially come back to harm you. So make sure your brand images match and that you do your research.
5. Post Aesthetics
This might not seem as big, but brands should make sure that you visually like the type of posts an influencer makes. As part of their brand, influencers often have a consistent style of posts. Maybe they’re more into funny short videos, or maybe they post really light and white pictures.
So why does it matter as long as it looks good? Well, if you’re a brand that uses bold colors, picking an influencer that has a black and white aesthetic probably isn’t the best fit, even if their posts are great. Just scroll through their feed and try to imagine how your brand would fit into one of their posts.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing campaigns are becoming increasingly common and effective. Many brands could benefit from adding influencers to their digital marketing campaigns. It’s all about selecting the right people to represent your company though, so take the time to look into the 5 items above. If you want to learn more about influencer marketing feel free to contact us.
