TJ Vasquez
Influencer marketing has become an effective strategy for businesses aiming to connect more authentically with their customer base. However, the success of these campaigns depends on one key element, which is choosing the right influencers. The right person can make all the difference between a successful collaboration and a waste of time and effort from everyone involved.
Let’s go over a few important steps to follow if you want to find Influencers who resonate with your brand’s values and appeal to your target audience.
Understanding Influencer Marketing
Before exploring the ins and outs of finding the right Influencers, it’s important to understand what influencer marketing involves. This strategy uses the influence of individuals with significant social media followings. These individuals have the ability to sway their audience’s purchasing decisions, which makes them great allies for brands hoping to increase awareness, engagement, and sales.
The Benefits of Marketing with Influencers
A well-developed influencer marketing campaign can be rewarding for the brand, the influencer, and the target audiences of both parties. A few notable benefits of these collaborations include:
- Greater Authenticity: Influencers usually have a deep sense of trust with their audiences, so when they speak highly of your brand, it makes their audience see your products and services as more credible than they might otherwise.
- Targeted Reach: Influencers have niche audiences a lot of the time, which allows brands to engage with specific demographics effectively.
- Content Creation: Working with influencers often leads to the production of high-quality content that aligns with both your brand and the influencer’s style.
- Increased Engagement: An influencer’s posts tend to achieve higher engagement rates than traditional brand posts, which can result in more visibility of what your brand has to offer consumers.
- SEO Benefits: Influencer collaborations can drive more traffic to your website and improve search engine rankings, thanks in part to backlinks and increased online discussions about your brand.
Setting a Clear, Reasonable Goal
Define your marketing objectives before you start looking for potential Influencers to work with. What do you want to accomplish for your brand with an influencer marketing campaign? Set clear, tangible goals that give you an outcome to work towards. For example, you might seek:
- More Brand Awareness: If your primary aim is to make your brand better known, collaborating with influencers who have larger followings can help expand your reach.
- A Successful Product Launch: For new product launches, partnering with influencers who can effectively spread the word can help your brand secure a far-reaching launch.
- Increased Sales Conversion: If a greater number of sales is your main focus, look for influencers who know how to convert their followers into customers.
- Meaningful Community Building: Brands seeking to develop a loyal customer base may benefit from working with influencers who encourage community engagement and relationship-building.
Goal Alignment Example
Consider a tech brand launching a new type of headset. Their goal might be to increase brand awareness and make a certain number of sales once the product launches. By focusing on influencers who work in gaming or other forms of media, they’d likely target the right audience more effectively than they might if they sought out, say, a health and fitness influencer.
Defining Your Ideal Influencer Profile
After you’ve clearly defined your goals, the next step is to list the characteristics of individuals who align with your brand’s messaging. For example:
Relevance to Your Niche
Look for influencers whose content naturally relates to or overlaps with your industry. Let’s say your brand sells kitchen accessories. Influencers in the cuisine niche would be an obvious choice, but so too might influencers whose content focuses on health and fitness.
On the other hand, encouraging a news-centric influencer or one in the finance industry to promote your kitchen items would likely result in an underperforming campaign. When users have no idea why they’re being pitched a certain product, they’re probably going to ignore it and move on with their day, so choose the niche to pursue carefully.
Follower Demographics
Your target demographic should match the influencer’s audience. Take a look at metrics like age range, gender, location, and other interests their followers have. Social media tools (like Instagram Insights or YouTube Analytics) can provide you with helpful data during your search.
Engagement Rates
An influencer’s engagement rate can be a better indicator of impact than follower count. High engagement rates suggest that the influencer’s followers are interested in their content, which means they’re more likely to notice and engage with your brand’s promotion.
Content Style and Voice
The influencer’s voice and aesthetic should feel like a natural fit for your brand. Review their past content to see if their tone aligns with your brand values consistently. A high-energy, comedic influencer might be a good match for a youthful fashion brand, while a more professional, informative influencer may suit a technology or finance brand better.
Previous Partnerships
Consider influencers with a good track record of previous partnerships that align with your industry. If they’ve successfully collaborated with similar brands, it can be a sign that they’ll likely represent your products well and encourage audience interaction.
Types of Influencers to Consider
Being aware of the different types of Influencers and their follower counts can help you narrow down which ones will likely align with your campaign objectives.
Mega and macro-influencers tend to be more on the expensive side to work with, as they have a widespread following. Mega-influencers have at least 1 million followers, while macro-influencers have between 100,000 and 1 million. Though these individuals have a massive reach, they may not be suitable for businesses with niche audiences or smaller budgets.
Micro and nano-influencers, on the other hand, usually cater to more focused audiences and tend to be more affordable to work with. They also tend to have high engagement rates, which suggests that they’re more authentic and relatable to their audience than some of the bigger industry names.
Researching Potential Influencers
Once you have a relatively clear idea of what you’re looking for, you can start the process of finding the right influencers for your set parameters.
Here are a few approaches to consider:
- Social Media Search Tools: Use platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok to search for hashtags that relate to your industry. This way, you can locate influencers who are already creating content in your niche.
- Influencer Marketing Platforms: There are several platforms like AspireIQ, Traackr, and Upfluence that help brands connect with influencers. Some of them offer advanced search features that make it easier to browse by niche, follower count, engagement rates, and more.
- Reviewing Brand Mentions: Look through your brand’s tags, mentions, and comments to determine whether there are already influencers who use your product or service. If someone is already promoting your brand organically, they may be more receptive to a formal partnership.
- Audience Recommendations: Ask your current customers or social media followers who they follow and admire. This can provide insight into influencers your audience already trusts.
Evaluating Influencer Authenticity
One of the biggest challenges in influencer marketing is making sure that the individual’s audience and engagement levels are genuine. Keep the following in mind when trying to gauge an influencer’s authenticity:
Engagement Consistency
Look for consistent engagement across their posts, even if they seem to have decent engagement rates at a glance. A sudden, steep increase in likes or comments on particular posts can indicate fake engagement, as can an account with high followers but low engagement. Keep in mind, though, that a couple of poorly performing posts shouldn’t detract too much from a history of otherwise consistent engagement.
Follower Quality
A large following doesn’t mean a lot when the numbers come from inactive accounts, spambots, and followers that the influencer paid for. To weed out low-quality followers, use tools like Social Blade to check follower growth trends as well as genuine audience engagement.
You can also briefly scan through the comments on their posts. Accounts that seem to post generic responses, one-word responses, or repetitive comments that make little sense tend to be either bots or paid followers. If these make up the majority of an influencer’s massive, yet barely engaged audience, consider it a red flag.
Content Authenticity
Influencers who mix promotional and personal content generally relate to their audiences more effectively. On the other hand, those who post frequent branded content may seem more like advertisers than personalities that people connect with.
Take a look at their past content to discover whether the individuals you’re considering tend to put out sales pitches or personalized, relatable messaging.
Building Relationships with Influencers
Building a successful partnership with the right influencers goes beyond transactional agreements, especially if you hope to work together again in the future. To build long-lasting, professional relationships, you’ll need to make sure that the benefits of your collaboration are apparent.
Make your partnerships rewarding and one-of-a-kind by:
Reaching Out Personally
Avoid generic messages. Instead, show them that you and your team have a genuine interest in their content and how it aligns with your brand. Mention specific posts or campaigns they’ve done in the past (unless they’re new to brand deals), and be clear about why you believe the collaboration would be mutually beneficial. Keep it short and sweet initially. You can provide the finer details if the influencer responds.
Offering Fair Compensation
Influencers are professionals, and they deserve fair compensation for their work. Payment may vary depending on their follower count, engagement rate, and the type of content they create. Be sure to discuss payment openly and negotiate to reach a fair agreement.
Providing Creative Freedom
Allow influencers the freedom to represent your brand in their authentic voice. Their followers appreciate their unique style, so instead of imposing strict guidelines, encourage them to cater the messaging to their audience. After all, overly scripted, sales-y content rarely converts audiences the way that genuine recommendations do.
Fostering Long-Term Partnerships
One-off collaborations can be effective, but long-term partnerships are generally more rewarding. Not only do they build greater brand recognition, but followers are also more likely to view the influencer’s endorsement as genuine if they see it consistently over time.
Measuring Campaign Success
After hammering out the details and launching your influencer campaign, it’s important to keep an eye on how it performs. To determine the success of your efforts, take a look at the following metrics.
- Engagement Metrics: Track likes, comments, shares, and saves on the influencer’s posts. High engagement levels suggest that the audience was genuinely interested in the content.
- Traffic and Conversions: Use trackable links or discount codes that are specific to the campaign to monitor the traffic and sales generated.
- Social Mentions: Watch your social media accounts for mentions of your brand following the campaign. Increased brand mentions tend to correlate with enhanced brand awareness, which can help you gauge the broader impact of the collaboration.
- Return on Investment (ROI): Compare the costs of your influencer marketing campaign to the revenue generated. While financial ROI is important, also consider non-monetary ROI, such as brand recognition, audience reach, and the quality of the generated content.
Finding the right influencers for your brand is a strategic process that requires careful planning, evaluation, and relationship-building. With the right approach, influencers can help amplify your brand’s message, build trust with potential customers, and drive meaningful results for your business.
