Thinking of working with Influencers? Here's a few things to think about first!
Influencer marketing can be huge in getting your brand out there, improving your social proof and boosting conversions but it's not as simple as finding someone on Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube or Twitter with a big following and expecting results.
Working with the wrong influencers can do a lot more harm than good for your brand. Below we'll go over some key areas to look at when deciding if to use Influencers and how to select them.
Do they suit your products/Industry?
The first point you should look at above all is how much does that influencer align with your product, service, brand & message? If you are struggling to see how they do, it is very likely their audience will as well.
The best influencer campaigns are ones where the partnership is seamless and natural. For example, if you were operating and had products in the Automotive Industry, you would be better suited to using Youtuber seenthroughglass than Molly-Mae as his niche is within the automotive world and he and his audience would be able to relate.
Now that we've decided whether or not the influencer is within your niche, we can also look at their aesthetic. Would your products/service fit into this? you can also look at how good their content is, would they be able to capture your product/service is a good way? This one is more down to your gut feeling and what the Influencer can produce.
Lastly, its important to look at the users audience, would they likely be your ideal customer? Take a look through their posts and who is liking/commenting on their posts - do these users fit the profile of your target customers? If so, perfect!
How Engaged is their community?
Be wary of looking at just likes alone. An engaged following is more than just likes, the best way of judging this without going deeper into their analytics is by looking through their comments and seeing what the engagement and conversation is like there. Is the influencer getting a lot of relevant comments from their audience? are they engaging back? You cna get a quick sense here of what their engagement is like before going to them and asking for their insights.
Ask for their Insights
Any decent influencer will be more than happy to share their insights with you, if an influencer doesn't want to share this with you - that's a big red flag!
The data that is key to look for is
Profile Stats (Views, Impressions, Website Clicks)
Audience (Age, Gender, active days/times)
Averages (Post Likes, comments, engagement rate)
Top Performing Posts (useful for your content)
Story Stats (Link clicks etc)
Top Performing Stories
Having access to the above data gives you the ability to make sure the influencer fits what you are wanting, and also to look at what content works well.
You can then weigh up if their reach, click-throughs etc is within your requirements, compare it to their costings and see if it is worth it for you - this doesn't always mean that the person with the most click-throughs is who you should use if someone gets fewer clicks but their audience is bang on what you want then that would be better than someone with more clicks but an audience not as spot-on for you. It is all about striking the balance.
Asking for top-performing posts is key, it can be a huge asset for seeing if your content is going to be a hit with their followers and also can give you options on tailoring the content they produce for you to be more like the better performing content.
BUDGET
Budget can be a huge stumbling block for brands working with their ideal influencers. Promotional posts can cost anything from hundreds to tens of thousands, so it's worth making sure you and the influencer are on the same page from the outset.
There's a few ways you can go about finding out about influencer rates, you can request their rate card and from there see how much they charge per post or story.
The way I would recommend is to reach out to the user and explain your brand, what your goals are and the type of post you are looking for. From here, the influencer can have a better idea of your requirements and also be able to decide as to whether your brand is the right fit for them and you can build more of a rapport with them as opposed to just looking at their rates.
Previous Promoted Posts
Looking at an influencers previous work can be a key indicator for how they approach brand partnerships. You can look at stuff such as the type of products/services they have previously worked with, type of content they produced etc, how well they have fit the products into their day-to-day life and content.
You can also look at how much the influencer engages with their audience on their paid posts, are they active in the comments? Do they archive the posts after a certain time?
You also need to look if they have worked with your competitors and make decisions based on that, if they have - is their audience now saturated with posts from that person advertising your industry? If so, it would be pointless to then use that person. If not, then you have a nice untapped audience waiting for you.
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Hopefully the above gives you some great pointers to think about when you look to work with influencers.
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If you want some help with your Influencer Marketing or other aspects, get in touch below:
mac@mac-marketing.com