When you collaborate together with social media influencers, they represent your company. So before you decide the person who will play this role you must know the things to look into.
The influencer’s personal style, as well as their popularity among their followers, can be significant elements, they’re certainly not the only things you need to think about. Brands must consider the following 10 elements when considering collaborations with influencers.
Quality and category of content
Examine their content. What’s the topic? Naturally, you’ll want an influencer that posts within the same genre as your company. If you’re a company that makes kitchenware, for instance, it is important to choose an influencer who is a home decor, food or lifestyle expert. If your company makes clothing or accessories, you’ll need a fashion influencer, and so on.
Next, what is their quality of content? Are their images crisp and well-constructed? Are they able to edit and upload Instagram Stories and TikTok videos? In order to promote your brand on social media, an influencer must be able to clearly communicate the message of your brand.
Location
This information is typically found in their biography as well as in geotags they use for their articles. You can also find it by using an influencer marketing platform, or by examining their content.
The importance of location is threefold:
- It could affect the disclosure guidelines for influencers. Numerous countries have regulations on this.
- The location must be relevant to your marketing campaign. Think about your target audience and where to reach them.
- The location of the influencer will impact costs. Don’t expect an influencer in NYC to be priced the same as one from Manila.
Aesthetic style
Appearance is a significant factor in these campaigns. Take a look at the influencer’s style. What filters and colors do they employ? Find someone who complements the style of your brand.
If, for instance, your company sells clothing that is hippie-inspired, find an influencer who has the same style. They are likely to have followers who share similar tastes in fashion, which means that the likelihood is higher that they’ll be interested in your company.
Follower count
Follower count, also referred to as reach, provides us with an idea of the number of people who will be likely to view the content of an influencer. It also affects the price of an influencer’s services.
There are five kinds of influencers according to their followers:
- Nano influencers, 1-5K followers
- Micro influencers, 5-50K followers
- Medium influencers, 50-100K followers
- Macro influencers, 100K-1M followers
- Mega influencers, 1M+ followers
A greater reach doesn’t mean an influencer is always better. Engagement rate is also very important, and nano and micro-influencers typically have the highest engagement rates in the industry.
Nano and some micro-influencers usually work with you for free products. At the top of the micro-tier, influencers start to request fees. From the middle tier up, influencers usually have managers and may increase the fees more.
Follower growth
Find out how an influencer attracted followers. Organic growth is slow and steady. If you have well-crafted, targeted content, influencers will gain followers over time.
If you notice that an influencer suddenly gained an abundance of followers, it could be because they have bought fake followers. Make sure they haven’t hosted a giveaway or gone viral during the time when they experienced the increase. If not, then that growth could be fake.
The growth rate as shown by influencer marketing platform Heepsy. The steady but slow trend indicates that it’s organic.
Followers to following ratio
Examine how many followers an influencer has and compare it with the number of accounts they follow. If this number is similar to one, it could suggest that the influencer may be using a follow/unfollow approach.
This is when an influencer follows random accounts then waits for them to follow them back. After that, they unfollow them. The new followers are just trying to be nice and don’t really care about the content of the influencer.
Engagement rate
As we mentioned earlier, engagement rates are vital. It’s due to the fact that engagement rate shows how interested the followers are in the content of an influencer. The more engaged they are, the more likely they will be engaged with the content.
The ways that you can interact with content differ across social networks. Each social network therefore has its own benchmark. Therefore, when comparing influencers, just compare them to their peers. That is, don’t look at Twitch streamers‘ engagement rates compared to the benchmarks of TikTok creators, and so on.
In addition, as we have mentioned earlier, engagement also varies based on the amount of followers. As followers increase, however, engagement tends to decrease. It’s therefore important to measure an influencer’s engagement against the averages for their following segment.
Audience demographics
When you’re vetting an influencer’s profile be sure to check their audience as well. Check to see if the target you’ve chosen for your campaign aligns with the audience of the influencer. Consider demographics such as gender, age, the location, the language spoken and interests.
These results can be quite surprising. For example, you might find an American influencer who believes the audience they are targeting is largely from the US. But, an analysis of the audience may reveal otherwise, as seen in the chart above.
Audience authenticity
Additionally, you should consider audience authenticity. Influencers can buy fake followers, and you should not spend marketing money on bots. Influencer marketing software can analyze this for you.
The authenticity of the audience, as shown by influencer marketing platform Heepsy.
If you’re not on any influencer marketing platform, scan the followers of the influencer. Do the people who follow them and share their posts appear to be real individuals? Bots are generally pretty noticeably fake, due to the absence of a profile photo, no content, or non-natural speech patterns.
Collaborations prior to yours
Get an overview of other brands that the influencer has worked with. What kind or content did they share? Did the content garner an adequate amount of engagement?
Doing some research can give you an idea of the way their content will be able to serve your brand. You may also want to determine if the person you are collaborating with has worked with a competitor to determine if you wish to stay clear of cooperating with them.
Conclusion
If you’re looking to locate social media influencers and choose the most suitable one for your company’s marketing campaign, take these tips to keep in mind when doing this. An accurate analysis of influencers is an essential element in any effective influencer marketing strategy Therefore, it is important to take the time to perform it correctly.
