The rise of influencer marketing is growing rapidly every day, with more brands jumping on board to utilize this effective marketing strategy. An influencer has a direct voice, reputation and relationship with their audience. Putting them in the perfect position to speak about a product or service to their hundreds, thousands or millions of devoted fans and followers.
In this article we discuss how to classify and find influencers and determine if they’re the right fit for your brand!
Understand What An Influencer Is
Before you can begin looking for the perfect influencer, it’s important to understand what an influencer is and how they can be beneficial in selling your product or service. An influencer is quite simply, someone who has influence on an specific audience. The most common way of classifying an influencer is by the size of their audience.
Mega Influencers > Millions of followers and typically very famous. Names such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Selena Gomez, and Kim Kardashian are a few people in this group.
Macro Influencers > Between 100K and 1 million followers. A lot of YouTubers and reality TV stars will fall into this category.
Micro Influencers > Less than 100K followers. Most influencers will fall under this category since this amount of following is easiest to gain. All kinds of people can fall into this group!
To segment even more… you can also classify influencers by type. They can be bloggers, YouTubers/vloggers, talents (artists, musicians, athletes), advocates, experts (education/health/fitness) or regular people who gained following because of their personality, lifestyle and more!
How To Find Influencers
Once you understand what audience you are looking to attract to your product or service you can begin searching for potential influencers. Begin by doing a manual search of influencers who appeal to this audience, you can do this by using the keyword hashtags most relevant for your business and see which profiles are most prominent. Keep information in a spreadsheet or document, types of information you’ll want to document include the persons account name, their following and main channel/s (Instagram, YouTube, etc…).
The manual searching process can take some time, if you have budget there are many Influencer Marketing Tools that can make the process simpler and more efficient. There are some tools that go the extra mile and do all the research for you, providing users with the whole snapshot of an influencer! This can include their following, engagement rates, personal details, relevant links to their channels, location and more. Even more, there are also tools that not only give you all the information, they can also connect you directly to the person. Allowing you to begin communication with the influencer and even manage campaigns.
If you already have access to a social media management tool, most will have social listening and monitoring tools available. These tools will allow you to follow specific keywords, giving you the opportunity to keep tabs on the results and view the top sharers and conversations about your niche. Monitor your results regularly, focusing on results that show users who produce great content, ensuring strong engagement rates and sizable followings.
Evaluate Quality & Relevancy Of Influencers
Regardless of how you go about finding potential influencers, assessing their suitability to the job, campaign or brand is the most important step. Who you work with is a reflection on your brand. Stick to your goals for your business or specific marketing campaign and always keep in mind your values as a brand.
Are They Relevant & Suitable For Your Goals?
You may have found an influencer with the biggest following and engagement, although that doesn’t mean they’re the most suitable for you! Firstly, ensure the potential person is aligned to your brands’ values. Observe the profile they put out to the world, assessing the type of content they produce, conversations they have with fans and content they share. Additionally, are the persons’ demographics fitting for your business and target audience? For example, if you’re a local business, you’ll want to work with influencers who are in your local community.
Don’t be afraid to ask an influencer for their statistics, sharing where there audience is located, and the core demographics of their followings.
Lastly, investigate what other brands this influencer has been associated with. Are these brands businesses you want to also be associated with? Not only that, are they targeting the same audiences as you? This can be a good or bad indication depending on your product, service, and goals for your campaign.
Establish An Influencers Potential
There isn’t an exact way to determine the best influencer, however assessing their engagement rates and conversations can indicate how much potential they may have for your business. Therefore, reiterating that and influencers following isn’t the biggest factor in understanding their potential influence.
Don’t Be Fooled By Fakes
It is very common for “Influencers” to buy followers, likes and comments to boost their profiles online. These fake accounts are not going to help you achieve your campaign goals, so make sure you keep an eye out and stay away from any fake accounts!
Key indicators of fake following can be:
An account has a large following but barely any likes or comments on individual posts,
Comments that don’t make sense or have spelling errors usually indicate that the likes and comments have been purchased
Accounts that don’t appear to have a consistent person as the primary profile user.
To summarize, influencers can be excellent for recommending and building brand awareness about your product or service. They have thousands of engaged audiences waiting to listen to what they have to say. Although, finding the right influencer is what will make this strategy successful for your business.
If you’d like to find out more about working with influencers, effective marketing strategies, or engaging one of our athletes Agency X Talent can provide you the support, guidance, and training to assist you in achieving your marketing goals.
Contact Agency X Talent today by emailing us at hello@agencyx.com.au or calling 1300 521 605.
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