How do you manage expectations when working with influencers who have varying levels of experience?

To manage expectations when working with influencers of varying experience, set clear, detailed agreements outlining deliverables, timelines, and performance metrics. Communicate openly about goals and provide guidance tailored to their experience level. Regular check-ins ensure alignment and address any issues promptly.

From the creator side, I always recommend asking a brand, "What would success look like?" This tends to offer more clear expectations than some of the marketing lingo that brands will use. For the brands, before goals are discussed there should be a clear understanding of the value any one creator could provide. That allows the brand to ensure the goals they hope to achieve are truly achievable.

Deep diving into an influencer’s personal branding and expertise is crucial when starting a campaign. The selected influencer should align well with the product and brand story, possess the right audience and be capable of communicating the relevant content. As a marketer or project manager, having traceable benchmarks is also important to measure and report the results and ROI of the influencer campaign.

Matching a creator to a campaign goes way beyond experience. Experience alone is not an indicator of a great partnership. A brand should take the time to evaluate past partnerships the creator has participated in, as well as their engagement rate on those campaigns. But consumers want authenticity. Brands need to lean into each creator's strengths, which means trusting the creator's creativity, and not creating an objective based on an appearance of experience.

Emphasizing the significance of dynamic metrics, integrating tools like Brandwatch for social listening can offer insights beyond traditional metrics. By observing sentiment analysis and brand mentions, we gain a deeper understanding of how content resonates with audiences, allowing for a more nuanced approach to influencer marketing strategies. In a recent campaign, we shifted our focus to measure the ripple effect of influencer engagement through secondary engagement metrics. This approach, facilitated by tools like BuzzSumo, showed us not just who engaged directly with our content but how far the content traveled through shares and mentions.