Influencer marketing is a powerful way to boost your online reputation, reach new audiences, and generate trust and loyalty. But how do you find and vet the right influencers for your niche and audience? Here are some tips to help you with this crucial step.
Before you start looking for influencers, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and what kind of influencers you are looking for. Do you want to raise awareness, drive traffic, generate leads, or increase sales? Do you want to target a specific demographic, location, or interest group? Do you want to work with micro, macro, or mega influencers? Do you want to collaborate on a long-term or short-term basis? Having these goals and criteria in mind will help you narrow down your search and focus on the most relevant and effective influencers.
Too often, we see brands start influencer campaigns before they’ve defined what success looks like. They end up focusing on vanity metrics instead of data that measures impact. It’s essential to start with clear and attainable outcomes in mind. Based on those outcomes, will an influencer campaign do the job, or do you need a CRM program? Or perhaps an image campaign? It’s also critical to understand how long it may take to achieve results. I’ve seen brands run one I’ll-conceived influencer campaign and expect significant movement in areas like brand lift that hadn’t moved in years.
I think the big thing sometimes too is not really listening or accurately paying attention to what your audience / demographic or community is really seeking.
One concept that many business owners are using (and any business can use) is becoming influencers themselves by having content everywhere online and in different formats. Instead of exchanging time for money, they invest in content syndication campaigns that create, publish and syndicate (on hundreds of high authority sites) unique content (using different formats) that their target audience will see online whenever they search for the services the business offers. This way you become the influencer who shares high-quality, original, and engaging content that resonates with your audience and aligns with your brand values and message while building credibility, authority and online visibility in the process.
There are many online tools and platforms that can help you find and vet influencers for your niche and audience. Some of them are free, while others require a subscription or a fee. Some examples are BuzzSumo, Upfluence, AspireIQ, and InfluencerDB. These tools and platforms can help you discover influencers based on keywords, topics, categories, hashtags, or social media platforms. They can also help you analyze their audience size, engagement rate, reach, relevance, and credibility. You can also use them to compare different influencers and see their past collaborations and reviews.
Using these tools is platforms is definitely the way to go. Passively putting bits and pieces of your inner culture team community I feel better portrays a line of transparency in terms of who you are as a business what you're represent and what you're all about.
Once you have a list of potential influencers, you need to engage with them and build a relationship. This means following them on social media, liking and commenting on their posts, sharing their content, and sending them personalized messages. You want to show them that you are genuinely interested in their work and that you have something valuable to offer them. You also want to see how they interact with their followers and how responsive they are to your messages. This will help you gauge their personality, professionalism, and suitability for your brand.
Engagement influencers is critical in terms of a sign off for your local hub/community of customers etc. I feel like once you have the buy-in or the backing of these exact individuals the rest comes very naturally/organically.
Another important factor to consider when vetting influencers is their content quality and authenticity. You want to work with influencers who create high-quality, original, and engaging content that resonates with their audience and aligns with your brand values and message. You also want to avoid influencers who use fake followers, bots, or paid likes and comments to inflate their numbers and influence. You can check their content quality and authenticity by looking at their portfolio, reading their captions and stories, watching their videos and live streams, and using tools like Social Blade or HypeAuditor to detect any anomalies or red flags.
The final step before hiring an influencer is to negotiate the terms and expectations of the collaboration. You need to discuss and agree on the budget, timeline, deliverables, creative direction, disclosure, and measurement of the campaign. You also need to have a clear and written contract that outlines all the details and responsibilities of both parties. You want to make sure that the influencer understands your goals and objectives, follows your guidelines and best practices, and delivers the results you expect.
This can be a double edge sword. I feel like a lot of times businesses dive right into relationship without clearly defining what the expectations are from both ends of things. This in the long run could absolutely be a detriment rather than a catalyst to connecting with community members.