Why is it important to measure the reach of your influencer marketing campaign?

“Reach” refers to the total number of unique users or accounts exposed to a particular piece of content. It quantifies the potential size of the audience that an influencer can reach with their posts across various social media platforms. Unlike impressions which represents the total number of times a piece of content is displayed, reach focuses on the unique individuals who have encountered the content.

Reach is the number of people exposed to an influencer's content, which is crucial in assessing potential brand exposure. Knowing an influencer's average reach helps allocate budgets wisely. Higher reach justifies a greater investment, while lower reach prompts a reconsideration of spending.

Reach refers to the number of people who come across an influencer's content on social media. Influencers use their existing fan base or following to help organizations gain more audience or in layman terms, reach more people.

To assess influencer reach, I start by examining platform-specific data, including the average reach of recent posts and insights from tools like Social Blade or HypeAuditor. I then directly request analytics from the influencer, focusing on metrics like average watch time and swipe rates, particularly on platforms like YouTube. This comprehensive approach informs strategic decisions on investment and collaboration navigation, ensuring ads are optimally placed for maximum impact. It's all about obtaining the full story efficiently.

1)Analytics tools Social media platforms ( Facebook/ YouTube/ Instagram/ Twitter/ LinkedIN etc) offers analytics tools that provide insights into the post performance, including reach. It’s very easy to just take a glance at these analytics and get overall view of everything about the post 2)Third-Party Analytics Brands often use third-party analytics tools to gain a more comprehensive understanding of influencer reach.These tools can offer additional insights & help verify the accuracy of the metrics 3)Engagement Metrics While reach is essential, it’s crucial to complement it with engagement metrics such as likes, comments, shares & save.A high reach without engagement indicate that content is not resonating effectively with the audience

Reach is a great metric when assessing the effectiveness of influencer marketing campaigns. However, it alone is not enough. Other metrics such as authenticity, relevancy and content suitability must be considered.

Engagement metrics - High reach with low engagement might indicate content is not resonating effectively. Quality of Audience: A large follower count is not synonymous with a high quality or relevant audience. It’s essential to evaluate the demographics, interests, and behaviours of the audience to ensure alignment with the brand’s target market. Authenticity & Trust : The success is not just about numbers, it’s about building trust and authenticity. If the audience is not connected enough with the influencer, trust for the brand can’t be developed. Saturation & Ad Fatigue : Imagine yourself as a customer and you see the same product promoted in every social media app. People will lose interest.

How brands forecast their expected performance is one of the biggest mistakes we see advertisers make when running influencer marketing campaigns. Word on the Block creates conservative expectations of reach for each creator to help guide the negotiation and selection process. As a result, only creators who are expected to provide the maximum bang for their buck are the ones who get selected. In the end, every creator who participates in the campaign moves forward because the expectation is that they will provide value for the brand, with benchmarks to measure and compare post mortem.

Finding the right set of influencer is the only key to this ! Influencer marketing can only be successful if you find an influencer whose audience is exactly your target market irrespective of the follower count. Instead of conversion through an influencer focus on building trust and authenticity for the brand via them. Don’t treat the influencer as your salesperson but brand ambassadors who can vouch for your brand and create long term visibility, trust and loyalty for the brand. Sales can only happen when the audience can trust the product. Creating content around benefits of the product or its USP is more useful.

Before starting the campaign define your goals clearly whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, or boosting sales, having specific objectives will guide your analysis. Set KPIs like Reach, Impressions and Engagement Utilise Analytics tools to collect data and compare results. Collaborate with influencers on tracking like using unique tracking links, discount codes or custom hashtags. Evaluate the reach quality like demographics data, engagement rates, comments. Quality is often more important than quantity. Compare performance across all platforms Analyze engagement rates - high engagement rates means that the content resonated well with the audience Measure conversion metrics