How do you choose the right influencer for your campaign? Let’s find out!

Let us say you have just made the decision to buy some vegan footwear. Since you have just decided to make this change, you’d probably want some guidance on what to look out for when purchasing and which brands to buy. 

In this case, which one are you most likely to do?

1. Search for vegan footwear brands and buy from the first one that catches your fancy
2. Search for recommendations from real people on social media

Me? I always choose option 2 because nothing is more trustworthy than reviews from real people who have used the products. This is why influencer marketing is always a great strategy to have in your social media arsenal. 

Before You Go About Choosing The Right Influencer —

Clearly Outline Your Goals

The first step should always be to set your campaign goals. What is your brand about? What message does it send? What products/ services do you offer? How do you want your social media influencers to promote your product? Do you have specific ideas in mind for this?

Once this is decided, you can move 0n to the next step: actually choosing your influencers.

Choosing The Right Social Media Influencer For Your Campaign

There are several criteria that a good influencer should fulfill. Let’s look at what they are.

Engagement Rate

It is not just the follower count that matters, rather the engagement rate as a whole. This includes the number of followers along with the number of likes and comments that an influencer gets. The higher the engagement rate, the better chance of your product reaching more people. 

You can calculate the engagement rate by using this formula:

[(Likes + Comments)/ Followers] x 100. 

5% is a great engagement rate percentage. This means that your influencer has a good relationship with their followers.

But why is calculating this important? Because follower count alone is not a good metric of how well a page is doing. An influencer might have 100,000 followers but only 200 likes on each post. On the other hand, someone might have 5000 followers but 700 likes on each post. Here, the second person is obviously doing better, and that is who you should choose.

Audience

How relevant is your influencer’s audience when it comes to your brand? Are they likely to resonate with it, getting you more customers? 

For example, let’s say you sell scented candles in New York. You’re a small business, so you currently don’t offer shipping to other states. In this case, you need to make sure that the majority of your influencer’s audience is from New York. 

You can find this by checking out their audience demographics such as age, location, gender, and interests. 

Relevance

Choose an influencer who is already in your niche, or is genuinely passionate and excited about your products. This directly leads to authenticity which will resonate with audiences more. 

For example: I am someone who posts about books a lot. So promoting things such as bookstores or stationery items will excite me. My followers are people who have similar interests, so it is bound to excite them, too. This excitement will translate into more customers for the brands I am promoting. 

If you sell art supplies, contact artists because you will get an honest review + authenticity + a relevant audience, all in one go. 

Content Quality

Does your influencer put a lot of thought into each of their posts, or do they just upload a picture with a one-word caption and call it a day? This is very important because it is your influencer’s job to make their audience care about your brand. And content quality plays a huge role in that! Because followers can smell fake promos from a mile away.

Your influencer needs to speak for you, and it needs to be in their own words. This means that they will have some creative freedom over how they promote your product. Are they going to post a review video, or is it going to be a story about why they love your brand so much? (See how authenticity and relevance all tie in together here?) 

So when they post higher quality content, the odds of you getting good results increases. Because if the influencer does not show genuine interest in your products, neither will their audience. 

Frequency and Reliability

In order to build a loyal following with a good engagement rate, it is important to post frequently. Ideally, it should be anywhere between 3-5 days a week. Check your influencer’s page to see how often they post, because this has a direct connection to their traffic.

Another thing to look out for is reliability. Are your influencers giving you what you want? Are they posting during optimal times? Are their posts well-thought-out and do they promote your product in a natural way? 

It often takes a few sponsored posts to truly promote your brand and convert audiences into customers. So frequency and reliability are both important factors to consider when choosing your influencer. 

Don’t forget to see if they have a healthy mix of sponsored posts and normal content. Too many sponsored posts, and yours will simply get lost in the mix. Moreover, this lowers their credibility and sends across the message that they are only doing it for the sake of making some quick cash.

Audience Authenticity

Now, we come to one of the most important metrics- the authenticity of an influencer’s audience. By this we mean: are their audience real people or are they bots?

You can check this in two ways. 1) By manually going through their followers’ profiles to see if they look like real people (very cumbersome, not recommended). 2) By using influencer marketing software that will quickly analyze and give you a chart of how many followers are bots and how many are real people.

Needless to say, this is important because you want to be focusing your strategy on real people and not bots.

How To Find Influencers?

The best way is through social media. Go through your brand hashtags and search for people who use them frequently. You may even search for product hashtags. For example, sustainable vegan shoes. This way, you find people who align with your brand, so it’s a win-win! When you find someone you would like to work with, send them a DM or an email, and extend an offer. 

Another way to look for influencers is by joining influencer marketing agencies. This has many benefits as these agencies have a host of influencers that you can choose from. Just select your niche, choose an influencer you like, and get campaigning! These agencies also often offer analytics about the influencer’s engagement. This saves you a lot of time but comes at a price.

Finally, a simple google search will get you the names of top influencers in your industry. Example: Top Food Influencers in LA. If you have a hefty budget, don’t hesitate to contact them. You can read more about how to contact influencers in our article here. 

So keep these things in mind, choose the right influencers, and sit back and see the magic happen. But before that, don’t forget to share this article with others!