Picking the wrong influencer can have disastrous results on your campaign. On the flip side, the right influencer can help you hit an incredible ROI and boost your brand credibility. The magic happens when you’re able to pair with those perfect-fit influencers that match your campaign objectives and your brand values.
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So where do you start? Let’s dive in and help choose the right influencers to match your goals.
What Happens When You Pick The Wrong Influencer
The ramifications of picking the wrong influencer can be catastrophic for them and for your brand. The internet has an overwhelming supply of examples and tragedies that tell the tale of multiple PR nightmares and internet scandals.
Off-Brand Bad News
When you settle on an influencer who is not a good brand and messaging match, this usually happens because the follower count was just too tempting. On your own, your brand would likely never achieve the same level of reach.
Unfortunately, you end up with mixed signals that reach the initial thousands or millions of followers, quickly followed by the media. Do you remember the famous Pepsi campaign featuring Kendall Jenner?
Most people do. The result was a message that was off-brand and culturally insensitive. That’s a long downhill slide that’s tough to recover from. Some influencers never do.
Matching your brand’s message and sharing in your values are essential elements that are directly tied to the success of your campaign. If you have a fitness influencer that focuses on body positivity, start using all sorts of filters, this sends the wrong message, and you will be impacted negatively.
According to a Statista report, the average time spent on social media on a daily basis in the U.S. is just over two hours.[1] Followers cannot be that easily fooled, and many are looking for those little telling details.
Of course, it’s at the influencer’s discretion who they partner with. However, it’s easy for both parties to be blinded by the numbers and ignore the implications. Messaging has everything to do with sticking to common interests, shared values, and a positive brand image.
Avoidable Ethical Scandals
Without naming names, there are far too many cases involving influencers and internet-famous celebrities who have taken a sharp fall from grace due to ethically questionable behavior or even illegal actions in some cases.
There are those little issues, such as accidentally including the creative brief in the posted content or promoting a platform from a competitor’s device, which while highly controversial, are not illegal. Then there are actual legal concerns that have influencers dropping like hot potatoes, with the brand’s hands being the ones that get burned.
Of course, you can’t predict the future, but you can vet your influencer before partnering with them. Working with an influencer marketing agency would make this process easier as they have already established strong working relationships.
Poor Audience Match
If you choose an influencer with a follower count in the six figures or even seven, this could bolster your brand, unlike any other channel. However, if their audience is made of users who will never buy from you and are not aligned with your brand, it may do more harm than good.
It would be a waste of your time and budget to pair with a mega influencer for the very first time when your campaign objectives are to get more conversions. Unless you’re already a household name, these influencers are better suited to awareness and top-of-funnel campaigns.
How To Pick The Right Influencers For Your Campaign
The best campaign results often come with leveraging multiple influencers across several tiers.
Different Types of Influencers
Each category has a specific place in the influencer marketing landscape and will bring something different to the table. The numbers vary depending on who you ask, but there are generally five categories of influencers.
- Nano-Influencers have between 1k and 5k followers
- Micro-Influencers are between 5k and 10k followers
- Mid-Tier Influencers will have between 20k and 100k followers
- Macro-Influencers have amassed more than 100k but less than 1 million
- Meg-Influencers are anyone with more than 1 million followers
What Are Your Campaign Objectives?
What do you hope this campaign will accomplish? Common campaign objectives include:
- Brand awareness
- Increased engagement
- Sales or conversions
What part of your customer journey are you targeting? Is this a potentially warm audience or cold users who have never heard of you? These are the questions you must answer before you begin looking for an influencer partnership.
Now that you know what you want, you can begin looking for the type of influencer that will fit your goals. A mega influencer account will get incredible reach but low conversions. A micro-influencer has strong trust with its audience and a high potential for conversions. To achieve a level of both reach and engagement, a lower-level macro influencer or mid-tier influencer might do the trick.
Look For An Audience Match
A beauty brand probably will not find a strong partner in a rural lifestyle influencer. But they may fit right in with a lifestyle and travel blogger. In the same vein, an adventure brand probably won’t find a good home with an entrepreneurial-centered influencer. But it might work well with a dad blogger.
In order for your campaign to work, you have to get in front of the right amount of the right people. Tracking demographics and cross-audience information may be easier if you’re using an influencer marketing agency or platform.
Check Their Engagement Rates
Sorry, but likes and followers are vanity metrics. They don’t give the whole picture. Once you get into large macro and mega accounts, there is also the risk of at least some of that data being fake.
You need to calculate their engagement as derived from views, impressions, likes, shares, and comments combined in order to truly see your potential impact. Take the number of followers they have and divide this by the average number of engagements across multiple posts over a period of time to get this data.
Look For Authentically Shared Values
Influencer marketing is based on the idea of borrowed influence or borrowed credibility. Social media influencers have built a loyal following of fans and audience members due to their authentic and genuine life and value sharing.
Your brand must dovetail with its audience’s expectations of content and products that fit the needs of its community.
Look For Experience and Expertise
Review existing influencer content for the last several months or a year. Have they partnered with other brands and products? Do they post affiliate links?
Is their content consistent? When was the last post? Is it a good mix of organic and curated? Do they share any content or partnerships that don’t align with your brand?
How do they conduct themselves in the comments? Do they come across as an acceptable authority on a topic that is relatively adjacent to your brand?
Nano and micro-influencers may not have a significant amount of experience to pull from, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t make a good brand partner. They will be eager and inexpensive.
Don’t Waste Your Marketing Budget. Pick The Perfect Influencer.
Always remember that you’re building a relationship, not just a campaign. If the goal is mutual success, you will have a partner that’s with you long-term.
Sources
[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage-worldwide/
Author Bio:
Chris Jacks is the Director of Growth Strategy at HireInfluence. As Director of Growth Strategy, Chris is tasked with analyzing and adapting to the every changing influencer marketing industry to ensure HireInfluence is positioned for long term success and remains at the forefront of innovation.