An influencer is a respected, well-liked person who can affect the way other people behave or think. Internet and social media influencers achieve their recognition via continuous, meaningful engagement with a group of people who have common interests. Influencers’ recommendations are modern-day celebrity endorsements.
Influencer marketing works, and perhaps you should consider finding the right influencer to market your products.
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1. How Much Does Influencer Marketing Cost?
Traditional celebrity influencers are instantly recognizable people like Kylie Jenner, whose Instagram posts are reportedly worth around $1 million each.
Macro-influencers are far less recognizable, but their social media reach may be between 50K and 150k followers. Micro-influencers have fewer than 40k followers, but in specific industries or niche markets, even a modest following of 2,5k followers can testify how well they are regarded in their field.
Micro-influencers are generally from the ranks of industry experts and thought leaders in niche communities, their costs are far more reasonable, and they usually have passionately engaged audiences.
Shop around – influencers can provide engagement metrics and rates to calculate the cost-per-engagement, but keep in mind that micro-influencers often will consider alternatives to monetary payment in the best traditions of a barter economy.
2. How To Find An Influencer Marketer
If you’re going to hire an influence marketer, you’ll need to track social media and internet engagement. That is a complex task if you don’t have access to a data analysis tool. It makes infinite sense to start using a social media management tool long before you even consider engaging an influencer.
Your most suitable alternative is to use a social media management tool with a built-in function to find influencer candidates. It can also follow their activities to keep track of your investment.
SproutSocial and Hootsuite have long been considered market leaders, but you can try many other social media management tools.
3. How To Vet Influencers Before You Hire
That person command be designing your brand, and they may make or break your business. Online Social media can be a both-edged sword, so you must do your homework before reaching out to a potential influencer. Here are some questions to ask:
Are they legit? You’ll have to scroll through their feed, click through on posts, and read the comments. It’s eye-wateringly dull, but if you spot a low engagement-to-follower ratio or spammy comments, you’ll need to dig deeper. Bot accounts and fake followers are a sad reality.
Try SocialBlade to check follower growth trends over a year or longer. If you spot sudden big jumps in follower counts, something is amiss. Social platforms are cracking down on follower buying, but it is a common problem and continues unabated.
Have they worked with similar – or opposing – brands before? Ask for a press kit or portfolio of their work.
On which platforms do they stand out? It’s almost impossible to do all of them brilliantly. How consistent are they in terms of quantity and quality of content and engagement?
a. Step 1. Check Social Platforms
Identify each of your potential influencers’ social media accounts and scrutinize them for anything that may direct opposition or damage your brand. Since many influencers only ‘work’ on specific platforms, you may find a ‘non-official’ or private account on other media where you influencer go to let their hair down.
On most platforms, you can search for a name, address, email address, employer, phone number, or any personal details you have, or you can use social-searcher.com, a specialized search engine for social media accounts.
b. Step 2. Do a keyword search
You should also do an internet search using all possible variants of the person’s name, surname, professional names, or favourite hashtags. You’ll probably get the most accurate results with an email address or phone number, but take care to phrase your search terms using quotation marks in the proper places.
An example would be “John Doe” plus a search term like “criminal record”. Criminal records are part of the public record, and it may be crucial that you find such information before you reach out to them.
Also, do a reverse image search on TinEye or Google of selected profile photos. If your investigation uncovers other social media accounts under different names, you need to sit up and pay attention.
c. Step 3. People-search services
Data aggregators can combine public data like a person’s criminal history, marriage records, and public filings with additional information from social media accounts to provide an in-depth profile of the person you are interested in.
Nuwber offers a free search or a more thorough, deeper dig. Either way, you’ll get sufficient information to run cross-checks on the info from other sources.
4. Happy With What You See? Now Reach Out
You have the right to conduct due diligence – your business and your brand is at stake. As a bonus, after going through a thorough vetting process, you’ll know precisely what to expect from the relationship, and you should have no problems negotiating a mutually beneficial agreement.