7 Tips for Finding the RIGHT Influencers for Your Company

With recent headlines such as “Unilever to Cut Ties with Social Media Influencers” are you wondering if the days for using influencers for marketing is over?

The answer is NO.

You’ll be missing out on a valuable form of marketing if you’re not using influencer marketing.

Unilever is NOT cutting ties with social media influencers.

The headline is clickbait and flat-out WRONG!

Unilever has decided it will no longer work with influencers using shady business practices. Instead, they will use influencers who don’t buy followers or likes, use bots and are very transparent about their business practices and exact engagement rates.

A practice that I completely agree with and HIGHLY recommend.

Anything less is fraud.

And while Unilever is not okay with being taken advantage of, they DO recognize the value of using influencers in their marketing strategies. They just want a good bang for their buck and I can’t blame them for that!

Just like the days of keyword stuffing an article so Google would rank it number one in search rankings are gone — gone are the days when having a high number of followers on your social media channels is enough to score you the big bucks as an influencer.

The rise of bots and practice of artificially inflating follower and like numbers have become all too familiar of an occurrence; leaving many businesses with a bad taste in their mouth for influencing once they realize they’ve been scammed.

NO ONE likes to see their marketing budget flushed down the toilet due to scammy business practices.

Does this mean the rise of the influencers is over?

Far from it.

Influencers are here to stay.

Influencer marketing is the newest form of marketing and when done right, it’s returning huge ROIs with an average of $6.85 or more for every $1 invested and 51% of marketers feeling they gained better customers.

Today, influencers carry far more clout than traditional advertising; whether it’s on the television or in print.

People are switching more and more to services with little to no advertising, but they are still reading blogs and following social media. As a result, using influencers is becoming one of the primary ways to reach target audiences.

And with the fall in trust of big corporations, businesses and governments, people are trusting word of mouth recommendations from the people they follow whether it’s the mega influencers like the Kardashians or the little micro-influencer next door neighbor.

REPUTABLE influencers do exist and forming partnerships with them works well work.

It just means finding ones that operate using “real” business practices a tad bit harder in the crowds of anyone and everyone calling themselves an influencer and looking for a free handout.

So how do you find the RIGHT influencers to represent your brand and company?

For starters, you do your homework. And if you don’t have time to do it yourself or you don’t understand the process, hire an expert that can do it for you.

How to Spot Influencers Using Bots or Buying Likes and Follows

Right now, it’s pretty easy to spot influencers who are artificially inflating their likes, follows, and comments. This could change as AI becomes more prevalent and bots more intelligent.

If the influencer has a massive number of followers and little engagement, either they aren’t posting anything of interest for their followers, OR they have bought and paid for those numbers.

And even if they do have decent engagement rates, look at the engagement quality

Does it seem natural, something a real person would say? Are A LOT of the words misspelled or have really bad grammar, like the person commenting isn’t a native speaker? Do the comments match the photo or post? Are there more than A LOT of one word or emoji responses? Do their sponsored posts have A LOT higher numbers than their unsponsored ones?

It’s pretty easy to spot bots and paid comments. You’ll see plenty of “That’s great!” or “Awesome pic.” or comments that don’t match the photo saying something like “I love your dress” on a photo of a bottle of mouthwash.

You can also spot bots by looking at the follower list or if you notice A LOT of weird names or names loaded with numbers. These all tend to be bots!

All of these things are red flags that the influencer is buying followers and engagement and it’s time to walk away.

Ask for Engagement Rates

Having a vast number of followers doesn’t guarantee high engagement.

For example, an influencer with 1 million followers might only have an engagement rate of 1%, where an influencer with 1,000 followers might have 10%.

You want the more active engagement rate.

Yes, a 1% engagement rate of 1 million followers equals higher engagement numbers than 10% of the 1,000. BUT it’s generally accepted across the industry that engagement rates of 1% or less are not active or engaged followers. More than likely you will have better ROI if you used the smaller influencer with the more engaged followers.

It’s the WHOLE engagement rates that count.

And NOT just the likes!

You want high-quality comments as well and to see the influencer (or the company representative) returning engagement.

ENGAGEMENT is what gets your products and services seen. It’s what gains you leads and heightens your brand awareness. NOT the number of followers.

Rival IQ’s 2018 Social Media Industry Benchmark Report lists the average median engagement rate across all forms of social media at 1.73%. Of course, that number will vary across platforms and industries.

This percentage includes the number of likes and comments. The higher the number, the better the engagement and brand awareness.

While we all would love to see 100%, it’s just not possible.

I find looking for influencers with engagement rates of 3% or higher will get you an excellent return on investment.

Is the Influencer and Your Product the Right Match?

Just because an influencer has high engagement rates and excellent followers, doesn’t mean it’s the right influencer for your product, brand, voice, and objectives.

You both need to have similar messages, values, ethics and operate in an industry that makes sense for your product or service.

For example, you wouldn’t use a luxury influencer to share a budget product. Or you wouldn’t use a vegan influencer for an animal product. Or a fossil fuel car with an influencer who only supports clean energy. Or someone in China for an American product.

It’s also better when your message and product matches the goals and values of the influence because when an influencer believes in your product or service, their message reflects their enthusiasm. You want influencers picking the right products and services, not ones taking on anyone and anything for the money.

As a result, their audience will also share similar values, ethics and get the message which means they WANT your products and services.

Look at Metrics of the Influencer’s Audience

The audience HAS to want whatever it is that you’re selling, so don’t forget to look at the metrics of the influencer’s audience.

Do they have the age, location, gender, or whatever parameters that your product or services sell too?

If not, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

For example, you wouldn’t want to sell unicorn notebooks to 30’s and up office professionals. Or men’s razors to a solely female audience (Well this can depend. Women do influence men and rules are made to be broken, but it’s less likely you’ll have as high as ROI, in this case). Or an African American hair oil to a Caucasian audience.

It’s flat out not going to work no matter how good the engagement numbers are if the audience doesn’t match the product.

Make Sure the Influencer has Good Numbers on the Social Platform You Want to Use

NO influencer is excellent across all the social platforms.

Instead, most focus on two, maybe three and do it well. Across the remaining platforms, they have okay results, so pick the influencers depending on which social platforms you intend to use.

Blogging is the number one form of social media in influencer marketing, with Facebook coming in a close second. But even that depends.

Facebook rates better for people over the age of 40, the numbers are falling under in ages under 40. Instagram is 40 and down. Snapchat 30 and under. Blogging depends on the blog topic and its audience. Etc., etc.

Don’t be afraid to ask for past campaign results, engagement numbers across all platforms, and the audience metrics.

A reputable influencer will know these numbers and happily provide them. He or she will also tell you what will work for their audiences and what platforms he or she is strongest on.

Paying vs. Giving Product

It is standard thought practice for businesses to think “paying” an influencer in product and services is good enough.

But is that a mistake?

In my experience yes and no!

It generally depends on the size and experience of the influencer. Up and coming influencers may do your campaign for just payment in product and give excellent results. But quite often, the best results come when you pay an influencer or use a combination of cash and merchandise.

Maybe it’s the psychological value placed on money that causes the influencer to realize the campaign is an actual job and work harder.

Whatever the case, most often, in my experience, your best results will come from paid influencers, but I do recommend using a combination of both.

Don’t Micromanage the Influencer

It’s easy to want to control every aspect of an influencer outreach campaign, but DON’T.

Remember this is a partnership, not an employer/employee relationship. Influencers are creative content creators. Allow them to shine and do what they do best.

Offer guidance through the creative process to make sure the influencer is achieving your objectives but skip the micromanaging.

Influencers involved in the creative process perform better and have better results over ones that don’t because they know their audience best. They know what it takes to achieve the end goal.

Occasionally, you will find a less experienced influencer who needs more advice than one who’s been doing it a while. But even then, guide carefully with constructive criticism, and you’ll end up with fantastic results.

So, don’t let what you see in the headlines or get discouraged from past experiences with influencers stop you from using influencers to represent you and your company.

Influencer marketing IS a viable way to market your product and services and will continue to grow as the #1 marketing strategy for the foreseeable future.

Finding the RIGHT influencers is as simple as doing your homework. And if you don’t have the time, the skills or the know-how to do it yourself, hire a professional who understands the process to do it for you.

Just DON’T miss out on this AMAZING opportunity to grow your company and create fantastic working relationships that will help build your brand and increase your bottom-line.

Need a partner to help you find RIGHT influncers for your company?

Pop me an email ( Heidi.Medina74@Gmail.com) and we’ll get started today.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com on June 22, 2018.