News and InsightsHow To Identify The Best Influencers For Your Brand
News and InsightsSign up to the Digital Six newsletter
While consumer trust in traditional advertising continues to fall, social influencer marketing has become incredibly popular with brands over the past couple of years. Simply put, social influencers have established credibility in their industry and have a huge following on social media. They have the power to influence their followers’ purchasing decisions which is why brands partner with them to promote their products.
Are you wondering how to find influencers for your brand? There are many factors to consider when researching, so we’ve put together our top tips to help you get it right.
It might be tempting to choose an influencer who has millions of followers but don’t let that sway you! Research carried out by ZINE shows that only one in four consumers are likely, or very likely, to buy a product when someone with over 1 million followers recommends it. In comparison, 50% are likely or very likely to buy a product from someone that specialises in that the specific field.
When considering potential influencers, make sure their social media content is highly relevant to your brand and target audience. For example, a retailer selling premium athletic wear for women would be best collaborating with a female influencer who specialises in fitness and wears high-end clothing when they’re working out. This would help the influencer campaign reach the right audience, which in turn would increase the likelihood of them purchasing from the brand.
There are many influencer marketing platforms out there that can help with your search. One of the most popular platforms is HYPR. This let’s you search by applying various filters including interests, age group, gender and location. You can also refine by your preferred social platform and choose a minimum and maximum number of followers. The platform offers 3 subscription plans, and you can sign up for a free trial.
Another way to discover influencers is by searching using hashtags that are relevant to your niche. This works particularly well on Instagram which let’s you view a feed of ‘top posts’ that have had high levels of engagement for the hashtag.
It’s also worth checking if you have any influencers following your social media accounts. If they’re already a fan of your brand, the chances are they’ll want to collaborate with you. Follwerwonk.com makes it easy to find influencers who follow you on Twitter. Once you sign up and connect your Twitter account, it can rank your followers by social authority, with each account given a score out of 100.
Although influencers have a huge number of followers, this isn’t actually the most important metric. Instead, you should focus on their engagement rates. Use this calculation on one of their Instagram posts – although not the most recent post as this won’t have as much engagement as the others yet:
(Number of post likes + comments) divided by (number of followers) times 100
If their engagement rate on Instagram is above 3% then it’s a good sign that their followers are engaging with their content. Twitter typically has much lower engagement rates. Influencer’s tweets typically gain an engagement rate of 0.33% to 1% on average. The calculation for this is:
(Number of likes + comments + retweets) divided by (number of followers) times 100
Make sure you carefully consider the quality of the influencer’s content as part of your research. Can they take beautiful photos? Do their captions sound compelling? Can they spell correctly? This will help ensure they’ll be able to show your products in the best light, helping attract potential customers.
Also check that any brand sponsored content or product reviews on their feed comes across as authentic. If these feel too much like an ad, their followers probably won’t have as much trust in them.
Finding the best influencers for your brand can make the world of difference to your campaign performance, so give yourself plenty of time to do your research. Look out for our next post where we’ll be covering how to approach potential influencers to partner with.