Influencers can be a great way for businesses to gain credibility with their target audience. Whether the business is big or small, an influencer can change the way consumers see your brand and inspire them to buy in. It’s as simple as finding the right representative for your brand and convincing them to endorse you. Or is it?
While the advantages of influencer marketing are plentiful, choosing the right one is tantamount to choosing a business partner. A bit of thorough research will go a long way in preventing an influencer scandal that can harm your brand. So how do you decide on an influencer?
Type of content
The first step is matching your content with an influencer’s content. It’s important that there aren’t any glaring differences at this stage. For example, an influencer specialising in intricate and delicate confectionary creations won’t add much value to a DIY hardware brand.
Take a look at the hashtags that lead your customers to you. When you explore these hashtags on various social platforms, you’ll likely find a few content creators who post under the same themes. Take your time and go through as many of them as you can and go as far back into their feeds as you’re able to. Look out for any posts that are inconsistent or lack the focus and direction of the others.
Type of following
Next, you’ll want to ensure that the influencer’s following is not only substantial enough to make a partnership worthwhile but also in line with the following you hope to reach. Browse through their followers and view a few of their profiles to get a sense of the intended audience. You’ll soon be able to tell if the influencer’s followers align with your brand.
Why is this important? Well, once your influencer posts about your brand, their followers might see your company for the first time. If what you offer doesn’t match with their needs, they might be inclined to become vocal about it and leave unwanted comments on your platforms.
Type of interactions
Finally, you want to spend time seeing how the influencers interact with their fans or followers. This will give you a better sense of their personalities than their highly-curated scheduled content. How do they respond to negative comments? Lashing out and radio silence are both bad reactions.
Take to Google and do a quick search of your influencer shortlist. Any negative publicity that might be out there is sure to come up. If the influencer has been involved in a scandal before, how did they recover from it? Influencers are also human and will inevitably make mistakes, but how they handle their missteps speaks volumes.
Rather take the time when making the decision than spend time doing damage control. Once an influencer has been associated with your brand, their every move may affect your brand perception. But, when chosen well, influencers are likely to add serious value to your brand and expand your audience.
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