Six Ways To Pick the Right Instagram Influencer for Your Campaign

There’s no doubt that influencer marketing works. Over the last five years, brands big and small have partnered with influencers to generate awareness, with influencer marketing blooming into a $10 billion dollar industry.

The right influencer can deliver vetted leads into your hands, boost your engagement rates, and even generate significant revenue for your business. But picking the wrong influencer can harm your brand reputation and even tarnish your return on investment.

Learn how to identify the right set of qualities in an influencer and keep those pesky under-performers at bay in this guide.

#1 Vet the audience

Like with any marketing campaign, your top priority should always be to reach your target audience. With influencer marketing, it’s critical to partner with an influencer who shares a similar audience to you since this will directly feed into your campaign’s effectiveness.

A quick way to do this is to use an influencer marketing platform like Upfluence or CreatorIQ to determine whether the influencer’s audience members share similar characteristics. Features like age, gender, and location are easily unpacked in such platforms, enabling you to, in the long run, advertise your products or services to people who are actually interested in your business.

#2 Study the influencer’s engagement metrics

It makes no sense to work with an influencer who has abysmal engagement rates since this will directly impact how your own message is received. Overall, engagement rates are an excellent indicator of how well an audience connects with the influencer’s content (and hence, yours).

A simple way to calculate the engagement rate of an influencer’s post is to add the total number of likes and comments and divide it with the influencer’s number of followers. Finally, multiply the result by 100. Do this for at least ten posts to get a clear picture of the influencer’s engagement rate.

Bonus tip: Look at how long it takes the influencer to reply to comments since this usually indicates how valued the followers are.

#3 Authenticity

Think of it this way. An authentic influencer that shares a true connection with followers will most likely pass on this authenticity to you. Meaning, you’re far more likely to get favorable campaign results when the influencer engages with committed followers who trust and value the influencer’s recommendations. In turn, these followers are far more likely to invest in your product or service.

While there’s no magic formula to determine the authenticity of an influencer, try to look for ‘real moments’ between the influencer and the audience. For instance, authentic influencers are usually experts in their niche, and they showcase their knowledge by sharing valuable content like personal stories, tips, and advice alongside their posts. Beyond this, listen to your gut and visualize whether your product or service could feature in the influencer’s feed.

#4 Reliability

A reliable influencer will do wonders for your stress levels. To ensure your collaborations run hitch-free, pick influencers who are trustworthy and dependable. A simple way to do this is to look at how long it takes for an influencer to respond to your inquiry. Do they seem professional and committed, or does it take them two weeks to reply to your message?

Some influencer marketing platforms have a review system, so you can comb through influencers’ profiles and look at the feedback previous brands have left. If the feedback is overwhelmingly positive, then chances are you’ve found your match.

#5 Quality check

Sadly, fake followers are a real thing. To ensure you don’t fall into the trap of working with a phony influencer, do some research. Look at the influencer’s followers and click on a few profiles to see whether they are bots or actual living, breathing humans. Next, look at the followers who are commenting on the influencer’s post. Do they genuinely seem vested in the influencer’s content?

#6 Set expectations

Don’t underestimate the power of influencer marketing to convert leads into sales for your business. To get the best results possible, determine your budget and expectations from the get-go. Sit down with your chosen influencer and talk about deliverables, as well as a tangible budget. Will you pay them in product, money, or a combination of both? What metrics will you use to determine success?

How to find your influencer

Use a combination of search techniques to hone in on your influencer.

1.Targeted hashtags. You can use hashtags to locate influencers who are a potential match with your brand. Search hashtags relevant to your brand offerings, and find top posts linked to the specific hashtag. An easy way to hunt for hashtags is to use a third-party tool like MetaHashtags.

2.Look at your existing followers. Search through your current followers to see if any of them have accrued a cult-like following. Picking an influencer who is already a fan of your brand makes it a whole lot easier to team up with them.

3.Use Google SERP. Google is a surprisingly easy way to search for influencers in your location. Here, it pays to be specific in your search. For instance, if you offer Korean beauty products in San Francisco, try searching “Korean skincare influencer in San Francisco.”

4.Enlist the help of a marketing agency. There are agencies out there that specialize in influencer marketing. Partner up with them (for a fee) to find your ideal influencer.

Ready to start? Check out these ten upcoming influencers to watch out for (and potentially collaborate with) in 2021.

To wrap up

While creating a long and healthy partnership with influencers is the ultimate goal for many brands, sadly, too many miss the mark. With this winning six-step strategy, gain the confidence needed to collaborate with your ideal influencer, and watch your campaign results flourish.

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