Social Media is flooded with thousands of influencers all trying to create content and fighting to find their community, their niche audience of loyal followers. To connect with their audience, influencers do things like shopping, decorating their house and asking for their followers’ opinions as if they were taking you along with them. Doing this establishes a bond between the influencer and the follower and could be used to a social media practitioner’s advantage if done correctly.
Working with influencers can bring brand awareness and profit to a business. Determining what influencers to work with that fit your needs can be challenging. Through the process of interviewing professional media managers within the influencer marketing field, we found four key steps that a business should follow when picking the influencer that is right for you and your company.
- Determine what level of influencer you need
- Set a budget for your influencers
- Align the influencer’s niche to your brand
- Review the influencer’s engagement rate
Let’s dive on into each category to see what our interviewees had to say!
Determine what level of influencer you need
According to Forbes there are three well known influencer categories classified as nano, micro and macro.
- Nano-influencers have fewer than 10 thousand followers
- Micro-influencers 10 thousand to 100 thousand followers
- Macro-influencers have more than 100 thousand followers
Working with each type of influencer has its perks, but it is important when looking for an influencer to work with, which one will give you the most engagement and help your brand.
In an interview with Sami Pugmire, social media manager for Love Olive Co., a local fashion company, she was asked what influencers she has used and seen the most engagement from. This was her response, “I would say it’s probably a micro-influencer that gives us the most views and the most sales… One of our biggest sales driving influencers [has] got about 25 thousand followers so she’s a micro-influencer. She’s got a decent following, but her following is very very loyal. We always get sales with her.”
Want to hear the full interview? Check it out here! Love Olive Co Interview.mp4
In order to produce great work, it is crucial that influencers and managers work well together. In an interview with John Dye, an influencer marketing strategist who has worked with churchofjesuschrist.org, DoTerra, and other marketing firms, says “When I think of macro-influencers, they are traditionally good at getting word out about something. Sometimes they’re not the best to get people to take action. So for example, if you’re selling a product, they don’t always perform best. But if you want to get a message out, have people create content, use a hashtag, they’re excellent for that. I find that micro-influencers usually do it better if you need somebody to take action. Meaning buying a product, or doing something tangible. Micro-influencers are where I spend the majority of my money now because macro costs so much more and you just don’t get the tangible actions a lot of times. You get awareness, but if you want people to actually do something, you need to find people at lower levels. The nanos and micros.”
Studies show that micro-influencers get 47% more engagement than macro-influencers. Micro-influencers have the ability to create more of a community and connection with their followers which builds more trust and loyalty in what the influencer is saying.
Jenna Romano, a blog writer, conducted some research on the performance of micro-influencers. Romano says “since a micro-influencer audience is manageable, the level of engagement with their following is high… micro-influencers will have more trusted relationships with their followers, which means that they (ergo, you) will receive some recognition in return.”
Based on information gathered from Forbes, Macro Influencers vs. Micro Influencers: The Great Social Debate, this chart shows that the more followers an influencer has, the less engagement they are able to gather from their followers.
After you have decided on the type of influencer that will best fit your needs and goals, the next step is to set a budget to determine whether or not you are going to hire an influencer to promote your brand either through gifts or financial compensation.
Once you’ve found the influencer(s) you are interested in working with, reach out to them to set a budget and talk to them about their prices. The influencer should provide you with an estimate or their availability to open up a discussion on what will work for both parties.
As far as compensation for an influencer goes, companies have different strategies. To gain more insight, we spoke to Lilliana Ramirez, social media manager from local Rexburg restaurant, Crush Artisanal Drinks. Crush uses influencers which they refer to as “ambassadors”. Holiday said “Since Crush is a small business, we can’t compensate our ambassadors with money, but they do get free drinks and discounts for their friends and family. They also get professional photos with the photoshoots.”
Compensating through their products is a process that is mutually beneficial for Crush and their ambassadors. Having ambassadors can be a great way to have influencers work with your brand without having to set aside a budget. In return, they are gifted in a way you see fit.
“The way that we work is we actually only do gift-only collaborations,” says Pugmire. “At least right now because our product is kind of expensive and shipping stuff is kind of expensive, especially from a company that’s based in Rexburg. So currently we only do gifting… collaborations.”
Ambassador or gift based compensation programs with influencers can benefit a business that is on a tighter budget. For companies with more money to spend, setting aside a budget can be worthwhile. Dye agrees and advocates for hiring influencers when your budget allows.
“If you work with a content creator who’s also an influencer, you get the double bang for your buck if they create the content. They have the distribution channels, so they get it out there. You’re the third party that gets all of the good things that come from that. Even though it might cost a lot, depending on who you work with, you do get distribution and you get content creation out of it. So, it’s a good deal.”
According to Affable, “A survey reveals that influencer marketing offers 11 times higher returns than other marketing methods…” This shows what John Dye said, you really do get double bang for your buck. It might be beneficial for your business to move some of their budget from paid ads to influencer marketing.
Align Influencer’s Niche to Your Brand
Businesses have a target demographic and audience they are trying to reach. This grouping is where interest in the business comes from. This is why it is important to find influencers that share a similar target audience and demographic with your brand. Influencers whose audience aligns with yours can better promote your business by merging their audience with yours. Picking an influencer within the right niche allows for gravitation of their audience to you and gives your business the opportunity to expand its reach.
According to Hubspot, 71% are more likely to purchase a product that is referred to them through a social media influencer. This works best though when the influencer is aligned with the product/business. A make-up influencer promoting Chevron would not be as beneficial as them promoting Fenty Beauty. You have to find influencers that reflect your brand.
Crush recently upgraded their ambassador program in order to better reflect the brand that the owners envisioned.
“We [Lillian and the owner, Steve] sat down and had several meetings of what we wanted to do for the ambassador program. Some of the goals we had were [wanting] a diverse group ofpeople. We wanted someone that our customers could relate to [within our ambassadors].
Whether it was someone who was internationally from another country, someone who was from a different race, someone who was culturally different, or even someone who was aesthetically different. Like someone who was more city or country. That was one of our goals. The other goal was to showcase that Crush is a place where young people can come and enjoy an environment that is safe, trendy and fun,” said Holliday.
Check out the full interview with Crush to learn more about their ambassador program! Crush Interview.m4a
Love Olive Co. wanted to find influencers that would help bring their mission statement to life and create a community. “It kinda creates this…circle of like everybody starts talking about us,” Pugmire said. “People want to connect with us, and our mission statement is to create connection and happiness and that’s really what our big goal has been. And I’m totally seeing that as an outcome…we were seeing like so many new stories of that. We didn’t know how much people loved Love Olive co. or the way that it’s changed or affected them…”
In Dye’s experience with influencer marketing, he has learned that authenticity is a crucial part of aligning the influencer to the brand.
“You have to make sure it’s not something that feels like, ‘Wow, this is a beauty influencer but they’ve never talked about essential oils before!’ If it feels like it’s fake or unauthentic, then it doesn’t work as well. So authenticity has to be high [and] they need to be a true believer in the service [or] product that you’re offering.”
A study done by Stackla shows that “86 percent of consumers say authenticity is important when deciding what brands they like and support.” A company’s audience can see right through content creation that isn’t true to the influencer or the brand. Authenticity is key.
Review the Influencer’s Engagement Rate
The follower count is not the most crucial thing to look at when choosing an influencer to collaborate with. An influencer can have 20 thousand followers, but there is always the possibility that those followers are bought or spam.
During our Interview with Sami Pugmire from Love Olive Co., we asked her what she looks for when choosing influencers for their brand. This is what she had to say: “…Paying attention to their analytics and who their followers are. If they have real followers or if they have fake followers [is important.]”
There is more work that needs to be done than simply looking at the amount of followers an influencer’s social media page has. It is important to do research on the average engagement rates they receive on their social media pages. It is also important to look into whether or not the influencers followers are following your brand. If this is the case it will be easier to align the influencer to your brand. Engagement is crucial. You want to know as a brand if it is worthwhile to spend money on an influencer and their services and if your business will gain from it or not.
You can easily calculate someone’s engagement rate, it just takes a little bit of time and math. The Corporate Finance Institute recommends this simple equation:
Engagement Rate = (Total Engagement ÷ Total Followers) X 100
Once you have reviewed the influencer’s engagement rates and think they would be a good fit for your brand, you can feel satisfied hiring them to create content for your company. Finding the right influencer for your business to work with can be challenging, but breaking it down to these 4 steps can make it a bit easier for you.
- Determining what level of influencer you need
- Nano, micro, and macro influencers each have benefits, it is important to determine which one is the best fit for you and your brand.
- Setting a budget for the influencers
- Determining a budget or a way to compensate those you work with will narrow down the options you have and what you will be able to afford.
- Aligning the influencer’s niche to your brand
- Choosing an influencer that is authentic and likes your brand makes it easier for their followers to become your customers.
- Review the influencer’s engagement rate
- Make sure to do your research on the influencer’s engagement rate. Doing this will give you a better idea on the return your brand will get from working with that influencer.
These four steps are vital when deciding what type of influencer you want to work with and how you work with them. Put these four steps to the test and you will eventually see the difference influencers can make for your company!
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