According to Sprout Social, the market size of influencer marketing reached $21.2 billion in 2023. This exponential growth underscores influencer marketing’s importance as a strategy for improving brand awareness, traffic, and, most importantly, conversions.
The key individuals who help achieve these key performance indicators (KPIs) are what we call influencers. In this article, we will explore who an influencer is, why we should work with an influencer, and actionable steps to identify the right influencer to work with. Now, let’s delve right into it.
Who is an influencer?
An influencer isn’t just someone who has built a significant following over the years but is someone who can influence the purchasing decisions of his/her audiences via their expertise, personal brand, and relationships with their audiences. Before describing one as an influencer, you want to make sure to check the following characteristics:
A. Expertise and authority
They have a well-grounded knowledge about a specific niche and can help their audiences solve problems in that specific niche. These niches could include beauty, fashion, gaming, sports, travel, technology, lifestyle or food.
B. Active social media presence
Having an engaged following is likened to having a strong social media presence on a particular platform to allow for interactions between them and their audiences.
C. Impact on purchasing decisions
The ability to influence an audience’s purchasing decisions is beyond just creating content but is more about driving the needs of the audience. This is a crucial characteristic to look out for in an influencer.
D. Trends
One of the unique things about influencers is the ability to dive straight into trends to remain top of mind and engaging.
E. Trust
Being able to share personal experiences from a place of genuineness that helps their audiences connect with them on a personal level is a crucial characteristic to look out for in an influencer.
Why should you work with an influencer?
There are a couple of reasons why you should work with an influencer. They include:
- To increase brand awareness
Supposing you want to increase the visibility and recognition of your brand, one of the best options to achieve this goal would be partnering with an influencer.
- To stay top of mind as a brand
We recall how brands like Nivea have consistently used diverse influencers with different skin tones to communicate the efficacy of the product and to remain top of mind in the hearts of their consumer, keeping their brand relevant.
- To drive engagement and conversions
One single implementation of influencer marketing can bring about visits to your website, following your social media channels and utmostly conversions.
5 Actionable Steps to Identify the Right Influencer to Work with.
Finding the right influencer to work with as an organization can be quite a tasking job to do. This is why Influsights is here to streamline influencer marketing processes to identify the right influencer to work with. Nonetheless, these 5 steps will guide you in identifying the right influencer to work with.
Outline your campaign objective
Every campaign is aimed at achieving a specific goal. Before choosing an influencer outline what the marketing campaign is and the goals you want to achieve. In doing so, you will help look in the right niche and communicate the campaign expectations to the proposed influencer.
List the influencers who align with the established goals
Listing them down will enable you to see things from the lens of audience segmentation such as demography, psychography and behavioural segmentation.
Evaluate the engagement rate of the listed influencers
The engagement rate is a measure of how actively an influencer’s audience interacts with their content. In this context, it specifically looks at the engagement received on branded or sponsored posts.
If the engagement rate is high, it suggests that the audience is highly involved and interested in the influencer’s branded content. A high engagement rate is generally considered positive, indicating that the influencer has a strong and responsive audience.
If the engagement rate is low, it might indicate that the branded content is not resonating well with the audience or that the influencer’s audience is not highly engaged with this type of content. A simple way to calculate the engagement rate is total likes plus total comments over the number of posts, divided by the total number of followers multiplied by 100. For example:
Total Likes + Total Comments across 10 posts = 500
Number of posts = 10
Total Followers of the influencer = 100,000
The engagement rate will be 0.05%
Select influencers whose content seamlessly aligns with your brand’s offerings
Prioritizing the relevance of chosen influencers to your brand is paramount for a successful influencer marketing strategy. It’s not just about the number of followers an influencer has; it’s about aligning their content, values, and audience with your brand’s offerings. To ensure an authentic connection and resonance, carefully evaluate potential influencers to guarantee that their niche, expertise, and style complement your brand. This approach not only enhances the effectiveness of your influencer collaborations but also establishes a more genuine and meaningful connection with the target audience.
Choose influencers who share your brand’s values and demonstrate authenticity
For instance, if you promote excellence, avoid partnering with influencers who lack excellence in their deliverables. Successful collaborations go beyond formal brand posts; they thrive on mutual authenticity and honesty.
When it comes to influencers, they’re not all the same. Take some time to look into different influencers, choose the ones who share your brand values and appeal to the people you’re trying to reach. Work together in a way that benefits both of you. This way, you can make the most of their impact to achieve goals that help both your brand and theirs. We hope this article gives reasons why teaming up with an influencer could be a good move for you!