Influencers are fast becoming one of the most popular tools used for brands, not just in the UAE, but internationally. It is following the success of the social media era we live and work in, that has allowed brands to target their audience in an indirect way, thorough people that have a large following across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. For every $1 spent on influencers, the business receives on average $6.50 back in earned media value.
Being able to optimize the right influencer in a way that can be mutually beneficial, the influencer will receive positive feedback, engagement and increased followers, and for the brand, they will generate more awareness of their brand as a whole. 90% of consumers trust a personal recommendation of a brand compared to only 30% trusting advertisements.
Finding the right influencer is vital! There is no point in having an influencer with a following of thousands, but they are all located in a different country to your business – if you only operate in the UAE for example it is useless using a popular influencer in France.This is why Eminence have put together the key elements to look out for when you’re selecting the right influencer for your campaign, as this can either make or break your budget when dealing with this type of online marketing.
Relevance
Having the right person to represent your brand is one of the most important aspects of influencer marketing. There is no relevance if you are a car company, using beauty bloggers to influence their target audience. As they are not interested in cars, this can result in lost time and money for both the influencer and the company.
Look at how aligned the influencer’s content is with your brand and your values. This will give you an indication as to how willing the influencer will want to work with you if your brand can easily slot into the content they already have.
Engagement
Some bloggers have an excess of 100,000+ followers on social media channels, Instagramin particular is known for it’sinfluential content for both brands and individuals. But take a close look at the engagement rate, how many likes are they getting per post? Are the audience liking and sharing content? Look at the comments on each post, are consumers interacting with the influencer and are they getting a response? This will give you an idea of how valued followers are by the influencer. Good engagement rates are one of the most important aspects for influencers, as you need to make sure their community is engaged.
Reach
Don’t be afraid to ask the influencer to provide their analytics and their reach of all platforms. If the influencer can provide these stats for each platform and possibly their blog as 68% of influencers have a blog too, being able to prove their follower demographics,this shows they are taking themselves seriously as an influencer. Again, they should be able to provide statistics on the type of target their reaching out to.
Frequency
There is often a correlation of the frequency of posts published compared to the amount of engagement and new followers on social media. If an influencer is posting regularly throughout the day, they are constantly within consumer newsfeeds. A customer doesn’t always visit the website straight away, as the content may not be relevant at that specific time, however, after weeks of seeing the brand name repeated on their timeline. They will know where to visit for when the time comes and they want to purchase on the website.
Authenticity
This is something that brands often neglect when researching influencers. The main reason for companies to use influencers, is for the advertising to be subtle and indirect. Take a look at the content posted that has been paid for in the past sponsored by other companies. If the content is forced and seems irrelevant and unnatural, the engagement rates will be low. It’s important to let your influencer have free range of the content creation and only brief them on ideas you have and key messages – don’t write a script!
At Eminence, we have the tools that identify influencers from around the world, from fitness bloggers, to medical experts. We are able to select influencers based on your criteria and what you want out of the campaign. We take the leg work out of the research, analyse and identify key influencers in your industry field.