Now that you know what influencer marketing is, how to develop an effective strategy, whether influencers are worth it for your particular business, and how to write a solid influencer brief, the next important step when it comes to influencer marketing is knowing how to find the right influencers for your brand.
Finding the right people will help your brand connect with new people, drive traffic to your website, increase brand awareness, and generate sales, but knowing where to start can be overwhelming!
While there are some platforms that connect you with influencers, through our vast experience with influencer marketing at Agent99 – working with both contra influencers (where they receive stock instead of monetary payment) and paid influencers – we know that the best results come from influencers that you have genuine relationships and authentic connections with.
So, to help you find the influencers that are the perfect fit for your brand, our top pieces of advice are:
- Keep the goals you set in your strategy document handy.
Having the objectives you set during the strategy phase top of mind, will help guide you around which influencers are a good fit, and those that aren’t. Whether you want to increase brand awareness and followers, create conversations with people interested in your brand’s sector or generate sales, these goals will help you narrow down the type of influencer you want to align with. When you approach them, keep these goals in mind so you can check they have the same objectives. For example, if your main priority by partnering with an influencer is that they drive sales, make sure you speak to them about other brands they have partnered with where they demonstrated a sales spikes following their posts.
2. Search hashtags that are relevant to your brand.
Spending time browsing through hashtags that are related to your company, sector or product is a great way to find influencers that are in line with your brand. For example, if you represent an alcohol product that is perfect for summer, finding influencers who use hashtags such as #beachlife or #summerliving is a good place to start. By following this approach, it also means that if you do choose to partner with that influencer, the post promoting your product seems authentic and in line with what their followers expect and engage with.
3. Research which influencers your competitors have worked with.
Looking through your top 3-5 competitors’ social media feeds, and seeing which influencers have tagged them in posts is important. Whilst influencers who partner with numerous brands in the same sector can be good in the sense that they know the industry, at Agent99 we avoid working with influencers who have promoted a competitor in the last year.
4. Research the influencer online.
Once you have looked through the influencer’s social media channels, make sure you Google their name as well, to ensure no articles or posts appear that are concerning. For example, if they have been fined for breaching the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) Code of Ethics’ distinguishable advertising rule, they likely aren’t an influencer you want to align with.
5. Check their actual authority as an influencer.
These days many ‘influencers’ pay money to buy fake followers. Before outreaching to an influencer, always do you due diligence about the legitimacy of their followers. For example, rather than purely looking at their follower numbers, or the number of likes they get per post, read the comments on the post and see if they are genuinely creating conversations with their audience. If the comments are lots of emojis or comments that are unrelated to the content in the post, this can be a sign that they are paid for as well. Ultimately, finding the right influencer means partnering with someone who wants to create genuinely engaging content, not just pay for bots to do the work for them.
6. Create a list and make it longer than you think.
Using the above steps to find contenders, compile a list of those that you think would be good to outreach to. Add all of their details from your research and make this your central list. If you are aiming to work with 5 – 10 influencers, we recommend making the list around 30 – 40 people, because the partnership you are proposing may not be a good fit from the influencer’s perspective (they may have a campaign coming up with a competitor, etc). If they all do happen to come back saying yes, you have a list of great people to work with now and in the future, so it’s a win win!
7. Be open and honest about measuring results before committing to anything.
Where many brands go wrong, is being scared to ask for metrics that reflect whether the partnership was successful or not. However, to help you ascertain whether to work with the influencer again – and the ROI of the post/campaign – this is essential. Before you commit to working with an influencer speak with them about the data they are happy to share, so you know from the beginning how you will be able to track the results. In addition, this is a great way to weed out individuals who pay for followers or comments.
By following this process, you should be able to find some incredible influencers that are perfect for your brand.
If you have any other questions around the topic, or influencer marketing in general, please get in touch with us at info@agent99pr.com.
Agent Nic
