If you have any sort of experience navigating the rapidly changing world of influencer marketing, you’ll probably agree with us:
It’s a pain to do anything productive and achieve real results if you are entirely on your own.
The constant updates in algorithms and social trends are just some of the factors that make it challenging to choose an influencer for your next campaign.
And on top of that, what you want from your influencer marketing campaign is a performance-driven approach.
This is the key to success in today’s digital age.
Easier said than done, right? However, struggles breed solutions.
As a performance marketing agency, we discovered that the best way to achieve this is by utilising high-quality software and tools available on the market.
In this article, we will analyse how to choose the top tools you need to select the right influencer and unlock the full potential of your campaign.
How do you measure an influencer’s influence?
Before we dive right into software and tools, let’s first analyse an influencer’s influence from a performance marketer’s perspective.
To guarantee results from your campaign, it’s important to measure the influencer’s reach in a quantifiable way – this is done through metrics such as content engagement rate, reach and audience demographics.
These metrics will give you a clear understanding of an influencer’s reach and the effectiveness of their content.
A way to measure these metrics is by looking at the influencer’s historical performance. Look into their collaboration, and social media metrics such as likes, shares and comments, and if you can, talk about the influencer’s engagement and conversion rates.
This will give you a rough estimate of what your ROI should look like.
Other metrics you should analyse are:
– Demographics: This is a vital sign of the audience you’ll be able to reach. Every influencer hits a different niche, and hitting the right demographics ensures your content aligns with the influencer’s target audience.
– Engagement rate: A high engagement rate is a direct signal that the influencer is popular within their niche. An actively engaged audience is more likely to be interested in the products or services being promoted.
– Reach: This is the number of unique views scored by the influencer. A high reach gives your campaign more visibility – and as everybody knows, more people = more sales.
Fortunately, you don’t have to calculate any of these things by hand. There are tools designed to give you a detailed breakdown of an influencer’s performance to help you make data-driven decisions.
This is what we like to call a “mathematical approach” to market, to make sure you are able to make informed choices and maximise the effectiveness of your influencer marketing campaign.
Savvy social media marketers will have spotted by now that many of the metrics are the same shared by a successful social media marketing campaign.
The most notable difference between an influencer and social media campaign is that metrics aren’t the only factor you should consider when choosing an influencer.
Brand alignment. Authenticity. Aesthetic.
These all need to align with your brand for the influencer to be the perfect partner for your business. These are the last things you should look into, and due to their subjective nature, they need to be picked directly.
What do you have to look for to find the perfect influencer tool?
What is software but a tool designed to simplify your life? This is why we like automation to be our top priority.
A good influencer marketing tool will automatically collect data and analyse it, pop it onto graphs and charts – making it easy for you to find the ideal influencer for your campaign.
Another feature that makes an influencer tool the perfect choice for your business is the ability to segment and filter the plethora of available partners based on metrics.
This is because an influencer may not be the right choice for your objectives despite generally high metrics – and a cleverly designed filter will help you find the right influencer in no time.
Finally, what we like to look for in a tool is the level of integration available with other platforms – we are talking about analytics, email and social media performance.
Some of the most popular software for finding influencers include:
Obviously, all of these come with pros and cons. It’s best to study a few, and then pick one based on your budget and requirements.
Which 3 R's are useful when identifying influencers?
The idea of the “Three R’s” is a concept proposed by digital analyst Brian Solis. These R’s are a way to identify an influencer’s influence and the likelihood of creating viral content.
Social media experts have stated that the “R’s” as criteria are not a comprehensive solution for identifying the right partner for your business – however, they are excellent guidelines and a simple way to skim through influencers in a time-effective manner.
According to Hootsuite, the 3 R’s are: Relevance, Reach and Resonance.
#1 Relevance
Relevance is everything – even more important than an influencer’s metric.
Sure, you can pay Kylie Jenner to advertise your cybersecurity software, but how likely is it that her average viewer will be interested in upgrading the end-to-end encryption levels of their business messaging channels?
Performance relies heavily on relevance, but once you prioritise these two, they transform into an incredible synergy capable of delivering outstanding results on a limited budget.
#2 Reach
Now, let’s talk about reach.
This is an important metric that defines the number of people an influencer can reach through their content and social media presence.
If you can’t measure reach directly, look at the number of followers, engagement rate (more on that below) and, if all else fails, the influencer’s reach on a different social media platform.
What boosts reach massively is that shiny share button…
So, whenever an influencer publishes a post or a story, a certain number of people will see it, and a tiny amount of those will share it with their friends, extending the influencer’s reach massively.
Reach is important because more people = more sales. On top of that, a healthy reach is a sign that the content performs well and has a chance of going viral, which can quite literally evolve your business overnight.
Not all is good news, however: a high reach doesn’t guarantee results. Sure, your influencer can reach one million people, but if only ten convert, that is a 0.00001% performance. That’s why you have to consider using a mixture of micro and macro influencers to leverage the reach vs performance balance in your favour.
#3 Resonance
Resonance is a blend of different metrics that aim to identify an influencer’s ability to create a message capable of creating a human connection.
This is important because a user subject to a resonating message is extremely likely to share it with their peers since they identify with that message – and this effectively increases all other metrics in your social media marketing campaign.
An influencer with a high degree of resonance will post content that adds momentum to an ongoing trend, or create a new trend altogether.
On top of that, they will be able to build trust with their audience – and that trust translates directly into your product when it’s time to sponsor them.
This means that the influencer’s audience will associate your brand with authenticity, immediately developing a strong connection with them.
How do you find influencers in your niche?
Finding influencers is probably the most challenging part of an influencer marketing campaign.
There are some tools you can use to find them with ease:
- To start things off, you can look into hashtags. Content trending from popular hashtag hubs normally belong to macro-influencers. You can take it a step further and look for local hashtags, such as #Leeds or #Kent, to target local influencers.
- Influencer platforms such as Upfluence store thousands of influencers – however, it is locked behind a paywall, which can be frustrating for small to medium sized businesses.
- You probably already follow some influencers, then why not contact them directly?
- And finally, look into the most efficient way by hiring a specialised influencer marketing agency.
Here at topflight, we have a bank of hundreds of collaborating influencers ready to help businesses in almost any niche. We can help you identify the best influencers for your brand, track performance, and measure the impact of your campaigns.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help take your influencer marketing to the next level.
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