Brands now turn to influencers to reach consumers. An effective influencer strategy can make a product, service, or app highly profitable.

Globally, the influencer market is estimated to be around $13bn. Whether it’s A-list celebrities or micro-influencers – few brands don’t use influencers today.

There are three steps you can take to make sure your influencers influence.

Start and End with ROI

Influencer marketing, like any other channel or platform, should return a tangible return. Many marketers become too focused on “vanity” metrics when the real point is how your campaign is helping you achieve your business goals.

Metrics such as followers and likes should be viewed as a tool to achieve a purpose, not a goal, even for large organizations like multinational brands.

One example is when an app used a football player to promote its product. The post received a lot of engagement. There were comments, shares, and likes. However, downloads were a slow-moving matter.

How to choose the right influencers

It is best to get things right from the start. This will ensure a successful and influential influencer campaign. Before engaging an influencer, there are many metrics you should consider. These include engagement rates and audience quality scores (AQS).

It is difficult to choose the right influencers. It is important to choose influencers who are aligned with your brand values and resonate with your target audience. However, they should also have a reach beyond your targeted audience.

There are also financial considerations. Will the campaign’s results return more than the investment? This is the crucial ROI point.

Engage

Although influencers may post many posts, are they getting enough traction? You should look at the engagement metrics surrounding your influencer posts.

It is also a good idea to collaborate with your influencers. Build them, create excitement within your channel, and use cross-channel resources for both your posts and theirs.

Measure your key metrics regularly. You can do this using native tools on various social media platforms or third-party apps.

The Demographics

It is worth taking a deeper look at who your influencers are. It is extremely valuable and informative to break down followers and interact with influencers.

Is the majority of your engagement coming from a particular demographic?

Spot fake followers

Fake followers are more common for influencers. This can sometimes be intentional, but it is not usually the influencer’s intention.

However, it is important to do thorough research into determining what percentage of followers are fakes and to adjust expectations accordingly.

The comment-to-like ratio is one of the easiest metrics to watch out for. You can easily buy likes. However, comments are more expensive and difficult to buy. Check comments for repetition or bot-type comment styles. Many times these comments are not related to the original post.

Momentum and consistency

It is important to make sure influencers are consistently posting and maintaining momentum. Although the frequency of posts may have been established in advance, consistency is also important.

Although Kim Kardashian may not be able to respond to every comment on the influencer post that she has been hired for, smaller influencers could and should offer some interaction and follow-up.

This ensures that there aren’t huge spikes in engagement followed by nothing. This can be fatal for influencer campaigns.

Take control and manage

Moburst strongly recommends that you participate in influencer engagements and not only look at metrics afterward. You should establish your baseline expectations based on your marketing strategy. Follow the progress closely. 

Talk to your influencers if things don’t go according to plan. They can help you optimize your performance.

If you are not satisfied with the results, push the accelerator!

Another thing to keep in mind is the influencers’ other posts. You should be looking out for signs of collaboration with rival brands or opinions that aren’t aligned with your brand values.

A great influencer campaign starts with you

A successful influencer campaign involves more than just choosing an influencer and agreeing to a few posts.

You are the key to a successful influencer marketing campaign.

Knowing what you want, being aware of the situation, and knowing which levers you can pull to get things back on track will put you in a strong position to influence others.