Influencer marketing is an aspect of digital marketing that is growing wildly with the usage of social media. Influencer marketing conversion is daily increasing because it directly involves building trust among individuals. 

A 2019 study on the growth rate of influencer marketing projected that 7% of companies would spend over a million dollars on influencer marketing in the coming year. 

Check some other statistics on influencer marketing.

Who Is An Influencer?

An influencer is someone or sometimes a group of people who have built a large and interactive following on social media platforms. In addition, they have created an interactive online community through personal brands.

Qualifying Influencers

With the growth of content creators online and the trends of social media usage changes, influencer marketing has evolved past the stage of partnering with just individuals who share similar values with your company.

This leads us to discuss the criteria for qualifying influencers. What are the qualifying attributes that will determine if a particular influencer is right for your brand based on your budget and the stage of your business?

1. Reach 

Reach is a metric on digital analytics gathered from the number of followers, the location of the influencer, etc. 

Armful Media has grouped the types of influencers into six tiers based on their reach and followers. These six tiers are:

• Nano: They have small but highly engaging followers.
• Micro: They have more followers and specialize in a particular niche.
• Mid: They are content creators who have transitioned into influencers.
• Macro: They are social media celebrities and leaders in their niche.
• Mega: They have transitioned from just social media into pop culture.
• Celebrity: They come in the form of brand ambassadors.

When studying the influencer’s reach as a company, you also have to consider how related the influencer is to the niche of your business. You will need to study the audience demographics such as interests, location, gender, age, geography, etc. This will let you know if the influencer’s audience matches your target audience or is similar to your customer persona.

2. Authenticity

Influencers have a tight-knit community that trusts them mostly based on the authenticity of their content. 

But what makes an influencer authentic? Content that seems genuine and directed at the niche of followers that an influencer has is one way an influencer can be seen as authentic.

It is safe to become skeptical of an influencer’s authenticity when their content is filled with mostly sales content and if they take on different brand deals within a short period.

Original content ideas rather than just hopping on challenges are also a meaningful way to judge the authenticity of an influencer.

3. Aesthetics

While the beauty of the page should be aesthetically pleasing, you have to consider if it will be attractive to your target audience and attract your customer persona. For example, some influencers have pages set up for the younger generation, while others have more mature pages that will appeal to the older generation.

The most attractive influencer’s pages construct their social media platforms with a specific theme to reflect their brand identity and communicate directly to your company’s values, which will easily attract your target audience. This way, you can get the most out of your influencer marketing.

4. Engagement Rate

Engagement rate is the metric that measures the level of interaction that a post gets on a social media platform. For example, it measures likes, comments, shares, saves, bookmarks, etc. At least 80% of companies will check the engagement rate of an influencer before engaging their services.

As a marketer, looking at just the numbers will not be sufficient, especially with the increasing usage of bots to increase engagement numbers. It is important to check the quality of the conversation to see whether it is just a bandwagon or a community that will convert to numbers like sales, sign-ups, etc.

A good influencer should start and hold a conversation with his/her audience by reacting quickly to questions and comments and acknowledging other types of engagement like sharing content.

Conclusion

The success of your influencer marketing strategy is at least 80% dependent on finding an influencer that has a large number of followers and meets the criteria listed above. Finding the right influencer can be time-consuming but often produces great results in a short period. Therefore, you will find that an influencer with a small niche and strong connections to his/her community is usually the best option.