How to Identify Influencers in 3 Easy Steps

Influencer Marketing has taken the consumer market by storm. However, a report by Meltwater finds that 35% of companies admit that their biggest challenge is identifying influencers. 

Influencer is a broad term for anyone who creates audience-centric content that appeals to the average consumer and forms a relationship of genuine trust and relatability. Influencers create high-quality original content that organically attracts targeted visitors, generating new leads for your company. A study conducted in Canada estimated that Millennials and Gen Z consumers are 48% more likely to buy from a brand retailer who collaborated with influencers.

So how do we identify the right influencers to get key messaging for our brand out into the open?

We apply the concept of Search, Vet, Select.

INFLUENCER SEARCH

In order to facilitate your search for valuable content creators, using a combination of search methods is usually crucial to building a quality list. There are many software tools available for use online that often have great filtering abilities, access to a wide range of social channels, as well as complex crawling capabilities to keep their statistics up to date. 

However, these technologies can be expensive, and there is no one single tool that can solve all of your influencer identification and outreach needs. For this reason, software tools are best supplemented by a classic Google search and other forms of good old fashioned manual searching. This does take a commitment of time but there are a number of online resources that provide extensive lists of quality influencers, ready-to-go and free of charge.

Finally, a manual search on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube can often help you discover niche-oriented influencers. Conduct these searches using relevant hashtags and keywords to uncover micro-influencers with highly engaged audiences.

          PRO TIP: Instagram’s ‘similar accounts’ tab will lead you to comparable influencer pages.

Don’t forget, depending on your influencer needs, it is recommended that you switch-up your search methods to suit your requirements. For example, beauty bloggers are typically much more prevalent on YouTube and Instagram, but you won’t necessarily go looking for a corporate HR community there. Your choice of tool(s) should always reflect your goal(s). 

INFLUENCER VETTING

Once you’ve started to locate relevant influencers, the crucial vetting process begins. Finding influencers with high levels of engagement with their audience, regular and up-to-date posting, and reliability as potential business associates are paramount. 

Engagement may include things like total likes, high levels of post comments and quality influencer replies to their audience. Is your influencer engaging their audience? Are they creating genuine, organic conversation? These things encourage an authentic and quality group of followers who are more likely to convert into buyers following product recommendations or reviews. 

Case Study – Instagram Star with 2 Million Followers Can’t Sell 36 T-Shirts

From a business perspective, it’s important to vet the influencer as a person to ensure that they are reliable, loyal to your brand, and professional in the workplace. You will be creating a working relationship with these individuals, and therefore it is essential that you only consider influencers with high levels of professionalism. 

Lastly, it’s important to ensure the influencer’s channel is not completely drowning in sponsored content. Though this isn’t necessarily a negative attribute, this lack of vetting can lead you into a relationship with an influencer who is becoming less and less believable. A quality audience can often see right through sponsored, non-genuine content, and this can hurt the relationship your brand will hold with your future followers.

INFLUENCER SELECTION

After conducting your search process and vetting all influencers of interest, you can make your selection based on a final set of criteria that will ensure a positive relationship moving forward. 

It’s important that you feel a positive connection to the influencer from the start. This helps ensure that any content they create for your brand is already in line with your goals. Verify any previous campaigns and their level of success; this is an influencers resume. Finally, leveraging people who have a pre-existing brand affinity for your product is invaluable. The influencer already knows and admires you and this will help to ensure quality content creation.

You are now ready to start the outreach process and utilize your dynamic collection of influencers to its fullest extent.

          PRO TIP: Ensure that you have reliable data verifying and tracking metrics in place to measure the success of each campaign.