Finding The Perfect Social Media Influencers For Your Brand

Successful brands partner with social media influencers to bring their products and messaging to their targeted audiences. In fact, 63% of marketers pair up with up to 10 or more social media influencers for every campaign. Influencers can use their knowledge, opinions, and authenticity to connect your brand with their own audiences as a trusted peer. Finding the perfect influencers to introduce your brand takes careful research. Here’s what you need to know about identifying influencers for your company.

Know Your Target Audience

Many marketers first testing the influencer partnership fail to ensure that their target audiences and a particular influencer’s audience are the same. For example, if you are a refurbished electronics company that sells noise cancelling headphones, wireless in-ear headphones, and portable speakers, it won’t be a good match to consider sponsoring a beauty blogger or a YouTuber who posts vegan cooking videos – no matter how popular they are or how many followers they have. A better bet would be to partner with a music fan, a gadget tester, or a game reviewer.

You need to understand that not every influencer has the same kind of target audience.

• Some appeal only to men.
• Some target millennials.
• Some target moms.
• Some target culture or entertainment fans.

It is crucial to ensure that their target audience is the same as yours so that your products are shown to a relevant crowd.

Know Your Influencer

When trying to locate an influencer for your company, you need to first evaluate the contenders to avoid ending up with the wrong influencer or even a fake one. Here’s what you need to look for:

Reach — The total number of followers they have on social media or following their blogs.

Engagement – What is their engagement rate? That is the best indication of how many of their followers are really interested in their content. Bigger isn’t always better – Instagram influencers with only 1k to 5k followers actually engage more with their followers than influencers with a bigger following.

Authenticity – Does the influencer sound authentic when promoting a product, or is it obvious they are being paid to?

Personality – Look for an influencer whose style and personality are in alignment with your brand’s messaging and values.

Niche – Does their niche align with your business, products, or industry?

Where to Look for Influencers

Don’t think that you have to restrict yourself to celebrities. In fact, micro-influencers engage more and have over 20 times more purchasing conversations with their target audience. Where can you find the best influencer for your brand?

On Social Media

The quickest way to find the right influencer for your company is to look for people who are already talking about your brand. Social media shout-outs and blog posts that mention you will help you find influencers. Check out some listening and monitoring tools such as Simply Measured, Mention, or Hootsuite to track your mentions.

Influencer Marketing Platforms

Influencer marketing platforms let you search their database of influencers and filter by social platforms, engagement, categories, and reach, and even track and measure your campaigns when running them. Tribe, HYPR, BuzzStream, BuzzSumo, and Grin are a few of the more popular influencer marketing platforms.

Found an Influencer?

The right influencer partnerships can lead your campaign to success. For the best results, focus on building a long-term relationship by providing fair compensation, sharing freebies, introducing them to your own networks, and keeping open communication even when your current campaign has ended.