How to choose an influencer? Influencer Marketing Series

How to choose an influencer?

Amidst the roller coaster lives that we all have as marketers, there have always been situations when we have been tasked to get something done on a tight deadline. Well that works, mostly. (with lots of coffee, paranoia, & sleep deprived nights).

But an influencer marketing campaign is a tough-do - where do you begin and how quickly can you put things together? Well for that, you can view this series right here, helping you build an influencer marketing campaign from scratch.

But wait, for an influencer marketing campaign, you need to have influencers [duh!]. So how do you select influencers? Do you hand over the mandate to an agency? How many influencers do you engage with? What factors should you consider while shortlisting influencers.

Some of the factors that you should be consider while selecting an influencer are values, congruence, authenticity, differentiation and engagement, something that I call the VECAD model - Values, Engagement, Congruence, Authenticity, Differentiation.

Values

An influencer is way beyond the traditional marketing metrics: likes, follows, retweets. There is no 100% right way to select an influencer, but the wrong way to select one is surely only considering follower count and likes.

An influencer represents your brand – and is your brand in the minds of your consumers.

Hence the most important things to consider while choosing your influencer is a value match between the influencer and your brand.

However popular a current celebrity may be [whether they have a million followers or gazillion likes on their videos], it would be brand suicide to on-board someone who is not in sync with the values that your brand represents.

If your brand is a conservative, value oriented brand, would a controversy embroiled celebrity be the right fit? Identifying the values matrix remains pretty much the same, whether it is a mega, macro- or micro-influencer.

Questions that you need to ask:

1. If my brand were a human being, would this influencer be an accurate representation of what s/he would be like?

2. Would my customer equate my brand with this customer without any incongruence?

3. Does this influencer espouse the same values that my brand stands for?

Maybe finding out all this looks difficult and time consuming – but on the flip side, the dangers of associating with an influencer with a clear values mismatch will extend much more beyond a drop in sales.

Congruence

Your brand cannot be everything to everyone. Profitability and sustainability, lies in the niche. You need to find the voice that is most passionate and natural fit for your communication.

Now finding a mega influencer (celebrity) who is a natural fit for your everyday use product may be a tough (okay, impossible) find.Then micro-influencers are the correct influencer group for you.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that the influencer espouses the voice, the values, principles that your brand stands for, but in that too, should be a recognizable and acceptable fit in the niche that you are targeting.

If your brand is in the nutritional supplements space for young mothers, then your influencer needs to be a recognizable entity in the same space. Short-listing someone in the overall nutritional supplement space will be too broad a charter, and getting traction would be that much difficult. A small but profitable niche is a much better fitment that a broad, diffused segment.

Engagement

You have heard it before. Engagement matters. Even if your influencer you have thousands of likes (which can be manufactured), what is really important is how engaged his/her followers are.

You should explore answers to questions like:

• Does the influencer respond to comments, queries, mentions, or tagged posts?
• Is there evidence of an influencer’s audience purchasing something based on that influencer’s recommendation?
• How is the influencer responding to negative comments?
• What is the influencer's policy regarding disclosures about conflict of interest / sponsored content?

Authenticity

Some so called influencers are in it, solely for, well, influencing. Their vision is limited to monetization and social celebrity-hood – which are natural outcomes that spring from expertise, but that comes later. Such fake influencers have no compass to guide them while choosing brands and would compromise their professional integrity for short term gains.

Engaging with such influencers can be at your own detriment, especially when backlash against fake influencers can affect your brand.

Differentiation

A powerful influencer can take up your brand a notch. But on the other hand, if s/he is engaged with too many brands, there is a risk that your communication may get lost in the clutter. You need to find an influencer with a reasonable brand engagement ratio. Too less is never bad, especially for an influencer just starting out [you may be able to onboard a influencer before s/he actually hits it big]. Too more, and you are definitely one amongst the many brands that are being endorsed by the influencer.

So, good luck on your influencer selection journey. Look out for these next posts on the influencer marketing series. Let me know in the comments section below if there are any topics that you’d like to hear more about.