[Tip 4 of 8] How To Choose An Influencer For Your Marketing Campaigns?

How do you market your products/services to the upcoming generation that is a growing community with increasing spending power? 

It’s pretty simple and straightforward, don’t make it look like an advertisement!

Micro-influencers are smaller-scale personalities that promote/represent brands targeted at niche markets. What a lot of big brands and businesses don’t seem to understand is that Generation Z is a cohort that’s susceptible to Instagram, Youtube, bloggers and so on. 

TV has extinct for this era (well, kind of). Generation Z tend to watch and pay more attention to their favourite personalities on Youtube, Instagram, Blogs and more. 

This is why influencer marketing is getting more and more popular.

Brands realise that most of them nowadays tend to shut off anything that sounds like an ad. Brands need to reach these new viewers through a more relevant outlook- Through smartphones and social media feeds.

Wondering how to find the best suited influencer for your brand? Here are some tips for you:

1. Use hashtags

Using hashtags helps you find relevant influencers that are interested in your brand/product/market. #hashtagssavelives (and time, mostly time.)

2. Social media monitoring

Tap onto your own followers to survey for influencers with a large following base that are already a fan of your product. This makes it easier to work and persuade them to collaborate with you. Furthermore, the content produced will most likely come out more authentic and genuine!

3.   Credibility and strong reputation

Does the influencer’s brand match your brand? For example, using a gym blogger to promote a juice bar makes sense, rather than a makeup guru. Credibility also comes in when there is genuine use or personal stories of the product being mentioned. Strong reputation defines the influencer’s presence on social media platforms. Does s/he post regularly with quality content?

4.   Reach and engagement rate

There are many influencers that have big names, large follower base, but limited postings. Check if the influencer responds to his/her followers’ comments and reactions. You want to make sure that the influencer you pick is very active online, posts frequently and engages in conversations with their followers. 

This shows how committed they are towards their work because you want someone who abides to the contract both parties have agreed on. This ultimately leads to more trust and higher engagement rate on social media.

5. Cost

How are you going to compensate your influencers? Will it be through flat-rate payment? Pay per post? Free products? Promo codes? Even so, if you’re a first time KOL marketing user, start small then scale overtime. Influencers with a large follower base tend to be more expensive and sometimes they are not suitable to represent your brand. Understand your budget and go from there.

6. Don’t just go for the “Big Fish”

When businesses think of influencer marketing, they tend to think “the bigger the better” - Followers up to thousands or maybe millions. Yes, those will be helpful if your aim is to increase on reach and brand presence in the market space. However, those aren’t the only ones that can drive traffic and engagement to your brand. 

Using micro-influencers can really help create long-term loyal customers which in the long run would bring higher ROI.

What we suggest is for you to start with a few and invest on the best. Take note that the creation process is a collaborative one so, make sure to provide sufficient information to your influencers and communicate with them consistently.

Now that you’re starting to familiarize yourself with influencer marketing and it doesn’t seem too elusive, feel free to contact us or drop us an email if you’d like to discuss about your first campaign!

Need more DO's and DONT's tips? Click here to see Do's & Don'ts for brands on Instagram.