Influencer marketing is a big social media strategy for several brands these days. Brands such as Sugar Bear hair, Daniel Wellington and Fashionova, to name a few, have built an Instagram empire based on influencer marketing. This has also led to the rise in the number of “influencers”. There’s too many Instagram bloggers out there and it can be task for a brand to decide which one to partner with.
Here are some tips and tricks that we think could help you make the decision -
1. Content -
First and most importantly, observe the kind of content the influencer is creating. Does that go with the vibe and aesthetic of your brand & would you want to be associated with that? If the content is good and you think it closely resonates with your brand, then you should go through the below steps to further study the profile of the influencer.
2. Don’t judge an account by the number -
It is very easy to buy followers and likes on Instagram with several bot programs running these services. Brands often just see these numbers of likes and followers while choosing which "influencer" to collaborate with. Don’t always see the numbers, actually study their profile.
3. Consistency -
Also notice for how long have they been actively posting and creating content & is the growth organic or there’s a sudden massive jump in the likes/comments. If so, if there is a legitimate source for the same.
4. Engagement -
The kind of accounts that are interacting with the influencer (likes/comments). While choosing which influencer to partner with, you can decide based on the kind of people that interact with their account. You can gauge if those people would be interested in the product/service your brand has to offer, only then should you go ahead and partner with them.
Some red flags while scanning the accounts that interact with the influencer -
● Followers with No Photos or Posts: If an influencer is followed by users that have not posted and/or lack a profile picture, you can typically assume that these followers are fake. Brands should also look out for influencers with followings of tons of private accounts and “spammy” usernames.
● Irrelevant and/or Spam Comments: If an influencer has a ton of comments, it’s easy to assume that their followers are active. Look through a few photos and scan the comments. If the comments are clearly irrelevant or gibberish, they’re from fake followers.
● Following/Followed by “fan-buying” services: If you look through their followers and who they’re following, you might see one or two fan-buying accounts. These are huge red flags that the influencer is gaining fake Instagram followers.
5. External Checks -
You can check websites such as social blade to check the insights of the influencer. How many people are following them daily if it is consistent or not. If they are following and unfollowing too many people regularly, that's also very sketchy.
6. Statistics -
● Likes & Comments : Compare the likes to comments ratio. If the influencer is getting a lot of likes but barely any comments, it is definitely a bot program running on my their account. Since realistically this wouldn’t happen.
● Video Views & Likes : See the video views and the number of likes on that same post. If the video views are less than the likes, then it’s definitely a bot running on their account. Another quick trick is compare the video views to the number of average likes they get on posts. If they get around 1500 likes on their posts but video views are only about 800, that can’t be genuine.
In hindsight sometimes you may judge an account and think it has fake following but there might be other reasons like -
1. Hashtags - Using the correct hashtags usually generates likes and sometimes even followers. These followers seem very similar to the bought followers so to tell the difference between them is very hard. But if you see the account using hashtags right, there’s higher chance that they are hashtag followers and not bought.
2. Inconsistency - If the account is inconsistent in posting, there’s a higher chance that their engagement will be low even if they have a high number of followers.
3. Miscellaneous - Some accounts have a very high following and hardly any posts, this often happens if an insta celeb gives them a shoutout or they’ve been featured by an actual celebrity.
4.Quality of content - A drastic change in quality of content (good or bad) can cause a hike or dip in engagement.
5.Boosting of posts - Instagram allows to get more hits on images by boosting the post. This causes a severe fluctuation in engagement on the different posts even though the followers might be organic.
Hope this helped you get a little more insight on Instagram influencers & further helps you to choose the right one to partner with for your brand.
We would love to know if you found this helpful , so comment below and let us know if you have any questions or what more would you like us to talk about.