The first thing you need to decide is what kind of influencer you would like for your brand. Do you want a nano-influencer, micro-influencer or a macro-influencer?

A nano-influencer is someone with only a few thousand followers on a particular social media channel but with a well-defined sector. 

A micro-influencer is defined as someone with under 100 000 followers on a particular social media channel. Their content is usually focused on a specific topic, passion or niche. Generally, these are ‘regular’ people who have some kind of established authority. 

Micro-influencers and nano-influencers are good for really niche products, or products that require a very specific target audience.

A macro-influencer is defined as someone who has over 250 000 followers on a particular social media channel. These people are usually celebrities or well-known personalities. Their content is generally high-quality.

Macro-influencers are extremely useful for topics that are made for a much broader target audience and for very high-profile products. This is because macro-influencers will want to promote bigger products. But this is a generalisation and doesn’t apply to all macro-influencers. 

Once you know what kind of influencer you want, you need to find the right one. To do this, you need to ask the following questions:

How often do they post?

Checking to see how often an influencer posts is a big consideration. You want someone who posts regularly to ensure that any posts promoting your brand will be seen.

But, you also don’t want to choose an influencer who puts content on social media too often as the product that they’re promoting  could get lost among their other posts. Also consider that many people find a constant stream of notifications  to be annoying, and won’t follow or interact with that influencer. 

Do their followers interact with posts?

Follower interaction is an integral part of influencer marketing as it plays a big part in how their posts get such a big reach. Interactions on social media include comments, likes, mentions and tags.  

If followers interact with the influencer’s posts, your brand will most likely get a bigger reach.

When deciding which influencer — or influencers — you should choose for your brand, check if and how their followers interact to ensure that any potential post promoting your product has the best reach. 

Sifting through the comments on the posts that endorse your products will give you a gauge of how people respond and feel about your brand.

Are they experts in topics relevant to your brand?

When choosing an influencer, you need to make sure that their audience is relevant to your brand. You need to ensure that they have some kind of knowledge of the topics related to your company and industry. 

For example, if you are selling vegan burgers, it would make no sense to hire an influencer who isn’t vegan ... 

But, and this is a BIG but, make sure that you do not hire an influencer who has previously endorsed your competition. 

Do they have authority?

This goes hand-in-hand with expertise. If an influencer doesn’t have knowledge of the relevant niche, they will not have authority.

Followers need to trust that this influencer knows about the product and therefore wouldn’t endorse it if it wasn’t any good.

If the influencer’s audience trusts their opinion on the subject, the endorsement will be more meaningful for the audience and for the brand.

Are they trustworthy? 

The influencer you choose needs to have the trust of their followers. This trust will come with expertise and authority — as well as remaining authentic and honest in posts.

Too many brands have chosen the wrong influencers to promote their brands to the wrong audience. This will tarnish the trust the influencer’s followers have gained — and this will mean a huge loss of potential customers for your brand.

Look for influencers who are already fans of what your brand has to offer  as you know that their endorsement will be genuine. This will build more trust between the followers and the influencer — a win-win for everyone.

Try to give the influencer some space to customise the campaign to suit their audience, too. They know what’s best for their followers and will be able to identify the best way to market your brand to that audience.

It will also ensure that the campaign is one that their followers will love and won’t care if there is the mandatory #ad in the caption.

What do you think you should look for when choosing an influencer for your brand? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Now that you know what to look for before hiring an influencer, why not check out these Five trends shaping influencer marketing in 2019.
*Image courtesy of Vecteezy