Influencer marketing is viral today. It works, it is efficient, and you should definitely consider this strategy for advertising your company. Hiring an influencer is a recruiting process like any other. You need to assess their previous work and find the one that best fits your needs. We want to help out in the decision-making process, so here are six metrics to help you choose the right influencer.

Content relevance

Even though a famous influencer can talk about almost anything, it is crucial to find someone in your niche. You want to think about the benefit of having an influencer. They have a lot of followers. Whatever service or product you are offering, you want to find people who have an interest in it. If the influencer you choose is in your niche, all their followers are as well. Thus, it would be best to find an influencer that matches your core customer group.

The number of followers they have

Depending on the number of followers, we can sort influencers into a couple of groups:

• Nano-influencers: from 1000 to 5000 followers;
• Micro-influencers: from 5000 to 15000 followers;
• Mid-size influencers: from 15000 to 50000 followers;
• Rising star influencers: from 50000 to 500000 followers;
• Macro-influencers: from 500000 to 1 million followers;
• Celebrity influencers: 1 million + followers.

The number of followers will also define what their price is. If you cannot afford to hire high-tier influencers, have no worries. Your business can also benefit from nano ambassadors. It is crucial to increase the exposure, even for a little. As your business grows, there is a high chance that you will attract the attention of influencers with a higher number of followers, even without reaching out to them. There is another crucial detail to consider here. Say you manage to make a deal with a macro-influencer or even a celebrity influencer. There is a high chance that your business will become viral overnight, and the new customers will start to pile up. Do not make this move if you are not ready to deliver a high volume of orders. Depending on the amount of work you can keep up with, you need to pace yourself.

Influencer engagement

Another important metric to evaluate is influencer engagement. This means that you want someone who is actively engaged with their followers. Creating content is essential, but you also want someone who is reading followers’ comments, responding, and generally interacting with everyone. This is crucial because you need good communication with customers to run a successful business. When the influencer starts posting content, your existing customers will also see the content. If they ask a question and don’t get an answer, that could be bad for your business.

Analyze reach and impressions

Two critical metrics that define an influencer are reach and impression. We already covered reach when we spoke about the number of followers. For example, if an influencer has 6000 followers, their reach is 6000 because they can reach out to that many people. However, that does not mean that the content will appear on all 6000 people’s feeds. We also need to consider that often people watch one video multiple times. When it comes to reach and impressions, they are helpful to get a quick snapshot of the influencer you want to hire. However, keep in mind that the numbers might be misleading. For example, the number of impressions is just a calculation. Just because a video showed on someone’s feed does not necessarily mean that the person watched it. They perhaps closed the video after a couple of seconds. Viral marketing is more than just numbers. Yes, the numbers do matter, but they are just a part of a bigger picture.

Be mindful of fake followers

Everything could be faked on the internet, and the number of followers is no exception. There are many scammers out there who fabricate their number of followers to boost their popularity. That’s another reason you should not rely on numbers as a decisive factor. There are many tools like Upfluence that you can use to evaluate influencers. These tools assess an influencer and give you a percentage of real followers. There are also a couple of red flags you can notice yourself:

• Look at the followers’ posts. If they feel spammy and with no real substance, they probably are;
• If an influencer has 500000 followers but just a few hundred likes, that’s very suspicious. Also, those followers could be real, but that means that the influencer has lost their attention.

Be very careful when choosing an influencer. A bad decision might hurt your business.

Branded engagement rate

Here is a fundamental metric we need to cover. If you are selling products, you want to find an influencer who is good at advertising branded products for sale. For example, someone could be good at creating captivating content, and they usually have a lot of likes. However, once they post an image of a product, the likes and views drop. That can tell you that the influencer is not particularly good at advertising products. Or, their viewer base is just not interested in that kind of advertising. A high branded engagement rate means that the influencer is capable of giving your business the exposure it needs to make money.

6 metrics to help you choose the right influencer – explained! And there you have it. We have covered the six essential metrics to help you choose the right influencer, and we hope you understand what to look for. Still, remember that your personal impression also plays a role here. If you don’t like the person and are not supportive of how they create content, you should not chase their numbers. Remember, they will represent your business. You want only the best, so find someone you like. They will be the face of your company, so you want them to share the same values.

About Author: Jack Rosen is a marketing expert and a professional blogger for MoversTech CRM. He aims to help businesses develop more efficiently and find useful marketing strategies and sources.