Before You Pay an Influencer for Marketing, Read This

Gilbert Salazar
Nov 7 · 3 min read

By Gilbert Salazar

Influencer marketing comes with risk, a major risk being fraud. According to studies conducted by American Marketing Association, influencer marketing fraud is costing companies roughly $1.3 billion annually. This number does not even begin to reflect the potential damage it can do to a company’s brand.

The unforeseen factors of influencer marketing can pose potential risks to a company’s brand. For example, say you hire an influencer to promote a fitness brand, and two-to-three months into your promotion, the influencer “goes off script” and decides to post politically charged content. This messaging could pose a threat to your influencer marketing campaign, potentially offending your target audiences and turning them away from your brand. Unfortunately, there is no way to foresee such action, which is why the vetting process for influencers is crucial to campaign success.

Fraud is still the biggest issue consumer brands are seeing when leveraging influencer marketing. One of the ensuing problems is found in measuring the true number of followers an influencer may have, which in increasingly more cases, have determined to include bots or paid for followers. This potentially adds inflated monetary value to influencer marketing and possibly reduces ROI for brands. Another huge consideration for brands are the recent guidelines and disclosures introduced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). These legal guidelines must be adhered to by influencers. Deviating from these guidelines is considered fraudulent and can lead to FTC inquiry for both the influencer and the brand. In that regard, there are also problems associated with the FTC’s advice to influencers. Ryan Skinner, Principal Analyst at Forrester, recently posted about possible issues surrounding disclosure tips provided by the FTC.

The combination of potential fraud and compliance can seem daunting for any brand looking to take advantage of the huge benefits of influencer marketing. That said, brands need to be better about educating themselves on understanding overall probability of risk in their campaigns before they even engage in working with influencers. The following model is a high-level starting point for calculating Risk Probability (RP) when identifying potential influencers for campaigns. The higher the RP Score, the higher the potential for predicted risk.

Risks are inevitable when using influencer marketing, however planning and being prepared for any pitfalls is a good counter-strategy. Here are things to consider in order to avoid risk in your influencer marketing campaign:

  • Ask the question. What is the probability of risk?
  • Develop an internal process for assessing risk or use the model above.
  • Evaluate the characteristics of your brand and identify influencers that align with those.
  • Evaluate the needs of your campaign and select influencers that align with those goals.
  • Monitor for fake accounts. Everyday a new “fake” account is created. Be alert!
  • Avoid new accounts that have millions of followers with minimal engagement.
  • Understand that a one million follower count is easy to generate. If an influencer with this number of followers is receiving under 100 likes per post, buyer beware.

The use of influencer marketing by brands is expected to double by the year 2020, and most likely, so will influencer fraud. Avoid becoming a victim of fraud by using these tips to fully vet your influencers and minimize influencer marketing risks.

Gilbert Salazar

Written by

Strategically building and growing businesses focused on customer experience, digital innovation, digital transformation and marketing technology.

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