Choosing the Ideal Influencer for your Brand: 5 Things To Look Out For

Over the years Influencer Marketing has become such a huge deal. With brands seeking to increase their brand or product awareness turning to influencers on social media to give the much-needed push that their product or services need to convert to sales, clicks or subscriptions.

When brands decide to dive into the murky waters of influencer marketing, the first hurdle to cross usually is ‘So which influencer do we contract for this?’
And here, it is very easy to see sentiment prevail over data, reasoning or applied knowledge.

Do you choose an influencer because of the number of followers they have, or because of the amount of engagement they get on their funny videos? Do you want to get 50,000 likes on your tummy blaster tea or do you want more traffic to your website and more products added to cart?

Should LasisiElenu be your go-to guy because you find him funny, or should Gloria’s creativity win you over?

An influencer should be given the job primarily because that is what they are, an influencer in every real sense of the word. For them to be an influencer they should have carved a niche for themselves, and be considered an authority in a particular field, have a record of sharing important and vital information in the said field as well as having a unique way of communicating with their followers or fans that gets them to take action. It is beyond having popularity on social media.

Most importantly for me, an influencer must have authority. So the question should be how well versed are they on a certain topic? Do they have the range to speak, recommend or endorse a product or service? If the answers to these are in the negative, then you may as well be throwing money in the air.
Your ideal influencer should:

1. Be an Authority

The influencer you choose to raise awareness for your product or service should be one who is an authority in that area of influence. You can’t, for instance, ask Pamilerin to create brand awareness for your range of baby diapers. A better influencer for that will be Ibe (iPissVodka), he is a father of 2 aged 3 and 2 months and fits the bill more to promote your product.
Being an authority doesn’t mean necessarily having certifications or Professor type knowledge to speak for certain things, the point really is that there should be some form of resonance between the influencer and the brand that the audience can tap into.

2. Have a way with words

Your ideal influencer should also have a way with words. Influencer marketing isn’t a great departure from traditional marketing of any other type with foundations in a great product, the right price, and a killer copy. So your influencer marketer should be smart, witty and deft in his use of language to convince people to buy, click or subscribe depending on what your goals are.

3. Have a network

It is also important for your influential marketer to have a network. A self-proclaimed influencer marketer may have 10 million followers on Instagram but without a network of peers, colleagues and fans then you may find yourself backing a lone wolf with no connections in the industry to further prop your brand.

4. Believe in your brand

Your influencer marketer is the first guy you sell to. If she doesn’t believe in your brand, if he isn’t passionate about your product, he can’t sell it. It will show in his captions, in her promotional images and videos, and in the engagement that follows long after the initial post has been made.

5. Offer solutions

There has to be something more than the number of followers that an influencer brings to the table. Demand more from your influencer by asking them to show data, not just downloaded datasets from Twitter Analytics, but also data that shows an understanding of their followers, segmentation and the whole works.

I have tried not to go into the different types of influencers in the industry in order not to sound academic. But whatever type of influencer you are seeking to work with, you should seek these 5 traits in them before giving them an offer to promote and create awareness for your brand, service, and product.

What are the funny, interesting experiences you have had with influencer marketers? Care to share them with us?