One Score to Rule them all: Introducing The Lumio ‘Quality’ Score
One score to rule them all.
This is the inspiration behind our ‘Lumio Quality Score’. Our aim was to make it the single source of truth for brands to determine the quality of an Influencer’s following. We wanted to make it a simple and easy way for brands to properly compare Influencers of similar followings as well as a quantifiable way to measure how #influential an Influencer really is.
Basically, the ‘Lumio Quality Score’ is a percentile rank out of 100 which takes into account the Influencer’s proportion of Valuable Followers out of their total following. The ‘Valuable Followers’ number shows you how many profiles actually care about the Influencer’s content, and how many profiles are most likely to engage with the Influencer’s post. Generally, you want to work with an Influencer who has a higher proportion of Valuable Followers in their total following, as these Influencers will give brands a higher chance of conversions. The higher the ‘Lumio Quality Score’, the higher proportion of Valuable Followers there are in the Influencer’s following.
Based on data from our recent case study, we found that you want to work with Influencers who have a ‘Lumio Quality Score’ above 60. With that said, as the Instagram community of “Influencers” continues to expand and develop over time, each Influencer’s personal score can change as new Influencer’s are added in. But we will always update our content to reflect any changes.
You’re probably thinking why should I work with Influencers who have a ‘Lumio Quality Score’ above 60? It’s because working with Influencers with a ‘Lumio Quality Score’ above 60 increases your probabilities of achieving your campaign goal, and enables you to identify the Influencers who have a majority of their following as Valuable Followers and fewer valueless low-quality profiles, namely: Low Engaged profiles and Ghosts.
Now to the good stuff — let’s see how the ‘Lumio Quality Score’ works in real life, with real Influencers (For privacy reasons we removed their real names and decided to call them @sarah and @emily). We will use the ‘Lumio Quality Score’ to compare two Influencers with a similar following to show you how sometimes the normal indicators of “quality”; specifically, the engagement rate and a large following, cannot be purely relied upon.
“normal indicators of “quality” and “Influence”; specifically, the engagement rate and a large following, cannot be purely relied upon”
At the present time of writing this, the below Influencers had a similar number of followers and engagement rate as shown on Instagram:
- @sarah — around 1.1 million followers & 9.73% engagement rate
- @emily — around 1.2 million followers & 8.29% engagement rate
By looking at their engagement rate, total following, and their ability to create quality content alone, one would think that these Influencers would have the exact same capacity to “influence” their audience, right? (this is on the premise that the brand’s campaign goal suits the Influencer’s feed).
…. well, according to our data, this isn’t the case — objectively speaking.
After analysing both Influencers we found that:
- @sarah has about 630k Valuable Followers out of her 1 million followers
Whereas:
- @emily has about 245k Valuable Followers out of her 1.2 million followers
From the above, we can see @sarah has a higher proportion of Valuable Followers out of her total following compared to @emily, which gives @sarah a higher ‘Lumio Quality Score’. @sarah’s ‘Lumio Quality Score’ is a solid 94, whereas @emily’s score is a not so impressive 1.
What we can see here is if we decided to rely solely on the engagement rate and following alone, @emily would be our go to gal as she would be expected to be more effective and influential. However, this is not entirely accurate. Why? Because the fact that she has a lower Lumio Quality Score indicates to us that she will be less effective in driving the message of your brand compared to @sarah. This monumental fact is proven with the data from our case study and other tests conducted with 42 brands and 1000 Influencers.
Considering our entire motive is to literally help brands, we aspire to help brands use data before working with Influencers. Why? Because otherwise Influencers like @emily will continue to utilise their useless “large following” and superficial “engagement rate” to your detriment.
The ‘Lumio Quality Score’ specifically takes into account both the quality of the profiles following the Influencer and every profiles level of activity, making the traditional measuring metrics like the “engagement rate” and “total following” less reliable when attempting to determine whether an Influencer is influential.
“The ‘Lumio Quality Score’ shows how traditional metrics like the “engagement rate” and “total following” are less reliable when attempting to determine whether an Influencer is influential”
When an Influencer has better a Lumio Quality Score, the probabilities of the Influencer’s post actually reaching valuable followers increases to your benefit. Similarly, when an Influencer has a lower Lumio Quality Score, this increases probabilities of the Influencer’s post being lost in the black hole of ever-growing Instagram feeds. To put it another way, it’s like promoting your ad on TV at 3am in the morning — people will see it, but will these night owls actually be effective? No… probably not. An Influencer having a higher proportion of Valuable Followers is like promoting your TV ad at a prime time, like at 7:30pm, when ‘The Bachelor’ is on.
Overall, the ‘Lumio Quality Score’ now enables brands to objectively compare the actual quality of two Influencers with a similar following. Using this new metric, brands will no longer have to rely on guess work. How influential an Influencer is will no longer be distorted. The ‘Lumio Quality Score’ finally allows brands to achieve consistent results and greater transparency when selecting Influencers.
As if you aren’t just a little curious to find out the scores of the Influencers you are currently working with?
Join our community of people possessing special enlightenment and knowledge of how Influential an Influencer really is. A community that we like to call, The Lumionati. See why so many other brands have decided to rely on our data to make more cost-effective decisions.
If your still not convinced, read our case study here which shows you how using the ‘Lumio Quality Score’ increases the chances of an Influencer actually selling your product or visit our website for more information.
