How to determine if an Instagram Influencer is actually #influential using ‘Valuable Followers’
We live in a world where users on Instagram are consuming content at an unprecedented pace. Scrolling through a newsfeed has become a battle between brands in an attempt to gain the interest of the user. Consequently, and inevitably, this has created compounding challenges for brand marketers, as their ability to cut through the noise to promote their message has become stifled.
This is why Influencer Marketing is fundamental for today’s brands, because Influencer Marketing is specifically geared to; firstly, help a brand rise above these challenges; and secondly, help a brand better broadcast their message through an “Influencer” who has an engaged and loyal following. Ideally, the Influencer’s following will respond to the campaigns call to action and, as a result, allow the brand to achieve their campaign goals. This, in theory, is what makes an “Influencer” #influential and, in effect, beneficial for a brand.
“Hold on a minute — this all sounds pretty logical to me. So, where did it all go wrong?” What went wrong you ask? The problem is that this line of thinking isn’t as straightforward and one dimensional as it seems on face value. Why? Because Influencers are able to, and easily, cheat the system by inflating their engagement rate through “buying likes”, as well as boosting their total following via the countless ‘buy instant followers now!’ online services.
For these reasons, brands can’t rely on normal indicators such as engagement rate and total number of followers to determine if an Influencer is influential. Brands now need to look much deeper and instead analyse factors that an “Influencer” cannot manipulate. This will allow brands to discover the Influencers who actually have an authentic and engaged audience. With Influencer Marketing, brands will no longer be under the thumb of supposed influencers.
The above factors (and countless nights of lost sleep) is what has inspired us to create the ‘Valuable Followers’ metric. It provides brands with a more transparent way to look at who is following the Influencer and the quality of that following.
The ‘Valuable Followers’ metric gives brands a quantifiable way to measure how influential an Influencer really is and how valuable their audience is to a brand, since it cuts out followers who do not interact with the Influencer and those who are of low quality. It enables brands to work out from an Influencer’s total following: how many profiles actually care about the Influencer’s content, and how many profiles are most likely to engage with the Influencer’s post. We have created a metric that Influencers cannot buy, manipulate, or exploit, as the only way Influencers can earn Valuable Followers is by creating engaging content consistently over time.
“Valuable Followers gives brands a quantifiable way to measure how influential an Influencer really is”
To work out an Influencer’s total “Valuable Followers”, we first look at each profile who is following the Influencer and then apply our proprietary algorithm to determine the ‘quality’ of each profile. We then link the ‘quality’ of each follower to their ‘activity’ to subsequently categorise each profile into the following profile types;
- Loyal Fans
- High Engaged
- Engaged
- Low Engaged
- Ghosts
- Influencers
- Brands
We have highlighted the below what these types of profiles look like:
Lastly, we then apply to each follower a unique weighting, using sales data and other performance metrics, to the above profile types to produce the Influencer’s aggregate “Valuable Followers” number.
Generally, Influencers who have a majority of their following from ‘Loyal Fans’, ‘High Engaged’, and ‘Engaged’ profiles will be, typically, bona fide Influencers with a higher number of Valuable Followers. The Valuable Follower metric hinders and obstructs Influencers with a large amount of purchased followers and high engagement rate from continuing to create a smoke and mirrors effect. In other words, Influencers with purchased followers will no longer be able to hide behind their large following and engagement rates, since such Influencers will have, characteristically, a high rate of ‘Low Engaged’ and ‘Ghosts’ followers who rarely engage with their posts.
Therefore, when assessing an Influencer, you preferably want to work with an Influencer who has a greater proportion of their followers classed as “Valuable Followers” out of their total following. Why? Because this will ensure for you that your content is actually being communicated and actually being seen by the Influencer’s followers. You are probably thinking: what is a good number of Valuable Followers an Influencer should have? To answer this, we need to look at the Influencer’s ‘Lumio Quality Score’. Essentially, the ‘Lumio Quality Score’ indicates the quality of that Influencer’s following compared to other Influencers of the same following.
With Lumio, how influential an Influencer is can no longer be distorted. The ‘Valuable Followers’ metric will finally allow brands to achieve consistent results, greater transparency, and overcome all forms of artful deception when working with Influencers. Learn more how you can use the power of data to make better decisions here.
