How to Identify if an Influencer is Impactful to Your Brand

Influencer marketing has become a significant facet to many branding plans, however identifying the outcomes that prove influencers effective after content production is extremely helpful when looking to replicate. Recognizing value that Influencers bring can promote the right collaboration with your brand and identify what to communicate to Influencers to form successful partnerships for both agency and Influencer. Creating an agreement with your Influencer that embodies these steps can help ensure a more successful collaboration with both the social Influencer and the brand.

They Drive Brand Awareness

First, it is important to be aware of how much their social media audience has engaged and liked the content the Influencer has created. Partnering with influencers as brand ambassadors allows brands to reach a highly-engaged, hyper-targeted audience who share traits with the brand or Influencer. Commonly, social media Influencers bring awareness to brands or issues that relate to their interests or lifestyle choices in order to share with their audience who supports and engages with them.

This audience will be able to identify the brand from the initial recognition the influencer provides through their content to bring awareness to their community. With a vast majority of consumers making purchases on their mobile devices, influencers can personally introduce new brands to consumers to generate brand awareness about the company and its products or services. By getting product into the hands of the Influencer we are then getting product to consumers.

For example, by working with the natural and organic food client, Bob’s Red Mill Farms, Power Digital can reach out to influencers who may show interest or may have an audience who would wish to see that health food brand featured. For example, by reaching out to Mother Influencers as opposed to Health or Foodie influencers, we reach a niche audience who wishes to provide organic or paleo friendly meals to their families. This audience may be an untapped community that now has visibility and recognition through the influencer they most enjoy following on social media.

Related: 12 Things That Can Go Wrong Within an Influencer Partnership (& How to Avoid Them)

They Create Promotable, Unique, And Quality Content

Secondly, it is important that they are continuously creating unique, high-resolution content. By featuring the brand’s products or packaging and capturing that image themselves they are creating “User Generated Content”. This content is more cost effective because the latter would be creating content in-house and paying for professional equipment and tools. Unique and creative content is important because we don’t want the audience to be thrown off by their post and for it to fit in with the past and future posts they will and have created.

By encouraging their one-of-a-kind aesthetic appearance influencers will feel like they have more control with what they are contributing to their audience as well as more connected to the product. By choosing not to provide an Influencer with a particular image to post or uniformed guidelines we limit the “Advertisement or Sponsored look” and decrease Ad Fatigue. Ultimately this begins with the research conducted prior to find Influencers who will only positively promote brands through their previously posted high-resolution content.

Furthermore, it is valuable to also have promotable content that can be repurposed by utilizing content that influencers create to support your internal marketing efforts. Examples of this would be reposting Influencer content on the brand’s social media accounts like Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest, Paid social advertisements like Facebook or Instagram Ads or even on the Website. This impact will provide a creative refresh for the viewers who will see ads with authentic and creative content.

Related: How to Perfect Your Influencer Marketing Strategy

They Include A Call-To-Action

The next value that Influencer content can bring to brands is the Call-to-Action application. For example this can be simply a phrase that encourages the viewers to do more like “Find out more on Canna Pet.com” or “Shop the Bob’s Red Mill Site Now!” By asking your influencer to include a call to action within their post encourages viewers to take action on learning more or viewing additional information. By bringing the information right to their fingertips you increase the chance and ease they have to click for the next opportunity instead of allowing them to go find more information elsewhere.

They Engage With Their Audience

An easily identifiable impact that a valuable influencer has is their engagement and communication with their audience. The influencer is carrying out key messaging through their content and responding to their followers’ comments is vital to the success of that post. Engaging influencers share a more authentic experience with the brand’s products and their audience by becoming a spokesperson who will continue to endorse the product by personally responding to each comment.

Often a valuable Influencer will want to experience a product or brand prior to endorsing it to their community of followers who they have created a loyal relationship with. By researching or having experience with the product they are endorsing attributes authenticity with their post because they will be able to speak honestly with the viewer who chooses to comment and inquire more information.

Another aspect of being an engaging influencer is that they will tell a story through their post. Returning to the example of the Mom Influencers, we see that audience members tend to be more attracted to an influencer who has experience with the product and welcomes a viewer into their home to share that intimacy within their content. Whether that be by including a family memory, tradition, or beloved recipe that they cherish allows viewers to feel closer to not only the Influencer but also the product that can allow them to incorporate that similar experience into their life.

Influencers who engage frequently and consistently with their audience further the impact of their content by opening lines of communication with the brand and the Influencer, as well as sharing personal experiences. This allows audiences to grow their relationship with both the Influencer and the brand and adds authenticity to their endorsement.

Related: Rating Influencer Partnerships: What to Look For

In conclusion, recognizing the impact valuable influencers can have on a brand can encourage conversations to layout expectations and guidelines that ensure the collaboration’s success. By providing information about the product, conducting engagement research, and finding online Influencers with high-resolution and unique content can promote greater engagement and the outcome you and the brand desire.