How to Choose the Right Social Media Influencer for Your Marketing Campaign

by Ellie Richards, Guest Contributor

​Influencer marketing is a buzz word in the marketing world. Social media influencers play a role similar to celebrity endorsers in conventional advertising. They help profit-making organisations to get a quicker response to their new products and sales promotions. One should not get surprised that some influencers charge thousands of dollars for a single post. To obtain the best possible results from influencer marketing, you need to select a suitable social media influencer for your marketing campaign.
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Below are the key tips for selecting the right social media influencer for your brand. 

Check the Relevance of the Influencer to Your Business/Brand
Selecting a social media influencer for your business is different from choosing a celebrity endorser for conventional mass media campaigns. Customers tend to believe an influencer because they perceive him/her to have an expert level of knowledge in a certain field. Hence, the selected influencer should be relevant to the brand you are promoting through your marketing campaign. Check the website and social media pages of the influencer thoroughly. His or her past blog posts and social media mentions should be highly relevant to the audiences you are intended to reach. If you are promoting a new smartphone app, the right influencer should have published reviews of similar apps in the past. Lacking alignment between the influencer and your business or product will result in an inadequate response to your whole marketing campaign.

Credibility of the Influencer is Paramount
In fact, the overall credibility of your influencer is a key to getting positive results in influencer marketing. Check the background of your influencer thoroughly before you sign a contract with them. In addition, check whether the influencer is ready to spread online word-of-mouth (WOM) if your competitors attempt to partner them. Credible influencers generally restrict their association to a few top brands and remain loyal to them. If an influencer was known to have promoted fake or low-quality products in the past, it would be wise to search for an alternative influencer. Any promotion by an influencer who lacks or has lost their credibility will not yield good results. 

A mistake to choose the right influencer for your marketing campaign will not only result in wasting your marketing budget, but will also devalue the image of your brand in the eyes of the end customer. Highly reputable brands immediately stop cooperating with an influencer whose reputation has been ruined. For example, the #MeeToo movement resulted in the suspension of several celebrities by top brands from their marketing campaigns. Breaking off these business relations literally led to the wastage of thousands or millions of dollars. You will bear substantial financial losses if your social media influencer turns out to be involved in a scandal. 

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Reach of the Influencer
If you want to get a good bang for your buck, the influencer you select should have a good reach with your target audience. The importance of your influencer’s reach varies from one marketing campaign to another. If you are promoting a cosmetic product targeted at young women through influencer marketing, the selected influencer should ideally have at least a million followers to get satisfactory results. On the other hand, successful promotion of a niche technology product will require an influencer who has a few thousands of pertinent followers. Just remember to check whether the follower list of the influencer you select is authentic or not. Some influencers try to create large follower lists through fake social media accounts of non-existent people. 

Engagement of the Influencer with Followers
The influencer you select should have a good level of engagement with their followers. Marketing engagement refers to the degree of interaction between the influencer and their subscribers on social media. The overall level of engagement between your influencer and their followers can be gauged by looking at the number of likes received by each post, the number of times a post has been shared by the followers, and the comments received by a post. All the figures regarding these interactions can be gleaned from digital marketing tools such as BuzzSumo.

Keep Your Marketing Budget in Mind
The influencer you select for your marketing campaign should obviously fit in your marketing budget. Some influencers would charge thousands of dollars for a minor mention of your product or service. You may not be able to afford such expensive influencers if your marketing budget is limited. Selecting an influencer who is out of the reach of your marketing budget will lower your return on investment (ROI) from the planned marketing campaign. Select an influencer you can truly afford with your current marketing budget and run a pilot test with influencer marketing. 

When selected properly, social media influencers can yield better results than celebrity endorsers, as the former are perceived to obtain an expert level of knowledge in their field. According to a recent social media study, every dollar spent on influencer marketing will generate returns worth $6.5. However, remember to select an influencer who would be relevant to your brand and keep your marketing budget in mind before making a partnership decision. 

Author bio:

Ellie Richards is an online Marketing Manager for Original PhD, specialising in PhD research paper help. She specialises in research, content and article writing on various topics, including Education, Marketing, and Technology.

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