It can be complicated to find the right influencers for a marketing campaign and the process can become much more complicated if you need to find more than one influencer and verify all of them.
Therefore, it is of utmost importance that you equip yourself with techniques and strategies used by the professionals and designed to make it as easy as possible to find your way in the influencer jungle. In this case, we have a checklist that is optimized for those who are looking for influencers and want to be able to verify them in a way that we know can make it easier for you.
But before we start and present our checklist, we first thought to take a closer look at two different ways you can find influencers for your next project.
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Find tested and experienced influencers
In order for you to run a successful marketing campaign with influencers and achieve your set goals, you first need to find influencers who can represent your brand in a convincing way. Depending on which platform you are interested in using and what kind of influencer you want to use, the process may look a little different.
However, there are certain aspects that are the same for all campaigns and there are strategies designed to simplify work for you.
In an effort to help you optimize the process, we have gathered the best tips from our team of social media experts who all have extensive experience working with influencers and brands in a variety of industries. These tips are then summarized in a 14-step checklist that you need to go through for each campaign.
Is there an easier way to find the right influencer?
Yes it does.
If you want to run a campaign with influencers, you have two choices. You can either search the market and try to find influencers on your own, something that often takes a long time. Or you get help from the pros.
Beatly is an innovative influencer network that has long been a driving force behind automated selection processes for influencers and brands. We can help you with everything from finding the right influencer for various social media platforms to running and optimizing your campaigns. We also work hard to help our customers improve each campaign based on their and others’ past performance.
However, as I said, the goal of this article is to offer you the tools you need to find influencers yourself. Therefore, we will start with our checklist and then we will end the article by briefly discussing a simpler solution for you.
So with that said, we’ll now dive headlong into the best checklist for brands looking for tested influencers to represent them.
The checklist that can help you find the right influencers
Below is a list of 14 steps you should follow to find the right influencer for your next campaign. The list covers everything from how to start planning a campaign, to verifying influencers to what will be required of you after you have found and activated influencers.
We recommend that you always have the list close at hand when planning your campaigns.
1. Create a plan for your campaign
Before you start looking for influencers, you need a plan for your campaign.
What do you want to market and to whom? What are your KPIs? How does the product look? The list can be made long and it is extremely important that you have a clear plan before you continue as it will simplify your work.
With clear KPIs and guidelines, you make it easier for yourself and the influencers you will hire.
2. What kind of collaboration are you interested in?
Do you want to hire an influencer at one time or several influencers for a larger project? Are you in need of big influencers or micro-influencers? Have you considered whether you need an influencer or a brand ambassador who can represent you for a long period of time?
Decide which social media platforms you want to use
Your plan must include the platforms you will use as it will affect the type of influencer you need. Remember that Instagram is the most popular platform for this kind of campaign but that YouTube is better suited for longer videos. Snapchat on the other hand is best for reaching the younger target group and Facebook is best suited if you want to reach a target group above middle age.
Each platform has its advantages and disadvantages and your choice depends on what kind of product you are going to market and what target group you want to reach.
4. Perform a basic examination
With a detailed plan for your campaign and an idea of what kind of influencer you need, you can start the search. It is now time for you to evaluate who is active in your niche and how their posts are designed. Try to get an idea of popular trends and what kind of posts perform best.
You can also start identifying potential influencers to contact at a later stage.
5. Create a list of interesting influencers
Your task now is to start compiling a list of influencers that you think might suit you. Remember that you need to find more influencers than you plan to use as some will probably not be a good match and some may choose to say no to your suggestion.
A good rule of thumb is to try to find twice as many influencers as you actually intend to use, in this way you give yourself the opportunity to choose.
6. Get in touch
Then you need to contact the influencers you have found to inform them about your campaign and ask if they are interested in a collaboration. You now have the opportunity to ask influencers to provide specific information about their followers, engagement rates, etc.
Give all influencers time to respond and should your campaign be limited in time, you can give them a deadline for when they can last show their interest.
7. Choose the influencers that suit you best
Based on the answers you receive and the information provided by your selected influencers, you can now start picking and choosing. This is where your real work begins.
8. Double check followers and engagement
With a short list of potential and verified influencers you can imagine working with, it’s time to go into details. The first step is to make sure to check the authenticity and evaluate if each influencer has the right commitment or if they buy followers and likes.
For obvious reasons, it is important that you only work with reliable and serious influencers who can deliver the results you expect. During this part of the process, you can count on a couple of influencers to be ironed out, especially if you use Instagram or Twitter where fake engagement is most popular.
9. Take a closer look at each influencer’s content
With an even shorter list of verified influencers, it’s time to dive deep into their content. What does their previous post look like? Have they grown in size and are the number of likes and comments steadily increasing? Who likes their posts? etc. Try to paint a detailed picture of each influencer and their followers.
Before you continue with the rest of the list, it is essential that you have a good idea of your influencers and their potential. In other words, you need a good reason why you want to work with these particular people.
10. Evaluate previous campaigns
This step goes hand in hand with the previous step but can actually be performed earlier in the process.
As you probably understand, you are expected to take a look at each influencer’s previous projects and collaborations. Make sure they deliver good results for other brands and that they do not work too much with your closest competitors.
11. Discuss your plans with your verified influencers
At this point, you should have a good list of verified influencers that you want to work with and who are interested in working with you and it is now time to tell you more about what you expect.
Inform your influencers about what it is they will market and how you want the products to be represented. Also make sure to answer questions and take the opportunity to ask questions you have.
See this point as “the point of no return”. After this, everything must be crystal clear as it can be difficult to make changes later.
12. Send out contracts and products to activate the campaign
This is the moment you worked so hard for. The next step is to send out contracts and the products needed for influencers to be able to create posts for you. This is where the campaign actually begins.
We encourage all our customers to now take a step back and let influencers do what they do best: create great content that can market your products and services.
Something we have learned from our long experience in the industry is that campaigns where brands and companies have too much influence over influencers’ creative process often perform worse than necessary.
Do not forget that you hire influencers for their ability to create engaging content as well as their unique relationship with their followers. As soon as you start controlling them too much, you limit their ability to naturally create the content that reaches their followers the most and aggravate the results of the campaign.
13. Evaluate the results
Throughout the campaign, it is important that you collect data and that you follow the campaign carefully. The data you collect can later be used to evaluate how each influencer performs on its own and how the entire project proceeds.
Of course, the information can also be used to optimize future projects and collaborations.
14. End the campaign
If you have done your job well and found good influencers, your campaign should have been successful and you can now enjoy the results. Do not forget how much work you put into finding the right influencers and make sure to end the campaign in a nice way so that you can work with your influencers again in the future.
