Influencer Marketing: 10 useful tips

In the last 10 years, the phenomenon of influencers has allowed thousands of businesses to grow dramatically online , taking advantage of the growing popularity of people who have been able to exploit social media to have following and visibility.

Until a few years ago, platforms such as Facebook and then Instagram allowed these influencers to reach all the followers they could win with their posts . For this reason, having 500,000 followers meant being able to show your content to the same number of people.

Over time, following the updates of the platforms that have increasingly favored paid advertising , this "reach" (ability of an account to reach all followers) has gone down, reaching thresholds such as 5 / 10%, based on the momentary notoriety of an account. Hence, the rates of most of these influencers have become increasingly disproportionate to their value and market needs have caused businesses to rethink their strategies and investments.

After continuous evolutions , trend reversals , market saturation and a drop in user concentration on the platforms, new categories of influential people have been added, including micro-influencers , content creators and opinion leaders . These are known for their ability to influence well only a small group of people (even just a few hundred in a niche) since their notoriety is based precisely on a relationship of trust with the followers. Unfortunately, among these, there are also fake famous people , with purchased or fake followers , who actually try their luck and try to become famous by trying to leverage those people and companies who, due to few digital skills, allow themselves to be convinced. by profiles beautiful to look at, but without substance.

Despite everything, companies have not stopped investing in influencers of any size , trying to get the right visibility in the face of more or less large amounts spent. For this reason, after years of experience in this type of activity, we have decided to suggest a series of precautions to be taken into consideration when investing in influencer marketing campaigns .

- Demand updated profile statistics . In particular, the best indicators of quality (not sufficient to establish with certainty that they are not fake followers) are the number of views in the latest stories and the nationality of the followers.
- Follow the profile, analyze the interaction of followers and check what are the factors that determine their notoriety
- Study well the niche they are targeting and understand if their opinion matters
- Make sure they are able to create quality content and are motivated to collaborate
- Prepare contracts that take into account all the rights and obligations of both parties
- Understand if he has carried out recent activities with competitors or that may go against the brand
- Negotiate a trial publication to test quality before embarking on long-term partnerships
- Do not be convinced only by the aesthetic aspect but focus on the influence they have on the followers
- Negotiate the possibility of using the content in advertising
- Establish the mandatory approval before the publication of the contents

In short, working with influencers can sometimes be very convenient, but you have to be careful . Relying on talent agencies can be a solution but very often there are very high costs , in exchange for services that are not always of quality. It pays to work with brokerage agencies that have no interest in promoting one character or another, but who want to follow the interests of the brands they manage in other areas as well.