The boss has given you the green light for your project: you can finally start the influencer campaign you had proposed in your marketing strategy. Now that your goals are set, it is time to start contacting influencers and tell them about your project. But how can you be sure that your choice is the best? With these three questions, you should be able to ensure that your campaign is a success!

1 – Is the content they make relevant to your goals?

The first selection has to be made on the content made by the influencer. You should first ask yourself if you want someone who is mostly a photographer, someone who has a way with words, a videomaker, a creative person, someone who is mostly joking, etc. This is about asking yourself how you want your brand to be talked about, each influencer having their own way to talk to their audience. Before starting with someone, make sure that their personality and editorial policy are in accordance with the message you want them to convey! This is the most logical piece of advice, and yet, we often see a vegetarian blogger being offered to promote a restaurant made for meat lovers…

Second thing regarding content: have a look at the platforms on which it is broadcasted. Your influencer may have a big Instagram following, but no blog or other social pages. Their content might have a great impact when it is posted (providing that their audience is qualitative – see the 3^rd point), but an influencer who also blogs* will allow your brand to be indexed in a much less short-lived way. Obviously, an influencer who is able to influence their communities on several platforms is the best option!

2 – Is their community my target (or one of my targets) ?

Brands tend to choose an influencer on the content they make or the size of their community. However, it is essential to ask oneself what is the audience they reach. An influencer might be doing exactly the type of content you are looking for, and yet, their audience is not adapted at all to the target you wish to reach. Always check that the people who interact with them live in France if your target is French and that they are more than 18 if you do not want to reach the youngest (be careful with YouTube!). You could also ask them to send you the demographic data of their followers to make sure that you are not making any mistake.

Be careful: this does not mean at all that in order to promote, let’s say, a destination, you should only reach travel bloggers. Keep in mind that a food or fashion blogger may have as much influence on the travels of people who are following them.

Anne&Dubndidu – a sports influencer in Martinique – IG @annedubndidu

3 – Is this a quality audience?

This is the most delicate question, and it is still often neglected by brands. We tend to be much more impressed by significant numbers even though marketing professionals are growing aware that numbers can easily be manipulated by fake influencers. But when you are facing a client or a manager who only rules by numbers, it might be delicate to have them understand!

Thanks to robots or likes buys (we will not detail this here – here is an explanation) those “influencers” can boost the number of fans and interactions (this is mostly the case on Instagram). Do not just stop your analysis after having seen the number of comments, likes or followers: have a look at several posts and make sure that there is an authentic community engaging with this account. Comments are often a good indicator: do the messages the account receive are repetitive or without any link to the content? Or are they directly directed to the influencer, with a reference to the picture? Keep in mind that someone’s influence is also measured by the quality of the discussions they have with others. When there is none, we can ask ourselves if this is a quality audience.

We like this picture, but, sadly, we doubt the comments are authentic 🙂

With this few tools, you should now be able to identify true influencers from impostors and make the best choice for your operation’s success. Next step: contact the influencers, tell them about your project and see if the operation is relevant to their interest too!

*To have more information (with approximative numbers) about the number and origin of visits on a blog, try SimilarWeb