You have understood the potential of influencer marketing, and that’s the prime reason you have managed a specific monthly budget for investing in influencer marketing. In the process of running a successful influencer marketing campaign, the selection of a potential influencer is essential.
But, for first-time investors/marketers, selecting the right influencer becomes a hectic task. This is because many fake influencers have originated after the exponential growth & demand for Influencer Marketing for brand promotion.
Don’t worry; below, we share some practical tips to distinguish between fake and genuine influencers.
Purchased or Earned Social Media Followers: First-time marketers mostly rely on followers count as the prime factor for shortlisting an influencer. However, they miss acknowledging whether the tons of followers are earned or purchased. Earned with hard work is tough to distinguish with the purchased followers. However, you can still track the authenticity of their followers.
How?
Follow the influencer for a few weeks and track their followers every day. Tracking your shortlisted influencer will give you a daily basis followers growth. The influencer is 100% fake if their influencer isn’t growing steadily.
Earned or Purchased Post Engagement: Next parameter to filter fake and genuine influencers is tracking their post engagement. A genuine influencer will have a balanced engagement rate on all their posts, whereas a fake influencer won’t. It’s always better to track their posts from the last few months (or sometimes years) to check how their posts’ performance.
The influencer is fake if most of their posts miss the engagement. It means such influencers have used bots as their followers who don’t take action on their daily posts.
Missing Verification Badge: When working with mega influencers, you should note that most of them would have a verification badge. All influencers with massive followers will often be considered celebrities, which is why they get the blue tick button quickly across their social media.
Yet, if you find any influencer with massive followers without a blue tick, it’s a red signal that you should consider and avoid working with such influencers.
Blue tick is always given after thorough verification of the identity and popularity of the influencer. Hence, you can stay assured of selecting an influencer with a blue tick.
Does Eliminating Fake Influencer make any Impact on Your Influencer Marketing Plan?
It looks like a common question every first-time marketer searches before decision-making. The point is it matters a lot!
Working with any influencer with tons of followers means you have high expectations for the results. You are also investing a significant sum in the Influencer Marketing Plan, which raises your expectations.
Unfortunately, a fake influencer will only give you assurance but no results. You might get some results via paid marketing, but that doesn’t make sense as you can run a paid campaign by your end, needing an influencer.
Now, you have enough reasons to choose the right influencer alongside some practical tips to shortlist a genuine influencer from the crowd of fake ones. Follow these pointers to get the right influencer to achieve the expected results.
