How to avoid these classic mistakes when choosing influencers to promote your brand | by Tom McNeile – Promote | Oct, 2023

Fake followers and likes are a major pitfall that presents itself when looking for online ambassadors for your brand. Social media users have the ability to purchase fake followers and fake likes on their content. This can be misleading for brands looking to work with influencers as the statistics will be skewed and won’t represent the actual results of your campaign. There are a number of strategies to ensure that you aren’t tricked into working with an influencer that has bought likes and followers.

The first strategy you can use is to check the quality of their content and see if it aligns with the number of likes they are receiving. If the videos are low quality and there are lots of promotions, but they are receiving a high like count, it is likely the influencer is using fake followers. Another way to check whether the influencer is legitimate is to check the number of views they receive on videos compared to the number of likes. If the ratio is between 24:1 and 10:1, this is a good indicator that they are genuine and will allow you to predict the actual exposure that your brand will receive as a result of working with each influencer.

The comments that influencers receive on posts is a good sign of whether they have bought their comments. Generic comments such as ‘Love this’ and ‘Beautiful’ are likely to be automated comments but more detailed and personalised comments are an indication of real interaction. Influencers can often join groups where they will mutually engage with each other’s posts. This can create the illusion of engagement and may look genuine at first glance but can quickly be identified by checking the profiles of those commenting on posts. If the comments and likes are mostly other influencers, this is a sign that the engagement may not be authentic.

A consistent level of engagement is something that you might think is a sign of a perfect influencer and this can be a huge trap! Legitimate influencers will actually see a variation in the engagement on their posts due to intricacies within the algorithms of TikTok and Instagram. However, while a variation in engagement is a good indicator of authenticity it is not a guarantee. Many successful influencers do have consistent engagement but, many will also have huge variation and the only way to be certain which are authentic is through experience and intuition.

Inauthentic content is something that can destroy an influencer marketing campaign. It’s all too easy throw money at randomly selected influencers or wait to be approached by influencers looking for promotional opportunities and hope that they produce engaging content. This often leads to half-hearted posts that lack the personal touch of the influencer which their followers find so engaging and will inevitably lead to your campaign falling on deaf ears.

The best way to avoid this problem is to analyse previous posts from each influencer to ensure that their content matches your brand’s image. You should also ask the influencer questions about why they are excited to work with your brand and can even set up calls with the influencers to ensure that their passion shines through when speaking about the company. It is so important to identify influencers that are excited about your brand as this will show in the reels and TikToks that they produce and will lead to more interaction from their audience.

Although these strategies can help you to identify the best suited influencers for your brand, much of the research process takes significant experience. Promote Influencer Marketing has a team of analysts who are trained to identify authentic influencers and ensure that your influencer campaign will receive organic engagement from social media users with an interest in your industry.

Find out how you can organise an effective influencer marketing campaign at www.promote.io or get in touch at admin@promote.io.