What Actually Determines an Influencer’s Value, and It’s Not Follower Count
Within the world of social media marketing, an influencer’s follower count is frequently seen as the main measure of their worth. But this is a widespread misperception. Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri also supports this post on his Thread account, saying, “Follower counts matter less than view and like counts. I understand why people focus so much on follower counts; they’re prominent and they’re easy to find. But if you actually want to get a sense of how relevant an account is, look at how many likes they get per post and how many views per reel instead.”
Influencer Scorecard: Measuring the Value of an Influencer’s Social Media Presence
This tool assesses the value an influencer can bring by evaluating and measuring the effectiveness and potential impact of their marketing campaigns. An influencer’s worth is not solely determined by their follower count; instead, it is established by identifying key metrics. The scorecard can include:
Engagement rate
An important indicator of how actively an influencer’s audience engages with their material is engagement rate. Likes, comments, shares, and other interactions fall under this category. An influencer’s following is more useful to businesses when it has a high engagement rate since it shows that their followers are truly interested in and reacting to their content.
Reach
An influencer’s reach refers to the potential number of people who are exposed to their content. This goes beyond just their follower count and takes into account factors like the algorithm’s impact on content visibility, the influencer’s ability to drive organic reach, and the potential for their content to be shared and amplified by their audience.
Audience quality
The quality of an influencer’s audience is just as important as the size. Brands are interested in the demographics, interests, and purchasing power of an influencer’s followers, as this determines how well the audience aligns with the brand’s target market.
Content quality
The quality and consistency of an influencer’s content are key factors in determining their value. Brands want to work with influencers who consistently produce high-quality, relevant, and engaging content that aligns with the brand’s messaging and values.
Frequency
The frequency with which an influencer posts content is also a consideration. Brands prefer to work with influencers who maintain a consistent posting schedule, as this helps ensure their brand’s messaging is regularly reaching the target audience.
Audience demographics
In addition to the overall audience quality, the specific demographics of an influencer’s followers, such as age, gender, location, and interests, can be important factors in determining their value to a brand.
Brand alignment
The degree to which an influencer’s brand, values, and content align with the brand they are partnering with is crucial. Brands want to work with influencers who can authentically and seamlessly integrate the brand into their content.
Past performance
An influencer’s past performance in terms of campaign results, such as engagement, conversions, and sales, can also be a strong indicator of their potential value for future collaborations. By considering these factors beyond just follower count, brands can make more informed decisions when selecting influencers to partner with, ultimately leading to more successful and impactful influencer marketing campaigns.
Why More Followers Does Not Mean High Engagement
Judging an influencer’s value solely based on their follower count can bring huge losses to businesses. This is why the engagement of influencers’ social media account is crucial to observe. High engagements can look like having a lot of likes on a post, comments, shares and other kind of interaction. For example, on Instagram, the amount of people saves a post into a collection is also considered an engagement. It signifies that the people who saves the post have the intention to revisit the content. Hence, any kind of interaction is considered as an engagement as long as a user interacts with the post.
However, when the followers are not authentic or fake, a post could never gain interaction from them because they are not even a real person from the first place. Not only that, an influencer with a large amount of followers but having few engagement can signifies that the audience does not trust with their recommendations or interested in the content. Brands need to be aware of these factors and not rely solely on follower count when evaluating influencers.
If you think that it is complicated, use an influencer marketing platform
It can takes a lot of time and work to track these metrics across several influencers and campaigns, and it frequently involves manual data collecting, computation, and analysis. Tools or platforms such as Meltwater, #paid, Captiv8, InBeat, CreatorIQ and Afluencer are ranked among the best influencer marketing platforms on G2 in May 2024 based on user reviews. Although influencer value evaluation is still a difficult task for companies and agencies, influencer marketing platforms may assist automate some of these processes.
Conclusions
Brands must move beyond just follower count when evaluating influencers. Engagement metrics like likes and comments are better indicators of an influencer’s relevance. The Influencer Scorecard provides a framework to assess an influencer’s worth beyond just follower count. A large follower count alone does not guarantee high engagement or a valuable audience. Brands need to understand the quality and authenticity of an influencer’s audience to ensure alignment with their target market. While evaluating influencer value can be complex, advanced marketing platforms can help streamline the process. These platforms offer automated solutions for tracking metrics and identifying suitable influencers.
