How An Influencer Marketing Agency Can Help Identify & Avoid Fake Influencers

Influencer marketing can be hugely impactful for brands when it’s done correctly. Finding relevant influencers can be a huge challenge without the right technology. Working with an influencer marketing agency can ensure you find the right influencers to work with. More than that, they can guarantee the influencers you work with have genuine audience members and haven’t bought followers to cheat the system.

Influencer marketing agencies have their own influencer selection and assessment processes. Their success depends on the success of the campaigns they help create, so selecting the right influencers is as important to them as it is to you. This means ensuring the influencers chosen don’t buy followers or engagement.

So, what do an influencer agency selection and assessment process look like?

Influencer agencies have access to influencer databases that break down an influencer’s following by demographics. Influencer agencies consider followers, average views, audience age, location, gender and passion points to ensure they all align with your brand’s target audience and campaign goals. These demographics are compared against campaign KPIs and other influencers to ensure the best influencers are selected.

Once relevant profiles have been identified, influencer agencies then conduct an engagement quality test. This reveals the average likes, comments, engagement rate and bot percentage to ensure all engagement received is high quality and from genuine audience members. Influencer agencies will blacklist influencers who use bots or fake engagement techniques to ensure your brand is only working with influencers that will provide the maximum impact.

Following an engagement and follower assessment, influencer agencies will use a brand match score to ensure the influencer’s content and tone of voice align with your brand and its values. This will help ensure the partnership is as authentic as possible. Agencies will also conduct an analysis of any recent brand partnerships to make sure you don’t partner with anyone who is promoting your competitors.

The final test is one of the most important: a PR risk assessment. By using social feeds and online research, influencer agencies are able to determine whether an influencer is a potential PR risk. Working with influencers that are embroiled in scandals or online feuds can have a negative impact on your brand—sometimes even boycotts. If an influencer proves to be a risk, influencer agencies will avoid working with them.

Influencer marketing agencies have years of experience working with influencers and understand the importance of working with high-quality influencers. In addition to this, they have spent time building relationships with and perfecting their communication methods with influencers. This means they already have relevant influencer contacts with reliable influencers.

Going through this vetting process can be incredibly time-consuming. Working with an influencer marketing agency means they are able to dedicate their time to finding the perfect influencer partnerships for you, giving you the time to focus on other business operations.

You will still have full control over the influencers chosen. Influencer agencies will send you shortlisted influencer lists to approve or decline. The agency will then reach out and brief the influencers on your behalf.

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