Promoting a business can sometimes require partnering with social influencers. Finding the right people to promote your brand is however not that easy.

It requires time, research and in some instances a sizable budget depending on the SEO agency you choose to work with. We spoke to a leading SEO Manchester agency, Caffeinated Projects to discuss how they find social influencers for their clients.

If you land the ideal social influencer though, they can help your business gain visibility, build an audience and promote products. Before you go grabbing anybody with a couple of thousand followers on social media and branding them your social influencer, there are things that you should look out for.

To help you in this, let’s look at the step by step instructions to recognize the ideal social influencer for your business.

Finding the Ideal Social Influencer

Your search can take two approaches. The first involves hiring a firm which is not only established but an industry leader. Such firms can identify influencers, vet them and run campaigns on your behalf.

The second approach is using influencer identification tools to fish out the best person and running them yourself. Whichever method you choose to go with, similar steps will follow in recognizing that perfect influencer.

Step 1:  Define the Goal for your Influencer Campaign

Getting the best influencer for your business starts by determining how the program will work for your overall goal. Common needs that social influencers fulfil include brand promotions and event advertisements.

Your goals could also be less obvious depending on the status of the brand; your business could be in need of crisis management, product launch, corporate ambassadors, content creation and so on.

Once you have identified what your influencer will concentrate on, it becomes easy to narrow down who makes the cut.

Step 2: Profile your Ideal Social Influencer      

Here is where creativity comes into play. You have to define the parameters that make an ideal influencer for your business.

Ask yourself; How many followers should your influencer have? Which social platforms should they be in? Should they be local or international influencers? What language(s) should they be fluent in?

For example, if yours is a beauty website you would be looking for a local celebrity or model, with at least 10,000 followers and one who lives a celebrity lifestyle on social media and loves all things beauty.

A big brand would be going for an international influencer, one with millions of followers across many platforms. 

You can also think of what your influencer should communicate. If you require a photos-based campaign you go for Instagram influencers; for PR and content writing, you go for Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn influencers, and so on. 

Step 3: Use Keywords, Hashtags and Filters to Find Influencers

Start by searching through your social media followers. Here you can get micro-influencers who you can easily work with. These are people who are already leaning towards your brand.

For larger operations use the parameters that you identified to search through platforms, even those platforms that you don’t have accounts in. Use hashtags and keywords in influencer tools like Keyhole.  Use filters to get people who are using specific channels or those who mention your keywords more frequently.

Once the list is trim enough, go through these posts manually to have a real feel of what possible influencers will be bringing to the table.

This will also help to recognize influencers with fake or ‘paid up’ followers. These are accounts you should avoid at all costs. Fameaudit is one tool that you can use to detect the authenticity of a given account.  

Step 4: Reach Out To Influencers

With a more lean list, it’s time to reach out. Start with those who are already using your hashtags or brand. Better still you can start with paid influencers; those who are in the business and already working with other brands.

You can use recruiting agencies to reach out to your influencer of choice. It’s however more advisable to do it personally, through a call, video chat or email.

Prove to the influencer why working with you will benefit their audience. Negotiate terms including rewards, trips, events or actual retainer and other expenses.

Final Word

The above steps will get you connected with the right social influencers in your line of business. You should also ensure that your influencer is knowledgeable about your business; this will help them be handy with queries from their followers.

With such people at your side, your brand can grow to greater heights and at a much lower marketing budget. However, to make every coin count, you should periodically analyze engagement numbers and the revenue growth from these campaigns.