Evaluating Influencers

Once influencers have started to apply for your campaign you’re going to have to evaluate if they are a good fit for you. Having an organized and systematic process for this will serve you well. We recommend you use the Lists functionality for this and set up two lists, one for “Yes” and one for  “Maybe”. It's also very useful to use the commenting functionality in lists to keep additional notes per influencer.

When evaluating an influencer you might want to work with we tend to recommend you consider the following:

• Do they have branded content (e.g. do they show off their previous collaborations)
• Do they have a media kit you can review
• Do they have enough followers to help you meet your goals
• Do they have high-quality photography for their featured posts
• Do they have an aesthetic on their Instagram that matches yours
• Do they have a good engagement rate for their follower count 
• Do they receive a similar number of likes and comments for branded content as their average across all posts
• Do they have other channels with scale they could promote or cross-promote on (e.g. a blog)
• Are they asking an appropriate amount per post
• Have they worked with any similar brands (might be a good or bad thing)

If the answer to most of these questions is no then we would recommend not accepting their application. Sort the rest into Maybe or Yes depending on how many of these questions you can answer “yes” to. 

Once you have sorted influencers into the right lists it is best to figure out very quickly if there are big issues you will face in working with them. This usually means confirming the following information.

• Can they meet the posting dates and deadlines?
• Will they work with the content guidelines (if you have any) which can include the type of image you want or required caption text? For example, if you require them to post a DISCOUNT code in the caption, some influencers may shy away from this.
• What payment can they expect to receive for your campaign?

85% of influencers who end up not working out for a campaign other than for subjective style reasons can be surfaced with these three questions. At this point in time, it's up to you to sift through your “Yeses” and your “Maybes” and build your collection of influencers. We recommend making one more list at this time called “[Campaign Name] Confirmed Influencers”. When you agree on terms and payment, put influencers on this list that will definitely be on your campaign. You’ll use this list a lot to mass communicate with everyone on the campaign.

A note on rejecting applications. We strongly encourage you to respond to every application, even the ones that are incompatible with your campaign. The easiest way to do this is to have a generic rejection email handy that you send to everyone. At times, it may be better to avoid specifics when letting someone know they are not the right fit. Something like the following might work.

“Thank you so much for taking the time to apply to our campaign. We review every application and profile personally. At this time and for this campaign we don’t think there is a good fit. Thanks again for applying and please feel free to apply to a future campaign if you believe you might be a good fit for it.”