By now, the power of social media influencers is no secret – you likely follow a few yourself. Despite being one of the most effective marketing channels, they remain under-utilised in the realm of science and research for development.

Much of the power behind social media influencers rests in the sense of authenticity, intimacy and trust they have with their audiences.

A recent study on consumer trust found that 63% of 18- to 34-year-olds surveyed trust what influencers say about brands more than the brands themselves.

Illustration by Kimberly Viloria for Cultivate Communications. Contact us to enquire about commissioning an illustration.

This underpins the ability of influencers to enhance the perception of a brand and alter the views of audiences through dialogue. This ‘trust transfer’ notion has been extensively studied around consumer marketing, where the influencer is the bridge between your brand and their trusting audience.

Relevance, Resonance and Reach

After setting the goals you’d like to achieve through your influencer campaign and identifying your target audiences, it’s time to find the right fit for your organisation and message.

When identifying influencers, it’s important to take an in-depth look at their social media accounts considering both quantitative metrics and qualitative attributes, in order to assess what we call the Three Rs of influencer marketing:

Relevance ­– identify an influencer who aligns with your organisation and its mission and values, and whose followers constitute a target audience.

Resonance – gauge the potential level of engagement the influencer can create with your target audiences. Remember, influence is the ability to drive action.

Reach – consider the number of people who can potentially be reached through the influencer’s follower base.

Examine influencer profile data

At Cultivate, we use Klear to gather information for our clients and help guide the influencers we recommend. The intelligence that we gather through the platform is incredibly powerful and underpins our data-driven approach.

Take Greta Thunberg, for example.

Examining her Instagram account with Klear reveals that 73% of her 14.5 million followers are women, their average age is 31 and a quarter are in the United States. Her posts receive an average of 180,000 engagements and reach around 1.7 million people, making it the strongest of her three social media channels. She has a high-quality audience with active profiles and relatively few fake or bot accounts among her followers.

These factors point towards a highly engaged community and an influential individual.

We utilise Klear’s powerful influencer database to gather insights on influencers. Here are core metrics from Greta Thunberg’s accounts, exported from Klear.

With this information, we would then question whether her follower demographics match the target audiences we are trying to reach. Do the reach and engagement levels her posts typically receive satisfy our needs? How influential is she with her audiences?

Consider that engagement is more important than reach. Micro-influencers with smaller follower numbers have been found to have communities where users feel more connected to them and are therefore perceived to be more authentic and reliable than traditional celebrities.

After assessing quantitative factors, we next look at the content and style of posts.

As expected, Greta’s content focuses on climate change, activism, politics and sustainability. In terms of format, she tends to post photographs. When evaluating these factors, consider whether there is a good match between the influencer and your organisation’s position on topics, the tone and theme of the content. Post format is also important if you have preferences in terms of what you’d like the influencer to share ­– a video, Stories, photographs, etc.

The post popular posts from across Greta Thunberg’s social media accounts, exported from Klear.

Next, we evaluate the accounts in the influencer’s Network that they most frequently engage with. Check for competitors or any accounts that do not align with your values.

Creating meaningful matches

While it does take time, expertise and technical resources, the research phase of planning an influencer campaign is critical for success.

By carefully selecting the right influencer who satisfies the Three Rs of relevance, resonance and reach we create meaningful matches between our clients and influencers who share their values.

Klear’s powerful database of over 500 million people allows us to search and filter influencers worldwide based on niche topics. Are you looking for a creator in Nigeria who posts about sustainability? Or an influencer in the Philippines passionate about ocean health?

Influencer marketing has been found to be 10X more cost-effective than paid media.

Through creating these connections, we can put you on a path to greater reach and impact through social media.

Get in touch if you’d like to discuss how Cultivate can help you identify the right influencer for your organisation, create and manage relationships, and measure the success of your campaigns.