(Expansion) – Brands have played a fundamental role in the development of the digital industry, since influencer marketing , which today reaches 18 billion dollars, has been one of the main sources of investment for the development of the creator economy . In Latin America, it has allowed creators to live from their work creating branded content .
One of the biggest challenges for brands when choosing the influencers they will work with is being able to choose the right profiles, since they are key when a campaign is successful, or not, and many have fallen in the bad practice of choosing the influencer by numbers and not quality, which has led to great campaigns to have great failures.
In the development of campaigns with content creators there have been many modalities, among which three types prevail:
1. Creators who want to become digital celebrities and build a career, a personal brand.
2. Those that become content amplifiers, that is, those that simply amplify a message with a high reach but fail to impact their audience, since they spend their time spreading commercial messages; for that reason they lose credibility with their audience and fail to form a community.
3. The micro and nano influencers that more than define them by having between 1,000 and 5,000 followers are creators of niche topics or local markets, and their expertise in certain topics is what allows them to have an important value.
However, locating what type of content creator is only one of the important parts when evaluating their profile and hiring them. So here are five things to keep in mind:
1. Study the profiles of the creators and see all their videos
Just as it is important to study their analytics and understand that their audience is aligned with your target audience, it is also necessary to know the history of the creator. The advantage of the creators is that everything they do is recorded in a history and, in order not to be surprised, it is good to see how you have managed your working relationships with the brands you have worked for so as not to be surprised. Understand that they have a positive message in their videos, that they have a spirit of building and not destroying.
In addition, being able to identify if they are an aspirational or content influencer so that when you create the strategy you can know what activities you should do. Brands are responsible for doing the extensive research so that the creator they choose as an ambassador actually represents them as a brand.
2. Evaluate that your reach and engagement are consistent
By evaluating your social media profiles you can see the average reach and comments you have and compare them to the time you generate them; this is key to see if it has an active community with engagement or allows you to discover if there are purchased followers.
In addition, the comments can be evaluated, how positive or negative they are. This will let you know how real what they are selling you is and ensures that you can get the results you expect.
3. Evaluate that it is not oversold
Many times there are content amplifiers that pretend to be digital celebrities showing great reach, but with very low results because there is no interest from the audience for their posts. In general, this is due to a loss of credibility due to an overexposure of products in their timelines that end up looking like infomercials.
4. Evaluate how aligned your content is to the message you want to communicate
A content creator, in addition to being creative, has managed to convert his social networks and channels into communication media that have a very coherent visual and communication format and form, which is known and accepted by his followers, so It is very important that before wanting to work with them the brand has reviewed it, understands it and feels that it does go with its lines of communication marked in its manuals. Like any communication medium, it is not possible for the content creator to change it for a brand, since the results can be very negative.
Collaborations between brands are positive when they really are two brands that share values with each other and this can be seen reflected in the collaboration.
5. Accept the challenge of bringing out your brand values and identity
One of the great challenges today is that new audiences do not buy products, they buy brands that have a purpose or are interested in caring for the planet or that are inclusive beyond just selling products. It is very important to take that first step of revealing that side that no one knew about because that generates empathy with the audience and will allow a more organic relationship with the creator’s values.
Once the profile we want to work on meets the basic conditions, we can move on to co-creating the campaign and strategy in order to work for the expected success.
Editor’s note: Lina Cáceres is CEO of Latin World Digital and Vice President of Latin World Entertainment’s Digital Department of Artist Development, Commercial and New Business. Follow her on , , and/or write to her at [email protected] The opinions published in this column belong exclusively to the author.
