Choosing the Right Influencers: What to do
Know Yourself
First and foremost, know what your brand represents and who your audience is. It will always be impossible to find the best influencers if you have no idea who you even want to engage with. Understanding your target market and who you are trying to appeal to will make it easier to find the best influencer. Even top-tier influencer marketing platforms like NeoReach can’t help if you don’t know who you are looking for. Know yourself and your audience first, then seek your influencers.Know the Influencer’s Message and Tone
You have to know what an influencer is saying before you even talk to them. Every influencer has a specific style and way of conveying information that distinguishes them from the average user. These messages are unique to their personal brand and are tailored to fit their audience. If that audience is not yours you cannot expect them to change no matter how much money you throw at them. Get to know the influencer and what they’re saying and ask yourself if this is something you want your brand associated with. If it is not, then you are best served by moving to greener pastures.Choosing the Right Influencers: Authenticity
Partially contradicting the last point: there are influencers that you can buy off. The issue is, these are not influencers you want to work with. Influencers that endorse brands for the money alone are easily spotted and called out, and ones that do so frequently will find themselves losing their audience. Trying to change an influencer ruins the value of that influencer and is simply counter-productive to your marketing efforts. Seek only the most authentic influencers, and never work with an influencer you can easily manipulate. If you can manipulate them, so can others.Know the Values
Your influencers are human beings, they have things they care about and are passionate about beyond their channel. Learning what your influencers value and care about can help you predict what they might say and discuss in the future. If those values are contrary to those of your brand then it is best to search for alternatives. In cases where you do find alignment, then the influencer can not only help promote your brand but also help demonstrate where you stand to customers who factor brand values into determining who they do business with.Have an Emergency Plan in Place
Even a sure thing can turn into a disaster. This is tied to that authenticity matter discussed earlier. Authentic influencers are fantastic and critical to the success of your brand, but it also means they’re more likely to say something or get caught doing something you do not want your brand associated with. So, make sure you have an emergency plan in place. If a valued influencer says something damaging, know how you are going to respond well in advance. Having these plans can also help you resist the knee-jerk reaction to dump an otherwise valuable influencer where that might be overkill.Knowledge is Power
When it comes to influencer marketing, knowing is half the battle. Research and soul searching are essential to making the most valuable connections. If you do not know yourself, you cannot know if an influencer fits, and if you don’t research to find out if an influencer fits, they won’t yield a positive return on your investment. Know as much as you can, THEN commit.Related reading
- 5 Ingredients of Personal Growth
- Innovative Tactics for Brand Growth
- Sales Team: What You Need to Know About the GDPR
- Screening Millennial Employees Social Media Accounts
- more marketing and business articles
What I Look at Before I Ever Send a Single Outreach Email
After more than a decade of running influencer campaigns for brands ranging from solo founders to global retailers, the single biggest mistake I see clients make is rushing straight to the pitch before doing proper due diligence. I have seen brands lose thousands of pounds on influencers who looked perfect on paper but delivered almost nothing in return. The vetting process I now follow is not glamorous, but it has saved my clients from wasting budget more times than I can count.
The first thing I check is the ratio between an influencer's engagement rate and their follower count, but not in the way most guides describe it. I do not just want to see a "good" engagement rate in isolation. I want to see it hold steady across their last 30 posts. If someone has 80,000 followers and a 4.2% engagement rate on average, but their last three posts each got under 0.5%, that spike in the average is almost certainly driven by one or two viral moments that have nothing to do with their consistent audience relationship. A stable rate of 2.1% across 30 posts is worth far more to me than a flashy average built on two outliers.
I also look at the comments manually, not through any tool, for at least five recent posts. I am reading for specificity. Generic comments like "love this!" or "so good!" in high volume can be purchased cheaply and are a red flag. What I want to see are comments where people are asking specific follow-up questions, sharing their own related experiences, or tagging friends with a clear reason attached, such as "this is literally your situation right now." That kind of comment tells me there is a real community paying genuine attention, and that is what converts.
Here is a shortlist of the exact signals I use to build my final judgement before outreach:
- Comment-to-like ratio sitting between 1:20 and 1:50 for most niches (higher ratios warrant a closer look at comment quality)
- Story views that are at least 8% to 12% of their total follower count, which tells me their audience is not passive
- At least one piece of sponsored content in the last 60 days that has received the same level of engagement as their organic posts
- A consistent posting frequency over six months, not a flurry of posts followed by silence
- Their own replies to commenters, because an influencer who does not talk back to their audience is not maintaining a community
The sponsored content point is one I feel strongly about and most guides skip entirely. If a creator's paid posts consistently receive half the engagement of their organic content, that tells you their audience actively resists advertising. Brands sometimes interpret this as "their audience is very authentic," but what it means is that your campaign is going to underperform regardless of how well you brief the creator. You want someone whose audience trusts their recommendations, and trust shows up in the numbers on paid posts, not just the organic ones.
None of this takes longer than 25 minutes per influencer once you have done it a few times. That 25 minutes has, in my experience, consistently been the difference between a campaign that breaks even and one that returns four or five times the spend. Do it before you spend a single penny.
The short version: Choosing the right influencers is not about follower counts, it is about finding creators whose audience, values, and content style align with your brand. A micro-influencer with a tight-knit, engaged community will almost always outperform a celebrity with millions of passive followers. Focus on relevance, trust, and real engagement rates before you commit to any partnership.
Want AI doing the heavy lifting in your marketing?
I build the systems that handle the boring 80 percent, so you get your week back. Done properly, with the human kept in.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most important factor when choosing an influencer?
Audience alignment matters more than anything else. You want to confirm that the influencer's followers match your target customer profile in terms of age, interests, location, and buying behavior. A perfect content fit with the wrong audience is still a wasted budget.
How do I check whether an influencer's engagement is real?
Look beyond the like count and study comment quality, reply patterns, and follower growth over time. Sudden spikes in followers, generic one-word comments, and a very low ratio of engagement to reach are all warning signs of bought or inflated metrics.
Should I work with macro or micro-influencers?
It depends on your goal. Macro-influencers offer broad reach and brand awareness, while micro-influencers typically deliver higher trust, stronger niche authority, and better conversion rates for a lower cost. Many brands find that a mix of both tiers produces the best results.
How many influencers should I partner with at once?
Start small, test rigorously, and scale what works. Partnering with three to five influencers in a pilot campaign lets you compare performance data and identify who truly resonates with your audience before you commit to a larger, longer-term strategy.
