What Do Brands Look For in Influencers?
Whether you're an influencer wanting to work with brands or you're a brand looking to start working with social media influencers, keep on reading on learn how and why you two could benefit from eachother.
Why Brands Work With Influencers 🤝
Working with influencers may not only be the smart thing to do but also, a cost effective marketing strategy. For starters, influencers have an audience that they understand and can relate to. Because of this, they can start conversations about your brand in organic ways that will resonate with their followers. Most importantly, your brand will be exposed to their followers which only helps your brand in terms of reach and exposure.
Besides this, traditional advertising lacks credibility and authenticity and fails to click with these generations. With the help of influencers and social media, brands can generate a greater sense of credibility because the audience trusts what the influencers put on their social media!
What Brands are Looking for 🔍
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the criteria that brands need to look for in influencers are as follows: audience, engagement rate, relevance, authenticity, values, content quality, frequency, reliability, and audience quality
What brands look for when working with influencers:
A real interest in their brand
An active social media presence
A strong personal brand
A good engagement rate
A REAL audience
Professionalism
Quality content
First things first, if you're reaching out to work with a brand, you must have an active social media presence. It only makes sense that you are active on social media because it adds credibility to your profile. If you are posting on your social media frequently, the brand will have a clearer idea of how you post, your aesthetic, and most importantly, how your followers engage with you. This is important for brands because they would prefer someone with a higher engagement rate. You can look up your engagement rate here: https://grin.co/engagement-rate-calculator/. Brands want influencers that have a REAL, engaged audience (please don't buy followers!).
It's important for you, the content creator, to show a real, genuine interest in the brand because the sponsorship will seem more genuine overall. A brand isn't really going to have to work with an influencer that doesn't mirror their brand values.
You should always strive to produce high-quality content. Think of your profile as your portfolio or your digital resume! It's usually where brands are going to base their first impressions of you from, so remember to always present yourself in the best way possible to increase your chances of brand sponsorships.
