Influencer marketing has become big but to be truly effective marketers need to choose the right people and avoid getting sucked into vanity metrics, warns Tania Yuki of Shareablee.

Writing in the February issue of Admap – published today, topic Influencer marketing: beyond the hype – Yuki acknowledges the scale of influencer content. Last year it generated 72% of total actions (post-level Likes, Reactions, Shares, Comments, Retweets) taken by consumers across brand content on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in the US.

But, she says, there is still confusion among marketers about which metrics to focus on when it comes to selecting influencers, which types of influencers will work most effectively for different types of campaigns, and how to assess post-campaign effectiveness and return on investment.

Lena Roland, Managing Editor, WARC Knowledge, introduces the February issue of Admap

In Celebrities, macro-influencers, rising-star creators and micro-influencers: What brands need to know, she offers up five types of metrics to take into account in order “to cut through the clutter of metrics overload, and to be able to see past the splashy appeal of large fan bases and followings that are not on their own a promise of audience appeal or future success”.

Fans and followers do not account for how active an influencer’s audience is, for example, and can also be gamed by tactics such as fake followers and bots.

Marketers should also consider how many impressions, video views, and total actions an influencer usually achieves across their active social networks, Yuki advises – and then ask themselves what does this look like for their advertiser-partnered or branded content.

Such an approach can help set realistic expectations about the kinds of engagement and reach to be expected in a partnership, she says, and can also “help marketers’ sanity check that this is aligned with campaign objectives”.

The cadence of content creation is another factor – how often are they doing this – and what is the trend over time in their performance, whether that’s reach and engagement or numbers of followers.

Average content performance is another useful type of metric. When selecting, for example, a beauty influencer, marketers should consider not only monthly metrics but per-post metrics, Yuki suggests, “as most campaigns are typically just a few posts and this metric assists in predictability in campaign performance in the planning process”.

Tania Yuki will be doing a WARC webinar on influencer marketing on February 27.

This issue of Admap - Influencer marketing: beyond the hype - features a selection of articles by thought leaders from across the globe. WARC subscribers can access the deck Influencer marketing: Beyond the hype which summarises the expert advice and key recommendations from all the authors.

Sourced from Admap