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What are influencers and how do

you find them?
By Jack Simpson | June 9th 2015

SHARE I may be new to writing about digital marketing, but I’ve been working in and
around it long enough to know the industry is littered with the kind of buzzwords
that would earn me a rebuke from my editor if I used them.
! Recommended
The term ‘influencers,’ however, is one of those rare cases where there isn’t really a BLOG
" As coronavirus crisis hits
suitable alternative. Not one that gets to the point as quickly and clearly, anyway.
media, brands should
reconsider … – Econsultancy
# So as we’re stuck with this buzzword for now, let’s take a closer look at what it all
– Econsultancy

means and how you can use influencer marketing to reach your target audience.
$ BRIEFING
What is an influencer? New approaches to digital
marketing measurement –
COMMENTS The clue is in the name: essentially they are individuals who have the ability to influence Econsultancy

the opinions or buying decisions of your target audience, largely thanks to their social
media following.
%
RESEARCH

0 Marketing Campaign
This could be through a Tweet, like this example of Stephen Fry promoting a campaign Integration Strategy (Paid
for Prostate Cancer UK: Search)

“ I’ve signed up to #MenUnited because friends are

CASE STUDIES

#WorthFightingFor. Join me: Integrated campaign boosts

Meat Promotion Wales’s
http://t.co/44Sk9OCd0r share of voice by 37%

— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) February 4, 2015

Or a YouTube video, as when Asda hosted its own channel featuring already established
YouTube stars such as Zoella:

#ad | HOW TO: Baking Cupcakes with Zoella!

Guarda più… Condividi 51/53

Why do you need influencers?

The premise is simple: rather than having to rely on your existing audience to promote
your brand, you get access to a much larger audience via people who are already
popular with your potential customers.

Take the Asda example above. While Asda might be near the top of your list for a low-
budget weekly shop, people are less likely to sign up to its YouTube channel unless they
have a penchant for worryingly cheap poultry.

But by creating a channel that has only limited reference to the brand (see the image
below) and having established YouTube stars create videos for them, Asda has gained
nearly 150,000 YouTube subscribers and clocked up 6.8m views since the channel
launched.

“But what about the sales?” I can hear you (probably) asking.

According to Asda’s senior director of marketing innovation Dominic Burch, the Asda
links had a 1% click-through rate, with thousands of those clicks turning into sales.

Not bad going when you consider they’re not exactly the trendiest of brands, and it’s
safe to say they wouldn’t have had anywhere near that impact without the help of those
influencers.

Who should you target?

The natural temptation is to go for people with the largest following. But as with
everything in digital marketing (and in life, if you want to get philosophical about
things), it’s a little more complicated than that.

Forbes came up with the following formula:

“ Influence = Audience Reach (# of followers) x

Brand Affinity (expertise and credibility) x Strength
of Relationship with Followers

All three of the above factors are clearly important, but the second one is particularly
interesting.

It’s not enough for somebody to have a large number of Twitter followers, or even a large
number of highly engaged Twitter followers. If that individual doesn’t have expertise
and credibility that relate to your target market, they are never going to be a good
choice of influencer for your business.

Sure you might get some added brand awareness, but how many of those newly
enlightened people are actually going to buy your products or services?

Take the fashion industry for example. Stats quoted in one of our recent round
ups show that fashion bloggers have greater influence over buyers than even A-list
celebrities like Taylor Swift.

I suppose the point I’m making is this: finding influencers is not just about approaching
the most famous person who you think might be willing to promote your brand. Yes
your boss might love you for it, but it’s not really a marketing strategy in itself.

You should choose influencers based on their ability to make your specific target
audience take action that benefits your business.

How do you find them?

This is probably the part that most people struggle with. Your CEO comes up to you and
says he’s read all about your competitors’ success with influencer marketing, and now he
wants you to replicate that success.

Okay, now what? For some businesses it might be fairly obvious who the influencers are
(or at the very least a quick stint on Google will find the answer). For others, it might
seem akin to finding a needle in a very large and confusing haystack.

Thankfully there are a number of tools that can help you find the most relevant
influencers in your industry without too much difficulty or need for prior knowledge.

BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is one of the most popular tools for finding influencers, partly because it’s so
easy to use.

As you can see from the image below, I’ve typed in ‘food’ as a (very generic) search term
and the tool returned a list of influencers (mostly food bloggers in this case) based on a
number of key stats related to page authority, follower count, and engagement levels.

Followerwonk
Followerwonk is another nice tool for finding Twitter users related to your business.

I typed in ‘food writer,’ with ‘UK’ in the location field. The results are in the image below.
As you can see, the tool has returned a list of relevant UK-based food publishers who you
could target.

There are a number of tools out there that essentially do the same thing. Just find the
one that works for you and start playing around with it.

You should soon be able to build a decent list of target influencers based on your
business and what you’re trying to achieve.

What’s next?
Now that you’ve researched and found your influencers, it’s time to approach them and
see if they’re willing to work with you to promote your brand.

But if I start getting into that I’ll have taken up more than my fair share of your time, so
I’ll save it for another post.

By Jack Simpson | June 9th 2015

BLOG ASDA INFLUENCER MARKETING INFLUENCER MARKETING INFLUENCERS SOCIAL

MEDIA TWITTER YOUTUBE

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