Seeing as influencer content generates 11X the ROI of traditional digital campaigns, brands are eager to supplement their efforts with an influencer marketing strategy. That said, a big roadblock is the issue of inflated following and inauthentic influencers. So what can you do to prevent hiring inauthentic influencers? The truth is, there isn’t a catch-all, easy answer. It requires some elbow grease, which shouldn’t deter you because nothing good comes easy! Here are a few things you can do, made easier by REP, to help you detect and steer clear from inauthentic influencers!

Engagement Rate

First and foremost, check their engagement rate! Engagement rates are listed on every REP profile that way you don’t have to go and do the math yourself. Surely you’ve heard that term before, but in case you haven’t: An engagement rate is a metric that measures how much engagement (or attention/interaction) a piece of content (aka a post) is receiving from the person’s audience. Comments, shares, likes, etc. factor in to the equation.

All that said, how do you know what makes for a good engagement rate? Well, that all depends on the size of the influencer’s following. Here’s a breakdown of averages:

Nano Influencers (1K-10K following) = 8%+ engagement rate

Micro Influencers (10K-100K following) = 3%-8% engagement rate

Macro Influencers (100k+) – 1.7% engagement rate

Analytics

REP also provides other analytics like audience interests on every profile. (See above pic.) These stats are not provided by the influencer. We analyze the data and list those interests on their profile for you, to help you better vet the influencer. The example we like to give is this one: Say you make bathing suits for women and you come across an influencer who ticks your boxes, but you take a look at their audience interest and it’s rife with categories like Sports and Cars, etc. Those are likely not interests of an audience who’d buy a women’s swimsuit!

Other Tools

Other marketers have taken to leaning on other tools like SocialBlade to check the validity of an influencer. Those might help, but nothing works as good as YOUR OWN EYES AND BRAIN. Check for yourself and do not lean heavily on these tools. We have actually removed people from our platform who had stellar ratings on SocialBlade. They were able to trick their algorithm, but they weren’t able to trick us. How could we tell? We looked at their posts and weighed the facts: Low quality, inflated followings, disproportionate likes and comments made by bots.

The fact of the matter is, you’ve simply got to do a bit of research before you go and hire anyone. Yes it adds a bit of time and a bit more work, but with ROI’s like this, it’s worth it.