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How do you really know an influencer is right for your next campaign?
Is it based on their metrics? Does it matter if they’ve done sponsored content in the past? Or is it that special spark in their personality that tells you – this is the one?
I set out to find out exactly what made Instagram influencers qualified for ecommerce brands, and what they were actually checking. I found that:
For brands, there’s a ton of different things to consider when partnering with an influencer. I wanted to know what brands looked at first and foremost.
For most marketers, it was about what influencers had posted most recently.
It’s worth noting that on Instagram, recent content is usually the way the platform organizes a creator’s feed. This might impact the way that influencer marketers consume that content while vetting a creator.
However, Instagram doesn’t have a sort by popularity function – so marketers have to get creative. Alycia Lykins just goes by which pieces of content have the highest engagement on a creator’s profile. For Abdullah Khan, the absolute first thing he does is check recent content to see if a creator is active or not.
If you’re searching for influencers with Modash, this is actually quite simple: you can filter out inactive profiles and choose the “last post” filter. From there, you can select influencers who have posted in the last 30 days, 3 months, or 6 months.
(This is also a very simple way to find a creator’s most popular posts or sponsored posts on Instagram)
Here’s what you should look for:
Nearly half of marketers said that brand fit was the most important part of their influencer vetting process on Instagram. For Bakhtawar Shahzaib, it was about creating a partnership that feels natural on both sides.
When the brand fit is right, the partnership feels natural and authentic, leading to a more effective collaboration.
Megan Wilson offered her thoughts around brand fit and long-term partnership:
We look for the majority of the above but aligning with our brand values is the most important thing, especially if we're looking for a long term partnership.
That makes perfect sense – an influencer that’s a perfect brand-fit is hard to find. So when you do find that perfect face for your brand, it’s important to foster a great relationship with them and collaborate with them long term.
For another quarter of marketers, the format of the content – whether it’s voiceover, an influencer speaking directly to the camera, tutorial or demonstration-focused, etc.
For Tamara Torrecillas, format plays a big part in establishing authenticity.
The format impacts trust. Due to the stage we are at, I'd rather work with someone who speaks to the camera with confidence and gives an honest review or films a real reaction about the product than a very creative reel that can give a more branded look. It's great to have that kind of content, but it doesn't help us build real trust at this point.
Focusing on a creator’s content format can also help you secure high-quality content for UGC and repurposing down the line – as is the case for Nacho Selma.
For me, the most important thing is the quality and type of content the influencer has previously published. When the content is of higher quality, there is a greater chance of it going viral and reaching more people. Additionally, that content can be useful for other areas of the company in the future.
Realistically, personality and brand fit tend to go hand-in-hand. Victor Wiśniowski weighed in:
Nothing matters more than the influencer's personality. It's what makes their content their content. The format etc etc doesn't matter if it resonates with his audience.
Tamara also mentioned that personality helps her gauge whether or not she can reuse the sponsored content for UGC later.
Their personality is a great asset for us, as well as the quality of the content – it also allows us to identify content creators that could collaborate with us in different senses (reposts, whitelisting, paid ads, UGC for our socials or website, etc.)
The last split of marketers opted for content subject as the most important factor when verifying an influencer’s collaboration potential. It’s true – sponsored content you create with an influencer should feel at home in their native content for it to be effective.
For Matheus Ribeiro, this is the biggest factor in determining a creator’s authenticity.
Working for a clothing brand, it’s possible to partner with influencers from any niche, but their content style and communication are crucial to understanding if it fits with the brand. This is what I seek in order to determine if the influencer can genuinely promote the products in a way that captivates the audience.
For Joshita Dodani, the question is more about relatability and entertainment value. An ad doesn’t feel like an ad if it’s entertaining, thoughtful, or engaging.
People need content. If we wanted to create ads, we can do them ourselves but people want relatable content that they are used to seeing from their favorite influencers. Thus, the subject of the content matters in giving people content they actually want to watch versus another salesy video.
Results:
Comments absolutely matter. When you’re vetting an influencer, take their most recent posts and just scroll through the comments for a few minutes. This will tell you a lot about who they are and who their audience is. Abdullah Khan broke this down really nicely for us:
It doesn’t take long to determine any of those things – usually a quick scroll through the comments will do it.
For Flora Macher, authentic engagement within the comment section was the biggest green flag for her.
I prioritize influencers who not only receive genuine, thoughtful comments but also actively participate in the conversation by responding and initiating discussions with their audience. This level of interaction reflects a deeper connection with followers and indicates a higher engagement, which is crucial in influencer marketing.
Another great thing to look for is who is leaving those comments. While it’s always great to see a solid community (with familiar faces), if the only substantial comments are the same people, that might be something to dig into. Timotej Jerman explained:
Another red flag is always seeing comments from the same five people, usually other influencers. And then when you go check out their content, it's the same story. That tells me they're likely running a pod and inflating each other's engagement metrics.
Cheyanne Pettyjohn checks a creator’s comments to get a real sense of the community they’ve built.
We look for engaging creators who have successfully created a community of their own and who we believe would benefit from our products. We look for influencers with content that mirrors our brand and would work seamlessly for collaborative content. We also look for honest influencers where their socials don't look like only one huge ad without any soul/heart.
Results:
So should you actually look at and consider previously sponsored content when choosing an influencer?
For Joshita Dodani, she wants to see how well sponsored content fits into a creator’s normal content. If it’s too out of place, or feels too salesy, that’s a no-go.
I mainly look at how creatively the product has been integrated and how well-received it was by the creator's audience. If it is a product of a similar industry it provides a lot of insight.
For Miroslava Petkova, she’s looking at how authentic and natural the content comes off.
I’m looking for a natural presentation of the product, storytelling, and genuine opinion. It’s always great to find a different and professional approach to creating branded content.
Another great thing you can check for is whether or not the influencer has complied with the legal obligations around sponsored content. This is what Abdullah Khan is checking for:
I regularly review an influencer's previous sponsored content before making a decision. I look for high-quality, creative, and professional content that aligns with my brand’s values, and assess the authenticity of the endorsements and the level of genuine engagement from their audience. Compliance with disclosure guidelines and the performance of past collaborations are also important factors. This helps ensure the influencer’s fit and effectiveness for our campaign.
Looking for authenticity and compliance are helpful – but it’s always nice to see how other brands’ content performed for your creator’s community too. Michael Todner checks for that:
I check engagement rates vs non-sponsored content. I want to see audience sentiment and how well we believe the sponsored piece was executed by the creator.
There are a lot of generally great reasons to look into sponsored content, but for some marketers, that can be a distraction. For Dragos Sebastian, there’s not too much of a point to checking what other brands sponsored.
Different brands ask for different things in their deliverables so if there are only brand collaborations with non competitors, we usually just look at the engagement of the post.
Zia Ur Rehman agrees:
It's not always like if it works for ABC brand it will work for us too.
According to Valerija Somi, it’s only really necessary when an influencer’s numbers don’t quite add up.
We will go into a deep dive with other sponsored content only in the case when influencers' analytics are not clearly conclusive or their rates exceed our budgets. In that case we want to understand how the sponsored content fares and what the success rate is.
Finally, for Cheyanne Pettyjohn, checking previously sponsored content could be a waste of time unless it happens to be competitor content.
It's not usually something I search out when vetting creators. Sometimes, it does matter – especially if they have a longstanding partnership with a competitor and would not be worth reaching out to due to contract conflicts. But most of the time, as long as they aren't promoting anything dangerous or harmful, I don't think their previous collaborative posts matter or impact what they will deliver to us.
And we wanted to know more about that too – maybe previously sponsored content wasn’t necessarily relevant for all marketers, but what about if that previously sponsored content came from a competitor?
While a quarter of marketers say they don’t necessarily go through previously sponsored content, they absolutely do check for competitor content. In fact, all but one marketer responded that they do, in fact, check for collaborations with their direct competitors.
More importantly – is that a deal-breaker?
I thought it might be more of a full-stop for a lot of our brands, but to my surprise, the majority of marketers we polled said “not necessarily.”
Results:
In reality – it really will depend on a few factors.
Working with a competitor isn’t a hard stop for a lot of brands because it might actually be a positive signal that your product is a good fit, according to Cheyanne Pettyjohn.
It is not a deal breaker. It can be if they are currently working with a competitor, as they could have a non-compete with them. But it is sometimes a positive indicator if they have worked with a competitor because I know they'd be open to working with my type of brand/company.
Noor Ahmed agrees, saying it’s more of a green light for her.
That is not a deal breaker, but more of a push for us to use the influencer since they have an audience for us.
(By the way, this doesn’t mean just copy your competitors. While that might be a tempting shortcut, it’s important to make sure the audience is there for you. If the influencer worked with a competitor, but they don’t make sense for you, don’t copy the competition’s mistakes.)
If an influencer has worked briefly with your competitor, or some time has passed – usually it’s okay to start a conversation. However, if they’re an official partner, affiliate, or have a long-term collaboration in place, this might damage not only their authenticity, but yours as well.
For Nacho Selma, it’s important to let some time pass if they have worked with a competitor.
It's not a reason to avoid collaboration, but if they have recently published content with a competitor and then collaborate with us, they would lose credibility as an influencer, which would also affect us.
For Michael Todner, that’s why he’d skip on an influencer:
It depends on the relationship. If it's a one off, it's never a deal breaker. If it is a more long-term relationship we'll likely skip.
Nicole Ampo agrees:
It's only a deal-breaker once an influencer is an official affiliate partner of one of our competitors.
For some niches, an influencer working with a competitor is expected. I don’t know a single person who wears makeup exclusively from one brand, or wears clothing only from one solitary store. However, there’s little need for duplicates of things like headsets, computer mice, or furniture – with large-ticket items. So if you’re going to work with an influencer who is switching from a competitor, it’s important to create the story around how your influencer prefers your product today.
But if working with a competitor isn’t a deal-breaker, what is?
According to the marketers we polled, there were some clear red flags that would prevent them from working with a particular influencer in most situations (depending on what you want, your mileage may vary).
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Usually, a quick scan through their most recent posts and their comments will help you spot most of these relatively quickly. For Cheyanne Pettyjohn, she sees a lot of fake followers and comments – which are clear red flags for her.
There are a couple of deal breakers I see regularly. From having fake/paid for followers, to an aggressive online presence that would not align with our brand values. We value authenticity above all else, and it's key for our company values to partner with authentic creators. Sometimes, a little bot content is inevitable. But if I see a creator with 40,000 followers, 100 likes per post, and 3 comments, most of which saying, "Check out my profile love!" I know their community isn't organic and their content would not sell to real people.
For other criteria, you might have to do some digging.
Searching for offensive content, you can check out their most popular content and see if the comments pass the vibe check. Are the commenters saying discriminatory or inflammatory things that imply that these kinds of comments are normal/okay? Granted, you might always have a few trolls, depending on the influencer’s size and whether or not they are part of a marginalized community. What’s most important is how the creator responds to content like that.
If an influencer has a larger following, you might even be able to google “[handle] + controversy/sexism/racism/etc.” When a larger creator is embroiled in controversy, typically, someone has written about it somewhere – even in a forum or subreddit. One marketer said:
I look to see if they're not family-friendly or brand-safe – meaning, if an influencer constantly curses in their videos, promotes gambling and the likes.
For poor communication, you might be able to glean this from the content they create, their captions, and their own comments. Do they write clearly? Is it easy to understand them? Otherwise, this might be something you find out only after you contact the influencer in question – but personally, I think the way they communicate with you (or not) in negotiation is part of the vetting process too.
Want to dive deeper? Check out 7 Red Flags to Watch Out for Before You Sign an Influencer Contract.
It’s not always easy to know if an influencer is right for your campaign or brand. Influencer marketers can usually get the process down to a science once they know exactly what they’re looking for.
But those criteria can fluctuate from creator to creator, and campaign to campaign.
Remembering the following advice from the experts can help you vet influencers quickly on Instagram, and get your campaigns rolling out faster.
And for the quickest way to vet new influencers on Instagram, there’s always Modash’s discovery platform, which helps you find influencers and get deep analytics on their profiles in two clicks.
But don’t take my word for it – try it yourself completely free.
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