AI is a major part of 21st-century society. Siri and Alexa are great tools for managing the daily tasks of our lives. Activity monitors remind you to get up and move if you’ve been sitting too much, or track your heart rate when exercising. Google and Facebook use search history to show us ads that they think will interest us.
So, unsurprisingly, Artificial Intelligence Training in Madrid has been used by brands and marketers to identify the best influencers for social media campaigns. Want to find TikTok influencers from Madrid who create videos about food? Want to find Instagram influencers in Tokyo with high engagement rates and a follower count of at least 10K?
These types of searches are next to impossible to do on social media. But with AI, we can easily plug these parameters into an influencer search engine and see only the results that meet them.
Know what you are looking for
Before you start searching for influencers, it is important to understand what you want. Without a plan, it’s difficult to decide which influencers to contact for collaboration opportunities.
Think about:
- What’s the goal of this campaign?
- What KPIs should I use to track my progress?
- Who is my target audience?
- Which network do my target audiences use?
- What is my campaign calendar?
- What incentive can I offer influencers to increase their productivity?
Your influencer search will be shaped by the answers to these questions. For example, if you have a big budget, you might want to work with a celebrity influencer or KOL. If you don’t have much to spend on influencers, micro-influencers might be a better option. They offer great engagement rates at a fraction of what top influencers charge.
It is important to remember, even with all the artificial intelligence, that your gut is still very important. Computer programs can’t pick up some details like visual style, voice tone, or key values. These elements should be examined by a human who clearly understands your brand’s message and objective.
AI-driven influencer search engines
You can definitely search for influencers via the social networks you prefer. You can search among your followers, track hashtags, and keep up to date with brand mentions. It is possible to find the right person for your campaign.
However, this takes a lot of time. Additionally, beyond the basic follower count, you won’t be able access any performance-driven metrics. To fully assess an influencer’s performance, it is necessary to obtain their internal metrics, which you’ll have to request and then wait for.
There’s a better way: Use an AI-powered influencer search engine.
What is an influencer search engine?
A search engine for influencers works similar to Google. You can type in what you’re looking for, or use filters that sort influencers by location, type, followers, and more. The software will show you the results that match your criteria, and you can access analytics data concerning the performance-driven metrics of the profiles.
The benefit of this? It’s threefold:
- You see influencer profile statistics immediately.
- You save time and energy searching.
- You can make more confident decisions about who to reach out to.
Subscriptions may be required for these services. Before making a decision on which route you will take, make sure to consider both the price of the software and the needs of your brand.
What should you consider when you use one?
You need to assess key metrics before you collaborate with an influencer. Let’s take a look at thes. We will also give tips on how AI is used to identify and avoid fake influencers.
Followers and growth over the course time
While followers are important, they are not the only factor. It is equally important for brands to consider how influencers gained followers over time.
Growth is organic when someone gains followers steadily and gradually. Sudden growth is an indication of something else: it could indicate, positively, a viral moment or giveaway. Or, it could be a negative sign and show the use of fake followers.
Engagement rate
Engagement rate is an indicator of how much and how closely influencers interact with followers. Trust and credibility are two of the most important factors that drive engagements. Basically, followers are more likely to engage with content from an influencer who they believe is authentic, entertaining, or informative.
Engagement rate depends on the number of followers as well as the social network. Do not compare influencers to anyone but their peers when analyzing engagement. For example, don’t compare the engagement rates of TikTokers with 50K followers with those of YouTube influencers with 1M subscribers.
Without AI, you can calculate influencer involvement. Add up all interactions with the post to get the total. Divide the result by how many followers the influencer has, then multiply by 100. Next take a sample from the influencer posts and use the same formula to calculate the average. Finally, compare influencer posts to industry averages.
Yet, AI can do this better. The software will compute the average engagement rate for each influencer in the last few posts, then compare it with their peers’. It could also alert you to suspiciously high engagement rates. This could indicate that an influencer may have bought fake engagements.
Audience demographics
AI can also be used to ensure that influencers reach your target audience. Before choosing an influencer, you should consider their audience’s demographics. This includes their age and gender as well as their location. You shouldn’t assume every influencer that matches your target has an audience who also does.
Imagine you want to raise brand awareness in Canada, so you choose a Toronto-based influencer. But you fail to examine their audience, so you don’t realize that the influencer’s audience is primarily from the United States and a mix of other countries. This may be positive in that you have branding in other places, but it wasn’t your campaign’s goal.
Audience authenticity
Another important metric to measure is authenticity. Artificial intelligence recognizes common patterns among bots, and it will show you how many followers it thinks are suspicious.
Influencer fraud has long been a top concern among marketers. It is possible to sell and buy almost any item online, even in the influencer market. Influencers have the ability to purchase fake followers, comments, shares, and likes. So you should verify the authenticity of any influencers you are considering working with.
Take away
If your budget is tight or you only intend to work with a small number of influencers, you might not need an influencer search engine. But if you want a more fluid discovery process and can afford the subscription fee, an influencer search engine is the right choice. It will bring agility to your search process, help you understand profiles on a deeper level, and in the end, make the best decisions for your brand.
