How to Choose the Right Influencer Marketing Platform

在影响者营销的早期，企业试图以老式的有机方金博宝188备用网址式找到其影响者。他们将花费数小时的时间来努力扫描互联网，试图确定谁在利基市场上具有影响力。然后，他们会缓慢但稳定地尝试与这些影响者建立关系。这通常需要几个月。最终，如果企业很幸运，影响者会注意到它们，并可能对建立关系有兴趣。但是，有影响力的人通常会像往常一样继续生活，甚至不阅读想要获得青睐的企业的电子邮件和其他消息。最终，由于寻找合适的影响者的挫败感，太多的公司放弃了有影响力的营销。金博宝188备用网址

似乎没有那么很难找到你真了不得g for in other business sectors. Often you could find somebody suitable just by looking up the Yellow Pages. It made sense, therefore, for somebody to create an influencer marketing equivalent of the Yellow Pages.

Before long, the concept of the influencer marketing platform saw the light of day. Not only could you use influencer marketing platforms to search for influencers, but you could also compare different influencers to see which were the best for your needs.

Nowadays, you have many influencer marketing platforms from which you can choose. The most recent Influencer Marketing Hub有影响力的州营销2金博宝188备用网址019：基准报告found that there were 740 influencer marketing platforms and agencies in 2018, 320 of whom were new in 2018. Even allowing that some of these are agencies without their own influencer discovery tools, that still leaves a considerable number of influencer platforms, each offering a slightly different service.

That begs the question. How do you choose the right influencer marketing platform for your needs?

这里有几个重要的问题你应该k yourself to help with your decision making.

How to Choose the Right Influencer Marketing Platform:

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Question 1: Do I have my own influencer roster? If yes, how many influencers are on my roster?

While in some ways this may appear a no-brainer of a question, it is imperative. If you already have access to a group of top influencers in your industry, who in turn have contact with other leading influencers, you probably have no need for an influencer marketing platform. Sure, we’d love to know you at SocialBook, but we’re realistic enough to know that you are probably not in the market to search for new influencers.

However, just because you have picked up a few influencers over the years, may not mean that you have no need to discover more. You might want to expand your campaign in a different direction. You could perhaps simply wish to use additional influencers with a different set of followers than those with whom you currently work.

This question brings up a few fundamental sub-questions you should answer before you move on.

Sub Question 1.1: Do You Really Need a Platform?

Obviously, if you aren’t in the market to work with additional influencers, you won’t need a platform (unless you are simply after influencer information for other purposes, in which case SocialBook could be ideal for your purposes). However, even if you are after additional influencers, you may not need a platform. You might be able to use your current influencers as access to some of their contemporaries.

Alternatively, you might already know who you wish to establish a collaboration with, particularly if you are in their industry. In that case, the issue isn’t so much who you want as an influencer, but how you can contact them, and what you can offer them.

Sub Question 1.2: If you need a platform, what specific functions you are looking for?

If you decide that you want to use influencers (or add to an existing influencer roster) and that you should use a platform, you should consider the specific functions you’re looking for. Not all influencer marketing platforms are alike, and you want to know that you select one that will provide you with the data you need.

Some of the more common functions that you could consider when looking at influencer marketing platforms include:

1. Communication – what types of communication facilities are provided by the platform. Does it include a range of communications options for influencers? Does it offer a direct connection to the influencers? Does it include some form of influencer marketplace, encompassing the entire influencer process?Does it help simplify external communications with suggested influencers?
2. Tracking social media posts and their performance – does the influencer marketing platform offers suitable analytics and reporting services, allowing you to follow through your influencers’ posts so you can see how effective they are?
3. Payout – does the influencer marketing platform include relationship management facilities, including the ability to directly make payments to influencers? Some platforms operate on a different model, with businesses posting projects and influencers bidding on these projects. Again, you would want to consider whether the platform covers the entire process, including influencer payout.
4. Logistics – how easy is it to use a particular influencer marketing platform? Do they have simple procedures in place, or do you have to learn a complicated system?

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Question 2: Am I always recruiting new influencers? Which platforms am I looking for new influencers?

If you decide that you haven’t already recruited all the influencers you might need, you should then consider how your organization functions. Do you recruit influencers regularly, or is it something you only do occasionally? How have you found your influencers in the past?

If you have used a platform to find influencers before, how did you find that experience? Do you feel that you were able to find suitable influencers for your campaigns? Did the platform provides you with enough data to help you with your decision-making? Did it provide you with too much data, confusing you as to which stats mattered the most? Did the platform provides you with enough help files, FAQs, and similar assistance to help you understand the details, and recognize what was necessary for your campaign?

Not all influencer platforms offer the same types of services. The most common types of the services provided are:

• Influencer discovery
• Relationship management
• Campaign management
• Influencer marketplace
• Third party analytics
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If you’re focusing on recruiting new influencers, then influencer discovery will probably be an essential requirement for your platform. You will need to consider whether any of the other services will be relevant to your decision-making. For example, while an influencer marketplace might be nice, it is of little value to you if you don’t intend to use it, preferring to work with your influencers in-house.

Be aware that some influencer marketing platforms prefer to focus on just one or two of the above categories, and they do not all include influencer discovery. There are specialist platforms that solely provide third-party analytics about influencers. There are even some who specialize entirely on influencer content amplification.

Another factor that may influence your decision is that some influencer marketing platforms restrict themselves to just one or two social networks. There is little punt using a platform whose database of influencers aren’t on the networks you want to focus your campaigns.

SocialBookprovides comprehensive, detailed data about influencers on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitch. We might not be ideal for somebody intending to run a Twitter-only campaign. We have chosen to specialize in providing comprehensive data (on our selected social networks). We also place emphasis on easy communication, allowing brands to send emails directly to influencers. SocialBook also specialized in easy management and in-depth analytics/reporting.

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Question 3: Once I have decided on the platform, which data do I care about most?

设置任何影响者活动时，您需要执行的第一步之一就是decide upon your goals。您为什么要开展这个特殊的影响者运动？在选择影响者之前，您确实应该在做其他事情之前回答这个问题。不同的影响者有不同的技能。他们还吸引了自己的特定受众 - 您希望那个受众匹配可以帮助您匹配目标的人的类型。例如，如果您要使用影响者广告系列来销售更多产品，则需要与支持者接近预期目标市场的影响者合作。

选择影响者时，有三个关键领域：

• Relevancy
• Engagement
• Authenticity

Your aim, when using your selected platform, is to look at the data that will help you best meet these needs, i.e., you are looking for influencers who are the most relevant to your campaign goals, who have the best engagement, and who always come across as authentic.

Too many brands, simply go for the influencers with the most followers. However, that may not help your campaigns at all. If you’re trying to sell paint and wallpaper, you will probably perform far better using a home decorating influencer, perhaps with just 25,000 followers, than you would be with a big-name superstar, like Justin Bieber.

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Select Your Influencer Marketing Platform Based on How Well it Can Meet Your Needs

There is little point in paying for influencer marketing services that you don’t intend to use. When it comes down to it, influencer marketing platforms are simply tools to help simplify the influencer process for you. So, it pays to analyze your needs first.

Once you have made your decision, use your platform of choice to pick the best influencers to meet your goals, and then use the data provided by the platform to monitor and track your influencers’ progress through the length of the campaign.