How to make bank in the creator economy. Co-Founder & CEO at We Create Popular. Follow me on LinkedIn.
It’s 2024. It feels like everyone’s an influencer. As a brand, how can you separate the top performers from the pack? Most brands and agencies still rely on surface metrics and gut feel to select influencers for campaigns. But these methods can’t predict performance, which often leads to budgets wasted on poor-performing influencers.
As co-founder and CEO of a creator development agency, our team has honed a system over the past three years to help protect brands’ investments in influencer marketing. As far as metrics go, here’s what’s in and what’s out.
What’s Out
Follower Counts
Historically, follower count has been the easiest thing to fake. It also has no bearing on the composition of the influencer’s audience or active viewers. Today, we’re served content not only from people we’re following but based on people we’re watching. Take an example from our agency of two creators with a similar follower count of 3 million on TikTok: One generates 100 million views per month, the other 12 million.
Engagement Rates
Again, this is an easy thing to fake both with bot likes and comments. Engagement rates need further interrogation, particularly if there are red flags like high engagement rates with low view volume, which signals foul play.
Last Paid Partnership Performance
Most digital marketers will disagree with this point, but hear me out. When it comes to TikTok and Instagram campaigns, most paid partnerships include the ability for posts to be quietly boosted by brands in the back end. If the views on paid partnerships seem to eclipse a creator’s average view count and the posts have low engagement to view rates, ask more questions; there’s likely ad spend at play.
What’s In: Community Metrics
Community metrics are how the smart money is choosing influencers to work with. This is the influencer selection process we’ve used to sell out products in major retailers and release a No. 1 chart-topping single.
Community metrics uncover the active audience of a creator—their real fan base who trust their recommendations. Here are the core community metrics and some performance benchmarks to use in your next campaign:
Watch Time And Retention
How much time is the audience spending with a creator? How engaged are they, on average? The higher the total watch time, the deeper the parasocial relationship, or connection, between the creator and their audience. Retention signals how effective a creator is at hooking in viewers and keeping them engaged. If, on average, the retention rate is 70%, that means the typical viewer sticks around for 70% or more of a video. That’s a good cross-platform benchmark for videos that are over three minutes.
Consistency Of Views And Posting Frequency
Did you know that a lot of creators “clean up” their accounts? They delete posts that no longer fit their aesthetic or that didn’t perform well. This can give a skewed view of their account’s overall performance, so it’s important to consider the frequency and consistency of views when booking creators. We’ve found that top performers are doing a minimum of three consistent posts per week as reels or TikToks and one long-form upload per week on YouTube.
Proven Multiplatform Communities
Is the creator popular on one channel or do they have multiple communities? Creators with substantial influence on at least two platforms tend to convert better. Another way of assessing influence is understanding if a creator has been able to build a deeper connection with their followers through a Discord community, Facebook group, WhatsApp broadcast channel, email list or other subscriber group.
Volume And Quality Of Comments
How are people reacting and engaging with this creator? The best place to find out is to get deep into the comments. If you see lots of emojis or generic, short replies like “love this,” say “next!” to this creator. Creators with a strong community will have a flurry of comments that include a high volume of questions, words of adoration, people tagging their friends who could relate to the content of a video, and people sharing their own similar experiences. These are the creators to shortlist!
One last tip to protect your investment in influencer marketing: The most effective way we’ve helped brands get the most bang for their buck in influencer marketing campaigns is to contract a minimum guarantee on the number of views from a creator. If the number of views isn’t hit, add a remedy like a repost to a different account or a story share to increase distribution.
As a brand, you’re in a powerful position because there are tens of thousands of creators competing for your business. But the job of selecting partners who have the greatest chance of influencing your target audience is nothing short of overwhelming. Surface metrics don’t cut it in 2024, but looking deeper into community metrics can give you the edge you’re looking for.
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