Influence That Matters: Five Tough Questions to Ask Your Influencer Marketing Agency

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by Jacob Solomon Sep 20, 2022 News
Influence That Matters: Five Tough Questions to Ask Your Influencer Marketing Agency

The appeal of using third-party creators with built-in, loyal, and highly engaged audiences is easy to understand in an age when a brand's digital presence is more crucial than ever. Content creators have an inside track when it comes to shaping and driving consumer behavior because brand trust is hard to earn.

There are real risks that too few creators, brands, or their agencies take seriously.

These risks can include the ongoing epidemic of fake followers (and engagement), the constantly multiplying examples of inattentive influencer publishing inauthentic content, or the more-present-than-ever danger of teaming up with creators whose past content and views may hold unwanted surprises.

What do we still have as marketers? An enormously powerful tactic that has the potential to drive outsized return on investment and also presents barbs and traps for the unwary.

The trick to threading the needle between the two sides is to make sure we are asking the right questions of our agencies and partners.

These questions need to be included.


Tiffany Mitchell caused a controversy when she shared pictures of a fake motorcycle accident. The posts looked like an advertisement for Smartwater. It's more important than ever for brands to work with creators who value authenticity over clicks.

This is the first thing. What are we doing to make sure the people we work with are legit?

It is more important than ever for brands and marketers to be vigilant and to have the right partners in their corner in a time when it is easier than ever for digital personalities to inflate their online followings.

To audit the legitimacy and integrity of a creator's audience and engagement, as well as to ensure that a potential partner is not engaging in disingenuous practices like staging fake photo shoots to give the appearance of a lifestyle that is far from reality

A seasoned partner or team with the right processes and tools can evaluate any potential creator that might seem like a fit for your brand or campaign for the quality and legitimacy of their audience, their engagement and their content.


Many of the brands that had partnerships with her did not know that she had a history of racism and fatshaming in her social media postings. It is crucial for brands to ensure the creators they partner with have been thoroughly vetting their past social media content for red flags and past views that may drag them into a controversy. It is important for brands to make sure that the creators they partner with have been thoroughly checked for red flags and past views that may cause a controversy.

There are two What are the steps we are taking to make sure we don't have a problem?

Even if an individual has a significant number of legitimate followers and engagements, and a long track record of creating quality content, a sudden revelation of racist content is not a good sign.

A strong influencer marketing team can help limit the chances of an embarrassing revelation. It is a good idea to use a tool that searches through a potential partner's social media history for key words, phrases and problematic content. Even sophisticated automated tools can only go so far, so it's important that your influencer marketing team is also manually vetting the candidates they're considering partnering with

Which brands have this person worked with before?

Is this person a publisher of potentially damaging content related to illegal drugs, violence, racism or things of that nature?

Has they ever voiced opinions that were never acceptable to begin with?

Does thisinfluencer's content reflect on our brand and align with our core values?

These are just a few of the important questions that every influencer marketing team needs to be asking their creators. Failing to do so will cost you a lot.

Scott Disick didn't just reveal the authenticity of his content and endorsements when he accidentally left the posting instructions from his sponsor in the copy of hisInstagram post. He inadvertently showed how important it is to find influential partners who only partner with brands that they have a real connection with.

There are three. Is our influencer being treated as a creative collaboration or a hired mercenary?

At its best, influencer marketing can be a combination of a powerful brand and compelling storytellers, teaming up to deliver a compelling message to the right consumers in just the right way. This can lead to an iconoclastic partnership that not only reinforces the best of what a brand can be and is but also drives meaningful business results.

The flip side of that coin is when it is clear to everyone involved that the creator is a hired gun. A sponsored creator cares little for the brand or product they promote.

The most famous example of a mistake along these lines was in 2016 To kick off an ambitious new campaign, Naomi Campbell published a sponsored post with Adidas that included copy straight out of the brand's email for the promotion. It was an embarrassing error and a revealing one, as well as laying bare the inauthenticity of the relationship between Adidas, Campbell and her audience.

These kinds of fails are not rare today. It's crucial for brands to ensure they're setting themselves, their influencers, and their campaigns up for success, not only by being hyperselective about who they partner with, but also by truly collaborating

When two separate brands come together to tell a single story, it's the most authentic and powerful part of influencer marketing. Not when one brand is hired to do something else.

It seemed like a match made in heaven when a model and an ice cream company collaborated on a social media campaign. The content didn't follow industry disclosure practices for sponsored content. A hasty edit fromNikki to include proper disclosures in the post copy caused a large backlash.

There are four. What are we doing to make sure we are following the law?

The amount of sponsored content published daily by leading brands that does not follow fundamental disclosure guidelines is staggering. This is a problem not only for the brands that break the rules, but also for the entire marketing world as a whole.

As governments, oversight organizations and even consumers ramp up their scrutiny on bad actors, it's essential to ensure the partners you're working with to help bring your influencer marketing to life are steadfast in their efforts to ensure that all relevant disclosure guidelines and all legal considerations have been taken into account

The Tim Hortons team-up with Canadian mega star Justin Bieber was not just a great example of the right brand partnering with the right creator in an authentic and compelling way, it also drove real and measurable results for their business far beyond just engagement on social media. It has been called one of the most successful traffic driving initiatives in recent memory.

There are five. What do we mean by success?

Too many PR agencies and influencer marketing firms want to report on how many impressions a given activation generated or how many followers aninfluencer has The obsession with these types of metrics has always been meaningless.

Let's start getting serious. It is now possible for brands and marketers to not only define and establish meaningful goals for their digital marketing campaigns but to also transparently track, report on and maximize their success in the future.

Awareness and engagement driving campaigns have a place. Absolutely, they do. If your partners seem to think that conversion-focused campaigns are impossible, inefficient or just too hard, then it's time to rethink whether they're the right people for your campaign.

When set and monitored correctly, conversion-focused KPIs can and should be the driving force of influencer marketing campaigns where appropriate and, when set and monitored correctly, the results can compete with almost any other digital channel or tactic out there.

It takes a team that values putting data at the heart of not only who they collaborate with, but also how they use those partners to drive, measure and be held accountable to real results.

In almost any brand marketer's arsenal, influencer marketing can and should be a powerful tool. If not carefully approached with care, purpose and rigor, that promise can be wasted.

This means asking tough questions of both ourselves and the agencies we work with, from the moment they are first approached, all the way through to the final product. Care and precision are required at every stage of the way.

If you ever need a partner with that level of attention to detail, we're just a phone call away.