Social media marketing professionals and users have found a gem of a TikTok resource: influencer marketing. As one of the simplest and most effective TikTok marketing tactics, it’s not hard to see why influencer marketing is a common approach among global and local brands alike. So what kind of influencer are you searching for? When sourcing influencer candidates, here are three must-have qualities to maximize your marketing potential.
The Right Followers & Past Experience
What good is seeking out influencers with a huge number of followers if none of those followers can see the value in what you’re offering? Seeking out influencers with the best-targeted fanbase for your TikTok marketing campaign is foundational. If you’re deciding between a few influencer candidates to work with, avoid the temptation to go with whoever has the highest number of followers. People often buy TikTok followers to become influencers.
When seeking out the right fanbase, quality reigns, and rules over quantity. Contrary to what you might think, getting 500 interested followers to see your brand advertised with an influencer will actually pay more dividends than 2000 uninterested or unengaged followers seeing the same ad. Additionally, contacting experienced TikTok influencers will help save you time and possible let-down. Going with someone who has experience working with brands in the past is a more airtight approach than working with someone who is just starting to build traction with their fanbase.
Creative and Compelling Content
Although it goes without saying, content is king. There are thousands of TikTok influencers with all types of follower counts, but not all of these influencers are creating original material on a regular basis. Here’s the secret sauce to finding the best influencer match for your campaign: Originality. Find a TikTok influencer who inserts their personality into their brand. This shows that anything they post is wholly and unquestionably theirs. One of the best parts about working with the right influencer is getting access to their creative content. After all, they’ve reached influencer status because of the unique content they create. Once you develop a relationship with an influencer, you can position your work agreement with them to leverage your own campaign and position it to benefit from their content.
In other words, you can use the content you did not have to create yourself to benefit your own brand—double win.
High Engagement Rate
Freight loads of followers and stellar content is all for naught if users aren’t feeling what you’re posting. The same goes for TikTok influencers. When sifting through influencer candidates to find the best match for your campaign, make sure the influencers you are considering consistently maintain a high engagement rate for their content.
At the end of the day in your ROI analysis, it won’t do much good if your content reached a follower base of 20,000+ TikTok users, but less than 1% of those users actually clicked on your ad. Conversions still lead the ROI charge, and since there is not much return for you for content that carries a low engagement rate, it’s probably not worth the initial investment either.
Deciphering an influencer’s engagement rate is easy and can be done in the “research phase” when you’re sourcing potential influencers with whom to partner.
The number of interactions an influencer receives per post will give you a good idea of how engaging their posts actually are and, ultimately, if it is worth pursuing a collaboration project for your TikTok campaign. The right fanbase, solid past experience partnering with brands, a high engagement rate, and creative content function as your checklist and guiding compass when considering the must-have qualities of a TikTok influencer. Search away!
