When Keeping Up with the Kardashians hit the airwaves in 2007, Twitter and Facebook were barely on the map. Instagram? Still three years away. Snapchat? Not even a twinkle in its creator’s eye.

But since then, the raven-haired entrepreneurial flagship family of E! has been influencing the world through the world wide web all the way to the bank with everything from beauty to baby products.

Although this is an extreme example, many others have made a difference in the return-on-investment for many businesses through the grass roots, organic method of social influencing. But what is a social media influencer anyway?

Let’s Talk Goals and Trends

A social influencer, in its purest form, is a person who consumers trust enough to act with their time and money. Influencer value is determined by audience reach and credibility.

This is good news for your marketing budget. It doesn’t take Kardashian money to capture the attention of local fans.

Identify the movers and shakers who directly affect your area of industry and location. Next, request their terms. Do they follow your lead with coverage or are they actively involved in identifying trends and creating content? How many posts are included in fees for event and product reviews?

Beware of the Imitation Influencer

Anyone can say they are an influencer if follower numbers are high, but how do you tell the real influencer from the fake before the lack of action proves it? Here are some quick overviews:

• True influencers are following about five percent of their followers.
• Check the influencers last 10 posts for engagement. At least 2 percent should be liking or commenting if they are hitting the mark of the target audience.
• A paid program called HypeAuditor is an AI-based fraud-detection system designed to identify fake followers and rank a social influencer’s audience and engagement rate.

Ready to start working with influencers to promote your products, services or nonprofit organization? Contact Point Taken today to create a social media influencer campaign.