Believe that working with an influencer with millions of followers will ensure your product is a success?

Well think again as influencer-driven campaigns can go wrong due to several unforeseen reasons that are tied to the influencer, their followers and more.

After seeing far too many marketing campaigns run into the ground due to mistakes made with influencers, we’ve highlighted some of the main ones you need to avoid when working with them.

• Hiring only from a list of top influencers
• Not researching influencers before hiring them
• Failing to build a partnership
• Sticking close to a niche
• Picking numbers over engagement
• Overspending on influencers
• Not paying influencers

Hiring without Doing Research

Sticking to a list of top influencers among beauty bloggers and hiring someone without checking their social media accounts, can net you a person who has posted negative comments about your brand in the past. Getting the right influencer to work on a campaign therefore involves a lot of research, and asking a marketing agency to help you with the process is ideal. But if you are doing the hiring on your own, ensure you know a fair amount about the influencer’s online style, tone of writing and their creativity.

Failing to build a Partnership

Working with an influencer does not mean that every post regarding your brand should conform to your company’s or campaign style. In fact if you give the influencer a bit of leeway as part of a partnership, and allow them to exercise their own creativity when creating content for your company, they will do a better job.

Keeping close to a Niche

Looking for influencers who have a beauty blog and a good following on Instagram when you have lipsticks or perfume to market will not always deliver the best results, and can quickly limit your reach. Instead, check out influencers from aligned industries and while this is more risky, it allows your products to reach customers who are not deluged with a large number of similar lipsticks.

Picking Numbers over Engagement

Selecting an influencer who has millions of followers and very little engagement with them is a big mistake that most companies make. Higher engagement results in more products and services being sold so don’t automatically opt for an influencer with several million followers on Instagram, and ignore others.

Overspend on Influencers

Spending too much on an influencer can easily result in you running over the budget for a campaign. So as part of hiring the influencer negotiate a fee that is based on cost-per-click, and also takes into account the number of posts you want created for your products.

Not Paying Influencers

Hiring a freelance influencer does not mean that you do not have to pay them. Negotiating how much should be paid to the influencer should therefore be an important part or your agreement with them. Payment additionally should be fair and commensurate to the time spent creating content and blog posts if you want them to do a good job. Also if the influencer answers questions posted by their followers they should be compensated for the time they spend.

As more influencers are hired as part of marketing campaigns, reducing missteps when working with them allows you to get more exposure for your products, and can even result in your business turning a profit within a period of few months.