How Many Influencers Can I Get With My Budget? 

This is a very common question we receive from brands, and depending on who you're talking to and the agency's unique approach to influencer marketing, you're going to get a different answer from everyone. This specific metric (total number of influencers) is only valuable for certain types of influencer campaigns. So what your brand should first determine is the primary objective of your influencer marketing program. Content creation? Website traffic? Brand awareness? Engagement? Sales?

Depending on which of those objectives is most valuable to your brand, hiring a large number of influencers may not prove as effective as you'd think.

Below we're breaking down when it makes sense to hire a high volume of influencers, and when you should put your budget towards other tactics within the campaign.

The More The Merrier

Some brands aren't always looking to partner with influencers for their... well, influence. Another term synonymous with influencers is creators, and that's what the majority of these people are: high-quality content creators. At times, it can make sense to outsource your brand's content creation needs. In-house photo shoots can be costly and are many times not made for social media (or designed with a social-first perspective) or perhaps look a bit formulaic over time. Or perhaps your brand doesn't have an internal team for content creation and is looking to outsource. Influencers can be the solution for these problems and more. A look at their social feeds can tell you which influencers have a knack for creating social-first, quality content that audiences want to engage with.

If content creation is your objective, the more influencers the better. You'll have an array of product shots, unique perspectives, and a diversity of content produced in a timely and cost-efficient manner. But before you utilize influencer assets for your brand, work to develop a system that helps you identify which pieces of content your audience is most likely to react positively towards and engage. Not every piece of content is a winner. 

We also have this post on best practices for repurposing influencer-produced content your social teams can take into consideration.

The Road Less Traveled

A misconception in the influencer marketing space is that you need as many influencers as possible to get as many people as possible exposed to the content. In reality, only a small percentage of an influencer's audience is going to be exposed to their organic content (read more about the specifics of organic reach on each channel here).

That said, if your objective is more aligned with awareness (maximum impressions) or website traffic (maximum clicks to your website) you're going to want to leverage a smaller group of influencers and save a large portion of your budget for paid media syndication. When you incorporate paid media into your campaigns, it gives you the power to control the exposure of the influencer content and to reach more people who match your exact target audience.

Also, if done properly, you can still leverage the third-party credibility of the influencer by running ads from their accounts, not just your brand-owned channels, as we typically do here at Carusele.

Now be advised, you should not run ads (or boost) on every single piece of influencer content just because you have fewer influencers. Instead, as we mentioned with content creation, you're still going to want to develop a system to identify which pieces of content are performing the best in relation to your objective. Those top-performing pieces are the ones that you'll want to run ads with.

Hopefully that settles the debate over how many influencers your brand should consider hiring for your programs. Of course, there's still a lot that you need to consider, such as how to properly identify the right influencers, and then which influencers you may want to ask to become a brand ambassador. If you need help with any of these items, Carusele is a full-service influencer marketing agency that can do all the heavy lifting on your behalf. Contact our team today to learn more about how we operate.

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