There is, in fact, a secret to finding great influencer content... do you know it?
Alright, i'll break down the secret for you, but I need to start by telling you that these steps are not done during the setup of the campaign. It's actually during the campaign when you're able to do this. The reason is, nobody can predict which influencer content is going to do better than the rest, so what you need is a few things.
Number one, you need several influencers. A lot of people call us asking for just one influencer to post content, as if the word influencer is some magic bullet. Well, you don't want to rely on just one influencer because we've found that about 20 to 25% of the content really breaks through in a very special way, so you need enough content to figure out which pieces are going to do really well.
The next step you take occurs in the middle of the campaign. You'll need to create a way to score each piece of content to figure out which pieces are performing the best. When you do that, then you have both the empirical data (likes, comments, shares, etc.) with hand-scoring of content to identify which pieces you as the brand would be able to use again in the future. You can then factor all of this together to figure out what are those best pieces of content are in real time, and then get those pieces in front of people most likely to buy.
The best part is that once you do this, you can use that same scoring methodology on your in-house created content, whether it's done by a team that works for you, or an agency, and can score it the same. Most research has found that all things being equal, influencer content performs better than in-house branded content. Having said that, the only way to be sure as to which pieces, is to set up this scoring system and be monitoring in real time.
If you don't have the resources to create this type of infrastructure, give us a holler! Our Content Performance Index does exactly this, and we utilize it for every influencer marketing campaign we manage. Let' us know how we can help you with your next program.