What do you think of when you hear the word “Influencer”? Are all influencers really influencers? What is their actual ‘influence’? All of these questions of course can be answered, but sometimes with great difficulty.
So, Let’s have a look at who can be called a “Real Influencer” and who does not fall under this hugely misunderstood term.
Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing?
A fake influencer is a user who doesn’t create original content for an audience they have built from the ground up, or has paid to have fake reach and engagement from fake accounts. A fake influencer usually looks for freebies instead of building any form of relationship between themselves, a brand, and their community.
Focusing on Digital Ape’s own Sila creator dashboard below, we are able to focus anaylse the creator’s original audience. Such as; the engagement rate, views, total posts, and compare with the average. Location, gender analysis is also of huge importance. Also, brands are losing billions on creators who profess to have a large audience in, for example, Saudi Arabia, when most of their followers could actually be in Egypt!
The Profile of a Real Influencer?
A ‘real influence’ as a content creator who produces unique content for an audience they have built from the ground up. They achieve significant reach and engagement from real people who wait for the content they create. A creator is actually responsible for the contribution of useful content and information to any media platform. This type of creator usually targets specific users in specific contexts.
Campaign Example
We teamed up with Puck to engage numerous home cooks across the GCC, and an influencer outreach campaign was launched. Recipe-wise, the focus was a mix of classic recipes (including, but not limited to, pasta), which was made with a personal twist.
The overall campaign idea played around the chef spinning a wheel to decide the recipe to cook. Then a secret ingredient was added to the recipe for them to find a way to prepare a nice and tasteful dish.
A key creator launched a mystery challenge to the creators. Also adding the secret ingredients.
Then the creators accepted the challenge and they, in-turn, challenged their audience. They then participated using the hashtag to win AED500 vouchers from Puck.
Using the KPI’s produced, in part, by the Sila creator platform, and thanks to over 10 years in creator management, the campaign had a reach of over 26million. Average creator views went to over 330,000 in some cases.
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(This article was written by Mohammed Shashaa. Community Manager at Digital Ape.)