How to Choose an Influencer Marketing Platform

According to an Influencer Marketing Hub survey, 90% of marketers say that working with influencers is a very effective form of marketing. In fact, companies on average generate $5.78 for every dollar invested in influencer marketing. This explains why the global industry value of influencer marketing has doubled since 2019.

If influencer marketing is a key part of your company's marketing mix, you need to leverage an influencer marketing platform to manage your influencer relationships and marketing initiatives. With over a hundred different platforms currently available, how should you choose one that best meets your business needs?

It's easy when you know what to look for, as you'll soon discover.

Quick Takeaways

• Influencer marketing is an increasingly important part of most companies' marketing mix.

• An influencer marketing platform automates and manages all your influencer marketing activities.

• When choosing an influencer marketing platform, consider ease of use, social platforms supported, influencer discovery capabilities, and campaign management functionality.

• You should also consider the platform's data collection practices, campaign reporting features, and cost.

What Does an Influencer Marketing Platform Do?

For influencer marketing to become a serious part of your online marketing strategy, you need to leverage an influencer marketing platform to automate and manage all your influencer marketing activities, including:

• Discovering new influencers

• Managing influencer relationships

• Choosing the right influencers for each campaign

• Managing influencer campaigns

• Generating campaign reports

• Analyzing influencer and campaign performance

In short, the right influencer marketing platform can help you maximize your influencer marketing campaigns. It's just a matter of choosing the right platform for your company's specific needs.

The following TEDx talk discusses how influencers have transformed modern marketing.

8 Important Things to Look for in an Influencer Marketing Platform

Choosing a platform for your influencer marketing initiatives depends on your business needs and what you want to accomplish. Here are eight essential elements to consider:

1. Ease of Use

You're going to be using your influencer marketing platform every day, so you better like how it works. How easy is the program to use? Is it intuitive, or does it have a steep learning curve? How easy is it to teach others on your team to use? Does it offer dashboards so you can view important information at a glance? Consider all these issues – and ask for a product demo or free trial to test it for yourself.

2. Social Platforms Supported

Some influencer marketing platforms only focus on one or two social platforms. That might be fine if you also focus on just those platforms, but you probably want a platform with a broader focus. At a minimum, look for influencer marketing solutions that support the major social media platforms:

• Instagram

• Facebook

• YouTube

• Twitter

• Twitch

• TikTok

SOURCE: https://www.business2community.com/marketing/the-rise-of-influencer-marketing-and-what-to-expect-in-2020-02318375

3. Influencer Search

The best influencer marketing platforms help you find new influencers for your campaigns. Paladin, for example, features an ever-growing database of 25 million global influencers. You can drill down through the database using various search filters and find the right influencers for any given campaign.

Paladin's influencer discovery tool helps you choose the best influencers for each campaign.

4. Campaign Management

One of the primary tasks of an influencer marketing platform is to create and manage influencer campaigns. Creating a new campaign should be as easy as a few clicks.

Campaign dashboards help you view real-time performance so you can fine tune campaigns on the fly. It's also helpful to view posts from individual influencers, so you know what type of coverage you're getting.

5. Data Collection

What data does the influencer marketing platform collect? Is it an approved API partner of the various social platforms, or can it only surface publicly available metrics?

Influencer marketing generates a considerable amount of data about the influencers you choose to work with, the social posts they create, and the audience that views those posts. Make sure your influencer marketing platform tracks the following data about your influencers:

• Social platforms used

• Number of followers per platform

• Average engagement rate

• Average impressions or views per post

• Primary audience demographics (age, gender, and location)

• Audience credibility score

• Payment rate

6. Reporting and Analysis

It's essential that your influencer marketing platform offers robust reporting to measure the impact of each campaign. You want to be able to track a variety of key performance indicators both in real-time and at the end of a campaign, including:

• Post fulfillment

• Impressions

• Views

• Engagements (likes, comments, and shares)

It's essential to track these metrics in total as well as for each influencer and social platform. You also want your influencer marketing platform to provide actionable insights based on the campaign results, so you know how to construct future campaigns better.

Paladin campaign dashboard offers real-time performance reporting.

7. Communication and Collaboration

Many influencer marketing platforms offer their own in-app communication and collaboration tools so you can easily correspond with your influencers. Some platforms also offer email integrations to track messaging history with your influencer contacts.

8. Cost

Finally, consider the cost of the platform. Some are relatively inexpensive but lack many features of more sophisticated solutions. Others might cost more but provide the proper functionality you'll need to manage your influencer initiatives on a day-to-day basis. Make sure the platform you choose fits your budget but also does everything you need it to do.

Let Paladin Help You Manage Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns

When you want to centralize and automate your influencer marketing activities, turn to the experts at Paladin. We offer a full-featured influencer marketing platform with robust influencer discovery, campaign management, and reporting across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube.

Schedule a free demo to see how we can help you better manage your influencer marketing campaigns and gain a higher ROI on your marketing investment.

Contact Paladin today to learn how our influencer marketing solution can benefit you!