The #1 Mistake Brands Make with Influencer Marketing – And How to Avoid It

As a leading global modelpreneur and influencer, I’ve witnessed the same mistake made time and time again by brands approaching influencers for marketing partnerships. Many marketers solely focus on surface-level metrics like follower count or engagement rates when selecting influencers. While these numbers provide a baseline, they don’t reveal the most important factor – the relationship between the influencer and their audience.

 

The whole power of influencer marketing stems from the human connection and trust that an influencer cultivates with their community over time. Authentic engagement is built on empathy, consistency and prioritizing audience needs above all else. If a promoter doesn’t genuinely care for and serve their followers, any brand placements will feel disingenuous and fail to drive true value.

 

When assessing potential influencer partners, brands should seek to understand the influencer’s approach to building rapport, their values around authentic relationship management strategies, and how they gain quality audience insights to provide helpful value over superficial reach. This reveals which influencers have organically developed loyal supporter relationships poised to amplify campaigns far beyond surface-level metrics.

 

Avoid the common influencer marketing mistakes of overlooking deeper audience connections. Carefully evaluating an influencer’s community relationship abilities through insightful questions is key to success with influencer selection and campaign strategy. Healthy follower relationships pave the way for high engagement, purchases and long term brand affinity.