What you should know about influencer mapping

Influencer marketing is rapidly becoming an important part of the marketing strategy for a growing number of brands all over the world. Influencer marketing uses the power of social media influencers over their followers to shape the decisions and purchasing behavior of their target market. They can achieve this because the followers of influencers trust their opinions and often rely on them for decision making. Influencers develop strong personal engagement with their followers, unlike celebrities. This makes influencer marketing much more cost-effective for brands.

If done right, influencer marketing undoubtedly has remarkable capabilities of taking your brand's reach to the next level. However, you need to structure your approach carefully. One of the first few steps of launching a successful influencer marketing campaign is to find the right influencers. To find truly reliable influencers that are suited well to your brand, you need to dedicate time and effort into influencer mapping.

What is influencer mapping?

Influencer mapping refers to the process of gauging the level of influencer an influencer has on their followers within their relevant platform. One thing that brands often get wrong when measuring the level of influence of an influencer is that they measure it simply by the number of followers. In fact, influence actually implies the extent to which an influencer can shape the decision-making behavior of an influencer. Collaborating with influencers with a large number of followers but a low engagement rate won’t get your brand many conversions or a good return on investment.

Influencer mapping is a key stage of preparing your influencer marketing campaign since it will allow you to achieve the following.

1. Gauge the potential level of influence an influencer can have

Measuring the level of influence will allow you to determine which influencers are the most important for your brand. Comparing influencers side by side will aid the selection process and help tailor different campaigns according to different influencers. Influencer mapping will not only help your brand get an understanding of how impactful an influencer can be, but it will also help you plan out how you can reach out to them and the kind of campaign to launch. 

2. Get a better understanding of your target audience

Only when you understand the traits and behaviors of your target audience will you be able to plan out your marketing campaign effectively. Influencer mapping will help brands ascertain the platforms that are being used by their target market for discussions and seeking opinions. It will enable you to demarcate who to collaborate with and who not to.

3. Identify untapped audiences

By observing influencers' networks, you can find audiences that your influencers could impact, but that which you haven't reached out to. These audiences can potentially be relevant to your brand, and you might have missed out on them when originally identifying your target market.

How to map influencers

1. Set out your marketing goals

The first step is to identify what you're trying to achieve with your marketing campaign. Without doing so, the mapping process would be directionless. Your goal could be to increase sales, enhance brand reach, improve website traffic, or perhaps to develop higher engagement with your audience.

2. Identify the influencers you want to work with

Look for influencers within your niche that are most relevant to your campaign. Finding the right influencer must be based on who your target market is and how closely the influencers’ style and content match the identity of your brand.

3. Rank!

You now want to sort the influencers out based on their relevance and importance for your brand. Ranking them should be based on which influencers have a good understanding and rapport with you and who are willing and able to align with your brand’s style. Based on this, you will be able to decide who to collaborate with more frequently. Based on this mapping, you can then develop the rest of your marketing strategy.

While we have summarised the basics of what you need to do for influencer mapping, the entire influencer marketing process can be challenging to plan and execute effectively. This is where an influencer marketing agency like Influencer Hub comes in. Influencer Hub can take care of the entire influencer marketing process for you and provide a comprehensive platform for collaborating with influencers and tracking progress and returns on your collaborations. With over a hundred registered influencers with high engagement rates, the process of influencer mapping will become seamless for you. You can find out more about what Influencer Hub has to offer for your brand by clicking here.