Influencer Marketing Workflow 101

Influencer marketing is something we all know at least a little bit about. After all, in today’s day and age, you can’t really deny the impact that Instagram, TikTok, and other major platforms have had on the way businesses do their marketing. In the grand scheme of things, however, influencer marketing is still a relatively new and not entirely understood field. There’s a lot of trial and error with what works, what doesn’t, and the best way to utilize influencers in the marketing of brands and products. That’s why, much like anything else, you’ve got to have a plan and a tried-and-true method – and that’s where HypeAuditor’s influencer marketing workflow comes in. 

What's in the workflow?

Our workflow is broken down into seven steps (preceded by a planning phase) which cover the influencer marketing journey from beginning to end. In order, these steps are: 

• Market Research

• Influencer Discovery

• Influencer Outreach

• Influencer Analysis

• Media Planning

• Campaign Management

• Reporting

Yes, that might sound a little overwhelming at first, but not to worry – taking the workflow one step at a time as intended makes the entire process far more coherent, thorough, and manageable (and the final product is all the better for it!). Alright, let’s break it down and take a look at each step in a bit more detail.

Step 0: Strategic Planning

The preceding step, or “Step 0” if you will, is the Strategic Planning phase. This can be seen as a prologue to the main workflow as it’s what any company or marketing planner would need to kick off the process – in a nutshell, this step is used to define the objectives and desired outcomes of the influencer marketing campaign to come. This could include looking at the greater company objectives, figuring out what role the campaign will play in meeting those objectives, setting up specific KPIs (or key performance indicators), and coming up with an ideal timeline for the campaign’s tenure.

It would also be beneficial to do other campaign prep in this phase such as revamping the brand’s Instagram account or setting up a dedicated account for the campaign’s audience to engage with.

Step 1: Market Research

Okay, now we’re onto the main stretch of HypeAuditor’s influencer marketing workflow. First up, we have Market Research. As the old saying goes, knowledge is power, which is why thorough research is so important before launching any major campaign. 

The first phase of market research involves Competitor Analysis, a feature that allows you to understand the current market climate within your industry based on what other big players are doing. By assessing your competitors’ campaigns, you can take a look at their overall performance and results, get an idea of campaign budgets, and see which influencers and creators they’ve worked with. This way, you can learn from both their successes and mistakes and incorporate this into your own campaign strategy. HypeAuditor’s tool automates the process to avoid the laborious process of sifting through all of these details manually – it’ll easily generate lists of influencers, most used hashtags, and other helpful metrics such as reach and engagements so you can be as informed as possible.

Another important aspect of the market research process is Market and Trend Analysis, which helps you better discover and understand emerging trends in any industry or country. This is vital to ensure that your market strategy and overall approach is in line with what audiences are enjoying most in the influencer marketing space – from uncovering the biggest accounts on social media, to seeing which influencers are most popular for brands to work with, as well as those brands that have gone viral, you’ll get to dig deeper into why these events happened and learn how to incorporate these findings into your campaign strategy.

Step 2: Influencer Discovery

Now that you’re armed with all the information and research you need, you can move on to Influencer Discovery. Remember, influencers are pretty much the bread and butter of your campaigns – they’re the direct link between you and your audience. You’re not going to want to work with a TikTok influencer with a following of young teens if you’re marketing luxury clothing or beauty products so, therefore, it’s vital to take the time to find exactly who you’re looking for! 

While many might see this process as something like looking for a needle in a haystack, our tools make it easy to find the perfect fit for your campaigns. Our database of over 68 million influencers has something for everyone and advanced search filters make it easy to pinpoint the right one. Need a millennial influencer with a focus on organic foods who primarily has followers in the United States? No problem! The platform also ranks accounts based on metrics such as engagement rate, audience quality, and number of followers, which are just some of the major factors that marketers consider during the influencer search process.

Step 3: Influencer Outreach

With your list of ideal influencers in hand, you can move on to the crucial step in the flow: Influencer Outreach. This stage is where you get to tackle introducing yourself to influencers and (hopefully successfully) convincing them to work with your brand. During these conversations, you’ll also get to discuss matters such as the format and number of posts, which platforms or channels the posts will be going on, the campaign’s terms, and of course, the influencer’s compensation rates. 

There are various ways to go about initiating conversations with influencers; a few available options include LinkedIn, direct contact through Instagram messages, as well as simply searching for their emails in YouTube bios for example, but this process can become a hassle quickly. Modern influencer marketing tools allow you to get chatting directly from the platform interface and include all contact details already (and sometimes even handy pre-made templates for your messages!). When doing this process, it’s important to remember that first impressions matter, so be sure to keep things professional, personalized, and friendly – influencers deal with enough spam as it is!

Step 4: Influencer Analysis

Okay, so you’ve gotten a good amount of responses from influencers – now what? Well, you double-check your choices of course! While you might be sold on an influencer and their metrics and vibe, it’s always recommended that you do some additional digging to safeguard your campaign and secure your success. You can never be too careful, right? 

With Influencer Analysis, you would undergo steps of vetting an influencer’s account for fraud in their growth patterns and followers (because fake followers are rife on social media!). This step is also vital for analyzing the quality of the creator’s audience as well as the audience’s interests, to ensure they align with your own brand and products. Finally, you can also take a look through the influencers’ past collaborations and ad performance to verify that they’re going to serve your campaign goals in the best way possible.

There are a few influencer performance metrics you’ll specifically want to look out for: 

• Average reach

• Engagement rate

• Follower growth

• Post frequency

Additionally, you’ll want to vet an influencer’s content to ensure that they don’t pose a potential threat to your brand’s reputation. HypeAuditor assigns influencers a Brand Safety score, which gives a rating to an influencer after analyzing their content for red flags. Brand Safety is calculated based on 9 primary factors: 

• Toxic content

• Negative sentiments

• Political content

• Pranks

• Adult content

• Offensive content

• Alcohol

• Religious content

• Crime-related content

Of course, depending on your brand and your products, not all of these factors would be problematic, but the score helps to get an idea for how safe it is to work with an influencer at a glance. 

Step 5: Media Planning

Now that you’ve got your campaign plan and influencers finalized, you can head on to the Media Planning step of creating a mock-up plan for your campaign. By plotting out your campaign in advance, you’ll be able to generate a wealth of useful information to share with either your colleagues or clients about the estimated campaign performance. This includes an idea of the total campaign budget as well as approximate figures for engagement and reach – two very important metrics when it comes to marketing results!

Of course, automation tools exist to make this entire process far more streamlined and simple. For example, HypeAuditor’s Media Plans tool allows you to import influencers into your plan in advance and automatically calculates these figures for you. By having this all done beforehand, you can accurately set expectations for campaign performance and ensure that your KPIs reflect this accordingly – no room for nasty surprises!

Step 6: Campaign Management

So your campaign is plotted out, your influencers are prepped, and you’ve gone live – congratulations! There’s no room to sit back and relax yet, though, because now’s the time to keep tabs on your campaign and track the work your influencers are putting out. This is the stage of the flow where you need to approve creative concepts and posts, ensure that hashtags are being used correctly, monitor that posts are going out on schedule and to spec, and overall keep an eye on the content that is being used to promote your brand. 

Yes, that does sound like a handful, but simple automation can do wonders for both your time and your sanity. Campaign Management tools allow you to remove the manual work from the content reviewal and approval process, meaning posts can get out to your audience as soon as possible. These tools immediately update you on key insights and track posts linked to a specific account or hashtag, allowing you to get a full view of everything that’s been posted to date. You’ll also be able to get an idea of how audiences are reacting to your campaign and make changes accordingly, and of course, any major issues will be flagged so you don’t need to go hunting for where things may have gone wrong.

Step 7: Reporting

Once your campaign is finished and the rush has died down, it’s time to gather your results and analyze your performance. This is the step where you get to answer a few burning questions: Did you manage to achieve your expected results? Where did any potential mistakes happen? What can you learn from this campaign to perform better next time? Reporting is vital for this reason, as every campaign is an opportunity to iterate and improve for the next one.

Unfortunately, reporting does have a reputation for being tedious and time-consuming – and for good reason! Manual methods involve sifting through insights for every post, from every influencer, and squinting at rows of numbers trying to make calculations and conclusions. By automating this process, you can save time and focus on the less “boring” stuff while the tool covers the rest. Campaign Management allows you to generate practical and insightful reports with almost no input needed from your side. As an added bonus, these reports are also elegantly laid out and presentation-ready. Your manager and clients will love you for it!

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A few parting tips

While there’s always room for creative freedom in influencer marketing, there are some basics that should be followed in order for your strategy to be successful:

• Don’t skip any steps – and ensure you follow them in order! If you’re making a dish that asks for butter, onions, and garlic, for example, you’d best be sure you include all three. The order also really matters here – with influencer marketing campaigns, following each step thoroughly and in the right sequence ensures that all your bases are covered, avoiding risks and complications further down the line. 

• Try to automate where you can. While it is certainly possible to do everything on your own, it’s not the easiest task. With all the stages involved in creating an influencer marketing campaign, there’s a lot of manual work that comes up – from budget calculations and outreach emails all the way to reporting. Automation tools help to take the load off during laborious steps and help to further mitigate human error, allowing you to focus your efforts on more pressing matters.

Keep going and find your pace

As you can see, the influencer marketing workflow is a comprehensive yet digestible step-by-step guide on the most efficient way to run your marketing campaigns. While this overview should have your influencer marketing knowledge bumped up a few notches, there’s always room for further deep-diving to help you stay on top of this ever-evolving game.

Check out HypeAuditor’s ebook on the influencer marketing workflow where you’ll gain even further insight from our marketing professionals to help turn you into an influencer marketing expert.