I once refused to go on a date because he didn’t like avocados. 

In my defense, I was 19 years old and obsessed with avocados.  

As I grew up, the deal breakers became less about food and more about values. 

The same thing happens in influencer marketing. With experience, you’ll quickly realize there are very few deal breakers. And these will depend on your brand. 

So, what exactly disqualifies an influencer from consideration? Let’s whip out our tiny red flags and start waving.

In this issue:

• Red flags to watch out for

• What’s everyone else doing

• Handpicked job openings

Red flag #1: Inconsistent posting 

Consistency is king. That’s true for almost everything, but especially true for influencers. Those who post consistently, whether that’s once a week or once a day, build stronger connections with their audience and stay on an algorithm’s good side.(Allegedly.)

A creator’s inconsistent posting might signal they’ll be flaky when working with you. They might whoosh past deadlines and ghost you. You don’t have time for that.

How to spot 👀

Take a look at their profile and see how far apart their posts are. You can also follow them to check whether they show up on Instagram Stories, Broadcast channels, etc.

An easier way is to use an influencer marketing platform. In Modash, for example, you can filter out inactive profiles.

You’ll get a list of creators who are active and post consistently. The ones who are inactive will never get on your list, and you won’t outreach to them.

Red flag #2: Questionable authenticity and engagement

High number of fake followers or engagement

If they’re fake, it doesn’t matter if an influencer has Selena Gomez’s number of followers, comments, or likes.

Regardless of how bots land up in profiles, you want to reach real people with your collab. So, fake followers or engagement is a clear red flag. 

How to spot 👀

Modash has a free fake follower tool that can tell you the percentage of an influencer’s audience that are sus.  

With great power comes great responsibility, though, gang. Every single profile on social media has bot accounts and suspicious-looking accounts.

The neat part of the Modash tool is that it puts the numbers in context.  

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has a fake follower score of 25.47%. Is this high? 

The distribution graph tells us that that’s an average score for influencers of his size. (Follower size, not muscle size)

What about fake engagement? How do you spot that? 

1. Check their profile. Most often, real human people leave comments related to the content. Bots comment with emojis and generic compliments.

2. Check whether the same set of people are leaving comments on an influencer’s profile. This can be a sign of an engagement pod. 

Sooner or later, most influencers get some bot action. This doesn’t automatically mean they have purchased those metrics. If everything else is a fit, give the influencer a chance to explain themselves. If there’s a solid explanation, you can probably risk giving them a shot. 

Having a skewed ratio of sponsored vs. organic posts

Look, everyone’s gotta pay the bills. But if an influencer has a significant number of sponsored content compared to organic, you might want to skip them. 

A creator’s audience – no matter how large or engaged now – will quickly get tired of their content if they’re bombarded by ads and product placements. They’ll start to tune out the influencer and maybe even trust them less.

The best influencers know this already. They have a healthy mix of branded and organic content on their profile.

How to spot 👀

You can go through their feed manually to get a feeling for how often they post branded content. 

Or, you can filter for sponsored content on Modash. With dates easily visible, you can understand how frequently an influencer’s doing paid partnerships.

Red flag #3: Misaligned values or controversial content

Political content

Maybe you don’t want an influencer to post political content and alienate part of your target audience. Or your brand values don’t reflect an influencer’s political beliefs. All of these are fair grounds for not working with a creator.

But hear me out; it can be unreasonable to expect influencers to stay completely silent on political situations in their state or country (like during elections).

Influencer marketing pro Katie Stoller recommends including a clause in your contract prohibiting the posting of any political content for 24 hours before and/or after your sponsored post(s) goes live. 

This way, you aren’t restricting the creator but also making sure your collab post does not appear directly next to political posts. 

Content that violates your morality clause

This can be quite specific to your brand, so nail down the specifics of what you’d definitely not want to see. 

For example, for Miroslava Petkova, Influencer Marketing Manager at COCOSOLIS, content that promotes smoking or drinking is a no-no. 

But drinking would be on your must-have list if you were an influencer marketer at Aperol.  

Inflammatory content

There are some content topics that are a no-no for all brands. If an influencer posts content that’s racist, homophobic, sexist, transphobic, etc., you can disqualify them immediately. 

They’re much more likely to be involved in some type of controversy, and as a brand, you don’t want any part of that. 

‍How to spot 👀

There are no shortcuts here. You have to scan an influencer’s recent and past content to ensure they don’t post anything that violates your brand-safety guidelines. 

A scan of an influencer’s posts, captions, and comments can give you a solid idea of whether they post any controversial content. For example, if they've made political commentary in the past, they’ll most likely do it again. 

Check to see how they show up casually in Stories. The in-feed posts might be brand-safe, but other content might not be. 

For big creators, you can also search for any controversies on Google: just type “[creator’s handle/name] + controversy/sexism/racism/etc.” to ensure you don’t miss any inflammatory content the influencer has deleted.

What’s everyone else doing?

Wondering how others keep finding influencers. Here’s how marketers ranked the different methods.

I particularly like #3. Your customer base is a perfect place to start because they already know and love your product.

Handpicked job openings

• Sunday Riley is looking for a Senior Manager of Influencer Marketing in New York.

• MìLà is looking for an Influencer Marketing Manager in the U.S. This is a remote role. 

• Coty is looking for an Influencer Marketing & Communications Manager in London, England. 

• Sweaty Betty is looking for a Global PR, Comms & Influencer Manager in London, England.

• yfood is looking for a Junior Influencer Marketing Manager in London, England.

See you in the next issue of ROI!
Eleni Zoe xx
Marketing @ Modash. Say hi on LinkedIn or visit Modash.

📌A NOTE ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST READ

The tips in this newsletter might not be right for your specific case. Use good judgment when deciding whether to take advice from the internet—even mine. My team and I survey & interview influencer marketers whose advice and observations come from their direct experience. ROI is meant for you to connect the dots and be inspired or challenged to think about your influencer marketing in a way you haven’t before.