Artificial Intelligence is changing how we do business. Today, businesses have invested $50 billion in AI to find new ways to optimise business operations—and one of these new ways AI is being used today is in influencer marketing.
Using AI in influencer marketing has a number of different benefits and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that businesses have already started working with AI influencers. But before we jump into the impact of AI on influencer marketing, it’s important to see whether influencer marketing is popular enough to warrant this leap.
What makes influencer marketing click?
Influencers used to be larger-than-life characters on social media with massive followers. While it was all about being the most popular kid on the block, today it has evolved into something much more.
Today, influencer marketing has become a go-to for social media marketing campaigns because of its effectiveness. When brands invest in the right influencer, in the right space, it becomes a marketing and advertising platform with endless possibilities to reach marketing objectives.
With this, the popularity of influencer marketing has flourished and the numbers back it up. Perhaps one of the more notable figures is that 63% of businesses intend to use AI in their influencer marketing campaigns.
But remember, even though influencer marketing is popular, it means nothing if you don’t have the right influencer. So it begs the question:
How do you find the best influencer?
This is an important question and no, it’s not all about how many followers an influencer has.
If you want to select the best influencer for your business, then it’s important to look beyond the numbers and know the audience your prospective influencer caters to. You also need to consider other factors like location, age, engagement level of posts, interests of the influencer, and similar elements.
The great thing about this is that all the information you need to make a proper analysis is right there on social media. You just need to take a closer look.
But let’s get to the all-important question.
How is AI in influencer marketing changing the way we do business?
Finding the right influencer is a huge challenge for marketers. Your business should be able to figure out whether a campaign will be successful or not based on the facts and figures that are available to you.
This is where AI can practically revolutionise the way you use influencer marketing.
AI in influencer marketing can set up your brand for success by helping you find the right influencer, get practical workflows, and stay on top of trends and relevant content for your business.
But wait! There’s more! AI in influencer marketing can also detect fraudulent influencers and fake engagement that could make an influencer seem more influential than they really are. You can even determine the ROI you can expect from each influencer campaign to make sure you cover all your bases and put out the best content.
In order to do this, however, you need to have one thing: data.
Here are some applications of AI in influencer marketing that could change the game
- Evaluating an influencer’s performance
One of the ways that AI can be used in influencer marketing is to evaluate the influencer’s performance. Using advanced analytics, AI can predict how an influencer will be able to achieve the brand’s goals in any given campaign.
Marketers can use AI to analyse the individual messages of an influencer and compare the information to see whether they have what it takes to work with the brand and if the influencer can successfully align their values with those of the business.
- Identifying fraudulent influencers and fake engagement
Even though the internet is a powerful tool, not everything on the internet should be believed—and that goes for influencers as well.
In the Marketing Benchmark Report 2020, out of the 4,000 brands and agencies that were surveyed, more than 66% of respondents revealed that they faced fraud from influential people. The report found that many brands were having trouble with fraudulent influencers who depended on bots to increase their presence on social media.
AI can help weed out the bots from authentic influencers and make it simple to distinguish between the two.
- Identifying and delivering the right content
AI is also a great tool to help figure out relevant content and the best way to deliver it to your audience. It can process large amounts of data that marketers need to evaluate content value.
Plus, it can also provide marketers with editorial suggestions by comparing hundreds of data points and give you a good idea about how effective your content will be among the influencer’s audience.
Time to wrap up!
AI in influencer marketing is gaining momentum as more influencer marketing services allocate budgets to make waves in the influencer marketing industry.
If this describes where your business is heading in the near future then having the right combination of tools to determine whether you’re selecting the right influencer and if you will have the right reaction can be the difference between success and failure.