If you’re a Millennial or Gen Z individual, then you already know that being an influencer is kind of a big deal. Influencers are seen as more trustworthy than standard commercials, and often are praised for their ability to nurture a relationship with people. That’s why they’re popular and why they offer a decent ROI for their work. But, how do you hire them?

Hiring a social media influencer is something that should be done with care. To do this, you can either choose to hire an influencer marketing agency, or do the following steps yourself:

1. Figure out which platform you want to advertise on and find influencers you like. 
2. Reach out to influencers with an offer and a contract.
3. Watch them market your gear. 

Trying to hire social media influencers is going to be harder than you think, at least if you want to get the best results. I’ll help you understand the ins and outs. 

Is influencer marketing right for you?

Influencer marketing has a relatively high ROI on average. According to Paldesk, influencer marketing will give you $5.78 for every dollar you spend on average. However, we all know that averages only tell part of the story. The product you want to sell can make a huge difference on how well your campaign goes. 

From my experience, influencer marketing tends to work best with the following industries:

• Food
• Makeup
• Exercise/Gym Equipment/Fitness
• Investing Apps
• Clothing

Why does influencer marketing work so well?

Influencers have a tendency to have a unique relationship with your target audience. Audiences see their content and tend to feel a connection with them. It’s a science-based mental hack that is known as having quasi-interactions or pseudointeractions. This leads to better trust, which in turn, leads to more sales. That’s why you see so many companies making marketing campaign plans involving them.

How much do social media influencers cost to hire?

Honestly, this depends on the influencer as well as the platform they use and the followers they have. Most influencers will have the following types of costs:

• Nano-influencers (under 10k followers) charge between $5 to $100 per post.
• Micro influencers (between 10k to 25k followers) charge between $25 to $500 per post.
• Influencers (100k to 500k followers) can charge between $1000 to $5000 per post.
• Macro influencers (500k to 1M followers) can charge between $5,000 to $10,000 per post.
• Mega influencers ($1M+) will charge more than $10,000 per post.

A general rule of thumb is that you should pay a penny per 1,000 followers. However, this is not set in stone. 

How do you hire social media influencers?

Honestly, this topic could be a book all on its own. For the sake of our article, we’re going to try to break it down into the most major steps. 

1. Which platform do you want to advertise to?

Every single influencer will have a specific social media platform that they specialize in. Many are YouTubers and will be happy to mention you on their channel. Others are Twitch streamers, while still more are Instagrammers or Twitter fiends. You need to figure out where money should go in sponsored posts.

Before you start randomly hiring people, you need to find out which social media platform is going to be the most popular for your work or product. From there, you can figure out whether you want to go for mega influencers, regular influencers, and nano influencers. In many cases, it’s best to go for a blend of influencer statuses.

2. Choose a platform to reach out to influencers from. 

You can choose to reach out to them via their social media platform of choice, use an app like Upfluence or Tribe, or actively reach out to the social media influencer’s representative. (Some of them have agents or publicists, much like how movie stars do.)

Technically, you don’t have to choose just one platform for outreach, but it’s often better to try to choose one. It’s best to stick to one outreach method while you’re working with influencers. It makes everything easier to track and streamline.

3. Vet your influencers carefully. 

This is going to be the hardest part for many independent business owners. Influencers are pretty scandal-prone and often find themselves in a world of drama. You want to get a good idea of what kind of issues they are involved in before you reach out to them. 

Vetting should include the following measures:

• Reading up on scandals the influencer was involved in.
• Learning about the audience that they work with, as well as their political leanings.
• Looking at the influencers’ business profiles to determine if they’ve done similar. 
• Reading reviews of other companies that have worked with them, if available.
• Reading about the influencer’s moral and ethical stances on stuff. 
• Determining if they have real followers. 

4. Reach out to influencers with a proposal. 

In many cases, you may want to find out what they charge per post and how they do things for partnerships. If you like what they have to say, it is worth reaching out to them with a contract. This contract should involve the basic details of the job as well as the price that you are willing to pay. 

While it may be tempting to go on “the honor code,” the truth is that you may get burnt. Influencer fraud is a thing, and that means that they may walk away with cash if there is no contract in place. 

5. Send items to the influencer for them to review. 

Most of the time, you will start off with sending them items after you have signed contracts with them. Once they do a single post, you can determine how well they work and what they are able to bring to the table. 

6. If things work out well, you can move to a more recurring option.

This is the ideal option, but it’s understandable if things don’t always work out. If you want to make sure that you get the best possible results, you will check to see if the ROI works for your project. If you spent more money than you got back, it’s not the marketing endeavor for you. 

Should you hire an influencer marketing agency?

An influencer marketing agency is usually the smartest way to go about hiring an influencer. Influencer marketing agencies are able to track your investment in influencers, determine the best possible match for you, and also do the heavy legwork that comes with standard influencer marketing. 

Sure, you can get all of this done on your own. However, there’s no guarantee that it’ll be easy for you to do, nor is there any sign that you’ll be as successful as you want to be. That’s why it’s best to make sure that you hire a marketing agency who can do it all for you. 

The next steps

Now that you understand the basics of hiring a social media influencer, it’s easy to see why you may want to hire an agency. So, it’s time to start looking for an agency that specializes in the type of influencer marketing work you need to do. 

1. Choose your platform
2. Vet your influencers
3. Reach out to them and negotiate with them
4. Do a trial run
5. Continue and adjust as necessary OR hire an agency