It's not an anomaly to see a social media account with 1 million followers, admire their success, and think you should be doing the same things they're doing. However, followers don't always translate into “influence,” meaning they've actually influenced their audience to take action—the entire premise of an influencer.

When evaluating an account that is more popular than your own, ask yourself if they also meet the criteria of:

• REPUTATION: Do viewers find them credible?
• Cross reference: Is there any way to cross check what they have said or audit education/experience based on any statements made?
• The industry standard: Do they meet the bar with curated content?
• property: Is what they say/do different or is the delivery inimitable?
• Audience Insights: Do they know the audience they are building demographically – age, location, interests, etc.?

The value is in the evaluation, and this is based on understanding one big thing: why someone is a fan / follower of yours. Once the answer is received, it serves as the biggest input on what really lies ahead in terms of how to sell to them.

Connected: Are influencers actually influential? How influencer marketing can impact branding

Call to action (CTA) versus good sales strategy

Even if social media provides direct insight into socio-economic status allowing us to understand the affordability of consumer services and products, this does not mean that an influencer's advertisement, ie product/service promotion, would work. How you sell to an audience is more than just saying, “Let me send you something” or “Click the link.”

This is where many influencers lose sight because 10% of the business is products and services, while 90% is the business itself — and many influencers haven't mastered sales. They may sell themselves to get likes, comments, saved posts, and followers, but that doesn't always translate into making money. Despite this, many of them still receive a salary … for now.

Your actionable step is to show how a problem is solved, evaluate communication and buyer personas among mixed demographics.

The madness of making money

Influencers are making money and there is no doubt about it, but many can only tell you (4) numbers:

• Followers: This is “retention,” or the number of people they've been able to keep as an audience.
• Easy Demographics: The age and location of those followers.
• Click-through rate (CTR): The number of people who can manage to click on a call to action.
• Partial Conversion Rate: The number of people who post by clicking on a CTA who buy, but this is only catchable whether a business uses an affiliate program and unless a buyer has overlooked this.

We still don't know in line with conversion rates: Consumers who bought because of an influencer but skipped the associated cycle (ie bought through an alternative measure), which now provides an untraceable origin for the transaction and businesses that do not use affiliates with any form of tracking (good tangible providers that do not use affiliate links, restaurants plus other brick and mortar providers and service providers).

Connected: Harnessing the Power of Influence: How a powerful influencer marketing strategy can help your brand reach new heights

How technology will close the loop and AI will introduce a new metric

If an incentive is offered to use an affiliate link, it drastically increases the likelihood that it will be used with mechanism no. 1 for approval which is cost reduction. If a customer is told they will pay less up front or through developing loyalty points that can save later, many will see the value.

Additionally, through the use of an app/software/program, this technology will tell businesses:

• Average spend: Average amount of money spent by an influencer's audience.
• Customer lifetime value: The average amount of money an influencer's audience spends over time.
• Buyer demographics: If the tools as a prerequisite asked the corresponding questions to understand that customer, what was once only the knowledge of the followers, is now the knowledge of the buyer. These are the numbers you should pay attention to!

AI tools will also be able to tell us how much money an influencer's audience is designed to spend within the influencer's business; the average amount of money is an influencer's audience designed to spend with their business over time (anticipated customer lifetime value); and links to financial trends, such as the effects the economy has on an influencer's audience and what exactly they're spending their money on.

Connected: Influencers: The New Best for E-Commerce?

New Proposition: An Influencer vs. A Contributor

Just take a look at these three scenarios:

1. High sales conversion rate with high projected average spend: An influencer with 10,000 followers showing a 3% sales conversion rate with an average projected spend of $150 = $45,000 average affiliate income (10,000 x 0.03 = 300 customers x $150).
2. High sales conversion rate with low projected average spend: An influencer with 100,000 followers showing a sales conversion rate of 3%, with an average projected spend of $10 = average engagement of $30,000 (100,000 x 0.03 = 3,000 customers x $10).
3. Low sales conversion rate with high projected expenses: An influencer with 100,000 followers showing a 0.2% sales conversion rate, with an average projected spend of $150 = average engagement of $30,000 (100,000 x 0.002 = 200 customers x $150).

The data above shows us how an influencer with 10,000 followers can be more valuable than an influencer with 100,000 followers, simply because of sales conversion and projected average spend. If an influencer can't get their audience to spend, and when they do if they don't spend enough money to make it a profitable business, outside of quality endorsement of their reputation, how can a business owner say they were a good investment monetary?

This new metric is really what will make the difference between an influencer and a contributor to the platform who happens to have a lot of followers. Your goal is to make sure you know your audience, how to sell to them better, and recalibrate your strategy to improve the numbers that businesses will use to identify whether or not to hire you.