This letter is for you if you are a –
- brand manager
- partnerships manager
- business who is running an influencer marketing campaign
Even if you are not – this can be a good eye-opener about the world of influencer marketing to you 👁️
I came across a report about influencer marketing.
It revealed that over 60% of the followers of nearly 2 out of 3 Indian influencers are fake.
I was like – WHAT??? 🤯
They didn’t specify how they came up with that number.
I felt that report was more like a PR article because that report came from an influencer marketing tool.
But in the end, they mentioned how low reach and engagement rate means fake followers 💀
I disagree 👎
That is a naive way of thinking.
Let me wear my marketer’s hat and explain to you the possible reasons behind low engagement rate and views 🤠
A) Purchased Followers
This is obvious.
Some wannabe creators want to show-off their online influence so they opt for an unethical way to purchase followers.
Those who say that engagement rate can expose such creators, let me burst your bubble.
Even likes and comments can be purchased.
💡 How To Identify: Check for all recent comments. When the majority of the comments are random and lazy ones like “nice video”, “useful tip”, “interesting” – there are strong possibilities of bot activities.
❓ Should you sponsor such channel as a brand? Strictly NO
B) Data Skew
This is the most common problem with short format content creators – Reels or Shorts.
In simple terms, this means that a creator gained the majority of followers from 2-3 viral content pieces but couldn’t retain the audience.
Example –
You are scrolling through your YouTube Shorts feed.
Scrolling… Scrolling… Scrolling…
One video managed to make you subscribe to that creator because you really loved that 1 particular video.
YouTube recommended more videos but then you didn’t like other videos from that creator.
So YouTube stopped recommending it too.
That creator is still in your following list. But you never watched their content again.
This can be typically seen in the educational category.
💡 How To Identify: Go to their channel, filter using ‘Popular’ and see if you find a handful of videos that gained massive traction.
❓ Should you sponsor such channel as a brand? Avoid. But you can take a chance.
C) Too Much Variety of Topics
Social platforms reward those who consistently create content on one topic.
But no human is just 1 niche.
Imagine a creator who decided to break the code.
He started creating content on all possible topics – travel, news, music, corporate, coding, motivation and everything around his life.
You, as a viewer, loved a travel video so you followed him. So YouTube recommended his motivational video.
You didn’t want to watch that so you skipped. YouTube stopped recommending his content to you.
That creator is still in your following list. But you never watched their content again.
💡 How To Identify:
Go to their channel, filter using ‘Latest’ and check to see what kind of videos they have been publishing in the last 3 months, 6 months and 1 year.
Then filter using ‘Oldest’ and see if they have been creating videos on the same topic from the beginning or they kept changing their topics.
❓ Should you sponsor such channel as a brand? Negotiate if your kind of content is seen to be working out for his channel.
Summary: Just because a channel has huge number followers, does not mean it is worth investing. Just because engagement is low, does not mean it’s worthless.
I am subscribed to 210 YouTube channels.
But how many of them do I consume in a week? Hardly 5-8 channels. But I am super engaged with those channels.
Analyze wisely ✅
✍ TODAY’S ACTION ITEM
Visit any of your favorite YouTube channels, analyze their channel and answer these questions:
1) What kind of topics do they publish their videos on?
2) Which is the most popular video on their channel?
3) Which is the oldest video on their channel and are they creating recent videos on the same topics?
Reply to this email with your answers – I am waiting
Got some doubts?
✔ WHAT I DID THIS WEEK
This week was flat but I am glad it got uplifted compared to last week 😅
I am back to my regular activities.
Built an automated calculator for client. Now 8-9 hours of work takes 30 minutes of her time 🤩
Now she just needs to fill basic numbers and she gets the whole picture like a magical book.
Let me tell you a typical oldie stuff – I cleaned up my wardrobe this week and this is the most satisfying task of my week. I scrapped a bunch of old clothes and now I have much clarity with my choices! 👔
Having too many choices actually limits our freedom to choose the best. This is called the Paradox of Choices in psychology.
Started with the 6th season of Black Mirror. First episode was about how large production companies can create AI generated deep fakes for movies in future. Liked it but the ending could be better.
I am not a series person as such. More into movies. Did you watch Black Mirror ?
Completed reading 6th part of the book series that I am currently reading “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever” 😋
The idea behind the book is that as you’re growing up you’re forging your identity, and that identity becomes hard to escape later on.
Hilarious as usual. I always look forward to reading these books at the end of the day 😁
🌐 AROUND THE WEB
Since this letter was all about influencer marketing and you reached till here, I am assuming you are interested in it.
ViewStats is a good tool that gives you the power of in-depth YouTube Channel Statistics 👌
It lets you search any YouTube channel, compare performance, see growth trajectories, and much more!
BTW – this is owned by Mr Beast – biggest channel on YouTube (pretty close!)