We’ve spent a lot of time lately highlighting the best ways to identify the best influencer for your brand. Views and subscribers generally are the two most looked at metrics when researching influencers, but engagement should also be given equal, if not greater, consideration.
Last week, we went into great detail about the different benefits of looking at subscribers vs views. We also introduced a few metrics that take views and subscribers into account, but may have a better indication as to the real value of an influencer. You can read more about it here.
This week, we want to bring something else into the mix – engagement. Given that social media is all about engaging a community, measuring the level of engagement of an influencer’s following is a key metric for any brand.
#1 VIEW DURATION
There are 6 billion hours of video watched on YouTube per month.
When talking about view duration, we are referring to the average amount of time viewers spend watching, whether it be per video or aggregate. Generally speaking, the best way to measure this is to look at it as a percentage of the total video length. Essentially, on average, how far into a video do most viewers make it before bouncing.
The length of time people spend viewing an influencers videos speaks to the overall quality of his or her content, as well as how relevant it is to their communities. A brand would find this important because, even though overall views could be high, if people aren’t watching an entire video than the value of that video is diminished.
A good baseline to judge by is to assume the average view duration as it relates to the total amount of time of the video, meaning the average percent of a video that a viewer watches, for a creator might be 50-60%. If an influencer gets, for example, 70-80%, then you can assume they have a very engaged audience.
#2 COMMENTS
This refers to the comments that viewers leave on an influencer’s videos. Analyzing an influencers comments can be done quantitatively, as well as qualitatively.
Comments are the quintessential representation of audience engagement. An engaged community, a community that takes the time to actually comment on an influencer’s content, clearly has a greater emotional connection than a community that doesn’t. How many comments does he or she get? Are they positive or negative? Does he or she respond to the comments? All of these are important indicators as to the level of engagement an influencer elicits from his or her audience.
#3 LIKES
Similar to Facebook, YouTube gives people the ability to “like” a video. Unlike Facebook, viewers are also able to “dislike” a video.
- A viewer who likes, or dislikes, a video most likely:
- Watched the entire video
- Made an emotional connection, positive or negative
- Feels a need to take some sort of action
Interestingly, dislikes can be an equally powerful measure of engagement. If someone takes the time out of their day to dislike a video, they have actually had a similar reaction as a person who liked the video. They most likely watched the whole video, made an emotional connection (in this case, negative), and felt like they needed to take some sort of action.
The truth is, there’s no silver bullet for identifying the perfect influencer. Additionally, identifying and measuring the KPIs mentioned above is relatively complicated for an individual. The best way to be connected with the perfect influencer for your brand or product is to utilize a solution that leverages a large community of creators to source quality, authentic influencer video for campaigns.