5 Ways to Evaluate Influencers for Your Cultural Attraction

You’re listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast. Conversations on how nonprofit attractions are increasing attendance and sharing their missions through marketing. Your hosts are Ryan Dick and Jenny Williams of Attended Media. Jenny today’s topic, five ways to evaluate influencers. All right, Jenny, we’re talking more influencer marketing. Let’s level set this conversation, give us like the 30,000 feet view on your approach to influencer marketing for cultural attractions. Well, if you have listened to any past episodes where we’ve talked about influencer marketing, I think we’ve kind of, you know, our, our, our approach is really trading it more as paid advertising. So we’ve got a strategy as to why we’re working with influencers, what type of influencers we’re working with. And for us, it’s really about getting this unique content, securing usage rights for that and really being able to promote it as an ad. So there are, our content creators were like, this is actually a fun part of my job because it’s not just sitting behind a spreadsheet, all that there’s plenty of spreadsheets involved in evaluating an influencer, but it’s, this is a chance for us is kind of media bias also. Three influencers that we’re casting for commercial, right? So there’s a brief involved. It’s giving them information about not just what the event is or the, the cultural institution is that we’re working with, but it’s what we want them to talk about, you know, what are kind of some of those unique offerings that we have that a lot of people might not know about, you know, some of the behind the scenes footage or just how, maybe each, each creator working with can tell a story a slightly different way. And, you know, that’s, that’s how we’re treating it. And I think kind of the other thing is, since we’re trying to evaluate influencers today is, I think most people are starting to hear, starting to get comfortable with this idea that it’s really not all about follow our size, right? It’s smaller creators often have a smaller, you know, more niche audience. They’re often talking about something really specific. So you can kind of go through, come through, you know, the process where you’re sourcing out creators to find a lot of different voices for your attraction. Yeah, like what you said, there’s like casting for a commercial. And I think that’s a good lens to guide this conversation. It’s like if we were starting a TV commercial, like we’re looking at these creators is kind of like the actors. So, you know, how do you evaluate a good actor for your TV commercial? It might be a way to look at this conversation. All right, let’s jump into it. We got a list. We’ve got five things. Here we go. Number one, audience alignment. What are you talking about here? Yeah, well, like we were just kind of saying, right, casting a different person for a different message. But really I think it’s about just being proactive. So a lot of cultural institutions are used to having creators reach out to them, just because someone’s asking for tickets. I mean, if you want to give away all the tickets in the world, go for it. But when we think about creators that were working with just because someone’s asking for tickets, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s exactly who you want to cast at that time, right? So identifying when a creator based off of their audience and based off of the content that they put together is going to be able to tell a unique story for you. When people are reaching out to you, what oftentimes it will find is there’s a lot of similarity in who’s reaching out. So maybe you’re really popular with a lot of, you know, family or mom creators, right? So what what tenses are happening is when you’re not being proactive about sourcing an influencer is everyone’s looking the same and their further stories are the same, right? So repetition can be great, frequency can be great, but we want to make sure they’re reaching a lot of different audiences and telling a lot of different stories. We say all the time what’s great about creator content is it’s telling a story or it’s saying something that you wouldn’t normally say in an ad. So we want to make sure we don’t have five creators all saying the same thing, let me know doing everything the exact same way. How can they tell that story a little bit differently each? Yeah, all right. So give me some examples here. You know, I’m going to go back to my casting for the TV commercial. You know, what I’m picking up on is we can use creators or this influencer marketing idea. As you said to say stuff that we as a brand would not say, but I’m also thinking that we can get pretty, we can like start throwing darts at like audiences. We want to grow this little segment or this pocket of this part of town, or we want more tourists or whatever that strategy is, walk me through like, you know, what is the strategy and then how did we land on a particular influencer or a particular group of influencers walking me through that? Yeah, well strategy is always important. We’ve got to start with strategy rate. So you’re not just being reactive to people who are asking for tickets, you’re coming to the table with the strategy to find that specific influencer or creative talk about you. So I think of things like, let’s go beyond just like a big event where it’s like everyone wants to come, everyone wants to take its everyone’s going to talk about it this similar way, but let’s start thinking about unique ways to maybe showcase an event or showcase, you know, summer activities at the garden or at the museum. So a couple of things that come to mind are you work with a lot of our platforms. Our items are usually, you know, 100 acres of trails and paths. So, you know, maybe you’ve got, you know, bike rentals during a particular time of year or all year round, maybe you’re looking for a creator who can show the angle of biking through your 100 acres of the Arbor item and how this is a really unique, safe, clean path that they can ride on. And you know, you might not have to find a creator that only post biking through the city content, but maybe every once in a while they’re showing themselves out biking because it’s just a hobby of theirs. I think another angle is the dog angle, right? You don’t need to find someone who has a dog account, but if you start doing, you know, weekly dog happy hour events, you can find creators who maybe, you know, incorporate their dog into some of their content. So, you know, they’re going to be a great partner to be able to highlight something like bringing your dog or, you know, getting a dog membership. And those can kind of fit into events and fit into your normal content without having to be like a completely separate initiative, but it does highlight now a new way that someone can experience regarded. I also love like the idea of seeing things like, you know, of course, a lot of zoos and museums are going to be after that kind of young mom audience, the Stroller moms, right? But if we think about one of the benefits to things like memberships, I’m thinking of a lot of zoos is a lot of times you have early entry, right? So you can come in 30 minutes early, an hour early before it opens up to everybody else. And again, now you’ve got you new walking path that you can push a Stroller through, you know, see some funny animals when they’re out, being more active in the prer than in the middle of the day. And it can just be a really nice angle that you’re sharing with an audience. Again, probably not something that you’re going to put an ad behind that you’re going to build as yourself as a brand, but something that a creator can really showcase. So really thinking through, like we always say, like, what are those hidden gems? Where are those unique offerings? Incorporate that into your content and use that as part of your strategy for how you’re selecting influencers, you know, throughout the year. Yeah, I like that. So like starting with that angle, you know, and we’re casting the actor to best tell that story. Yeah. All right. So, and I know we’ve, we’ve probably did a whole episode on this, but give me the quick rundown on how you’re actually finding these influencers, you know, a lot of times they’re coming to the institution already, but when you’re proactively looking, what kind of tools, what platforms are you looking like? How do you do it? Yeah, I mean, you know, you can do it through just social listening. So, people who might be talking about you, talking about other attractions in your market, talking about things to do in your market. If you’re using these platforms, you know, if you’re using Tiktok or using Instagram, you’re probably going to stumble across some of these influencers yourself. But, you know, using search features within the platforms, using search features within the creator, the creator platforms within that and Tiktok are just great ways to get started. Search for things to do in your city, search for other, you know, museums, ooze gardens, who who’s going, who’s talking about it? Those are great places to start to start running some of these creators. And if you’ve got an angle like the biking angle, look for biking in Chicago, biking in Dallas to see who’s posting content like that. So, we know that socials becoming searchers and so as a consumer, use that as a search engine and see who you find. That’s a great way to start looking. Yeah, I think that biking in Chicago search really illustrates the point you’re trying to make here. We’re not just looking like who goes, things to do or goes to my competitors or goes to other attractions. It’s tapping into a little bit of a different audience to tell a little bit of a different story. All right, cool. All right. Number two on the list, local audience. Okay. Yeah, I think this is, yeah, just more about being aware of who the audience is, not just who the creator is. So, you know, a lot of creators might live in your market, which is great, but their followers might not all be in your market. And we see this obviously the larger and influencer gets the likelihood of their followers not being in your market is going to be higher. And this is just important. I think when you’re looking at negotiating with an influencer, do you really want to pay a premium for someone with 100,000 plus followers? If there’s only a small percentage of those followers who actually live in your market, right? Because as an attraction, you know, if you’re someone trying to, if you’re an institution trying to push a membership, you want to work with somebody who has a lot of local followers because people who are outside of your market aren’t buying a membership, right? So, just keeping that in mind. Obviously, there’s going to be a times when your strategy might care less about a local follower, right? Maybe it’s just, you know, again, that niche content that you’re looking for. So, maybe you do, you know, some type of craftmine on Thursdays and you have a teacher who shares crafts who’s based in Atlanta, right, based in your market. And you want to work with that person, even though their followers are across the US, that’s okay. But just know, like, what is your strategy? Because if your strategy is reaching local audiences and only 10 or 15% of their followers are actually in that market, you’re probably not reaching local audiences, right? So, and I think this is important too when you’re talking about negotiating with an influencer to just check those GOs. You can look at in-platform. So, the creator tools within Meta and TikTok will, which I think it’s by state. It might be by city or DMA, excuse me, but you can use those free tools for it or if you use an influencer, you know, software that gives you an analysis, the old drill down to the followers in the city. You’re listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast. Conversations on how non-profit attractions are increasing attendance and sharing their mission through marketing. Your hosts are Ryan Dick and Jenny Williams of Attend Media. Attend media is a media planning and buying agency, specializing in Zeus, McQuarriums, Gardens and museums. For more information, please visit Attend.Media. Now, back to Ryan and Jenny. All right, Jenny. So, we’re talking about five ways to evaluate influencers. We’ve already talked about kind of having that starting point, that strategy, that angle in finding an influencer that aligns with that audience that you’re looking to invite into your institution. Number two, we talked about just checking where the creators influencer, sorry, the influencers visit, we try that again. Where the influencers, followers are from. So, many times we’re most interested in working with a local influencer. Do they really have a local following audience or is that kind of just a fluke their follower size? Number three, moving on to content. So, this is where you’re actually looking at the influencers content that have produced in the past. What are you looking for? Yeah, so beyond just what types of things are they talking about, but more so how are they putting that content together? And I think, at this point, if we’re thinking back to what’s our strategy, we’re casting for a commercial, right? How is this person able to tell a story? And I think over the last two years or so, especially we’ve seen that big shift from short, quick, flashy video with trending audio to now really come some longer form content. And I say longer form like 30 seconds, 45 seconds, right? Of content where they’re able to actually walk through, show, you know, explain what their entire visit looks like, show that unique point of view, and do voiceover. I mean, voiceovers are really important part now. So, what you’ll find in these platforms as they’re becoming these search engines is that it’s really moving away from, you know, just things like hashtags and, you know, actually pulling out keywords. These keywords can be actually within the audio, it doesn’t have to just be written out. So you don’t need 20 hashtags. You’re trying to get to discover now. You just need to be talking about something relevant. So if I’m searching for things to do in Atlanta, and there’s a video that someone talking about, one of my favorite things to do in Atlanta is visit the Latino Quaradon. That content is, it’s going to be more searchable for me as a consumer because it’s related to what I’m actually searching for. So, voiceover is going to be able to tell the story. It’s going to be able to touch them all your keywords that you want people to be able to find you on. And I think at the end of the day, it’s going to be a better video, right? People are like looking for this type of content because they want to know what the experience is going to be like before they get there. And seeing a 5, 10 second video with some training audio makes people a little bit cautious because they’re like, okay, is that just like trying to make this look really cool? But if they have a 30 or 40 second video of someone talking through, you know, here’s how easy parking was. And, did you know they have this coffee shop and, you know, don’t miss this spot in the garden? That’s, you know, really pretty and cool and quiet, right? Like, what’s the unique angle so that when I get there, I know what I need to be looking out for. That’s the kind of content that people are looking for on social media. So you talked about the importance of voiceover. Let’s say you’ve got, you’re working, you know, speculative, a perspective, perfect influencer, but they don’t really do a lot of influencer or I’m sorry, a lot of voiceover in their previous content is like voiceover a must. Is that a deal breaker for you? I think if they can still put a story together through their video, right? Again, I’m not really looking for trending audio. You really don’t want turning audio. If you’re going to use this as an ad because you can’t run that trending audio in the ad itself, but can they put together? Look up on that. Hang on. What’s up with trending audio? We got sidetracked, but this sounds important. Oh, so if you were to put a TV spot or radio spot together, you can’t go and use, you know, probably an agent of your bad Madonna’s right. Ladies, pretty, pretty, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. I don’t know why it does came to mind, but basically someone who would probably see you for using their music in an ad. So you couldn’t do that. So if you’re working with a creator and they’re going to put the latest trending audio from a musician, right, Taylor Swift’s music in their content, and you go promoting as an ad, guess who’s going to be on the hook for copyright infringement is going to be you, right? So don’t do that. So we always, you know, that’s one of the things that we include in our briefs and our contracts to creators is don’t use any type of trending audio. There’s a music library that you can use for just like really basic, simple background music. So does it have to be completely silent? So creators can always pull from that within that intake. All right. Good to know. But what’s always our, is that a must? I don’t think it is a must. So there’s some people who just are not comfortable doing it, but if they’re, they still need to be able to put together a video that shows the experience, right? And again, I just don’t just want that quick flashy video anymore, but I do want that caption overlay. So again, a lot of people are still going to consume content without audio anyways. So if they can have that over to where I don’t have to go and expand the text within the supporting copy of the video, and I can read it on the screen in the actual video itself, right? Think about how like a real, real runs, right? Then I don’t, then I’m okay if they’re not talking, but I would say nine times other time, I’m going to want somebody who can do a good voiceover or, you know, just know that they have that ability to tell a story with just that caption overlay. Yeah. And just to, if I could recap your thoughts, voiceover is kind of a must. You do want, you know, that storytelling feel and also because of the newer technologies that meta and TikTok have been able to produce their scraping that audio to actually find the true content of the video. So saying things like I must do holiday event in the city, those are the type of things, type of words in the voiceover that’ll make the content more discoverable. Easier to correct. Yeah. Right. I’m perfect. Let’s move to metrics. Number four on our list. So we’re talking about like things like follower size. What do you think here? Well, you know, we touched on this at the beginning, but it’s not all about follower size. I think we’re seeing a lot of people, I think industry has a whole has made that shift over the last year too, but we’re now starting to see a lot of our, you know, clients that we work with get a lot more comfortable a couple years ago when we, you know, started working with cultural attractions in the space with influencer marketing. It was almost like, Oh, what do you mean? The only house, 7,000 followers? That’s too small to work with them. But again, because we’re amplifying their content and the paid ad, we know that we’re going to be able to use this great content to generate views. So we’re not too concerned about it. Also, the smaller, their audience usually the more niche they are, right? So again, am I only working with a creator that’s talking to moms with toddlers? Am I only working with a creator that you know, bikes through Chicago, right? What is that angle that they have? So they might not have 100,000 followers if their content is really niche, but we know that they have a more engaged following typically. And one of the things that, you know, we start to look at really as more, what is the average views? So there’s been plenty of influencers who might have 100,000 followers and influencers that have 10,000 followers and at the end of the day their views aren’t that different. So why am I going to pay a premium to an influencer that is only generating 7,000 average views when I could get a tenth of the right for someone with less followers who’s able to generate 4,000 views, right? So you’ve got to look at other numbers besides followers size, particularly when you’re paying an influencer. The other thing is just like, I mean, we all, I think a lot of people are like, okay, it’s not followers, it’s engagement. Well, yes, engagement is great, but let’s think about what that engagement is. You can like a video, you can comment on it, you can share it, you can save it. And I think for a while, it was, well, okay, sure, likes are great, but are people commenting on a video? Well, if you think about like how consumers engage with content and get with even ads, right? It’s kind of like that. But what idea of like, well, no one’s clicking on an ad, right? They might see it and that might influence them to take an action later, but who’s clicking on ad? Well, think about that with influencers or content. These aren’t their friends, right? But they are a trustworthy source for you know, those, for the followers, the creators, a trustworthy source for the followers. So they are consuming the content. They’re watching the videos, but they’re not commenting on the videos just because it’s a good video or relevant video. In fact, you see a lot of things happening now where that creator is saying, like, comment, you know, tickets and the Alessandra link for our discount code, right? So it’s just doubling up on the ability to generate more comments for the algorithm. But that’s not necessarily going to be, you know, the best way of judging whether or not this, you know, video is a success. So we do look at engagement across the board, likes, comments, shares, say’s, but shares and saves are really a great indicator of our people interested in me. Just think of yourself as a consumer when you come across content you like probably going to be more likely to save it or even share it with somebody that you might want to experience this activity with. Then you are to actually comment on and say, wow, great video creator. I love this. I’m going to go back the people who are commenting that are most likely going to be, you know, friends of the creator themselves. So don’t get too hung up on what the actual comments left on the video are. Look at what are the views, look like, comment, you know, are they able to actually reach people? And then who’s, you know, what that engagement looks like across the board who’s including who’s sharing and saving it? Got it. So to recap this one here, views over follower size shares and saves over comments. Yep. All right. And number five on our list, can I work with them? Yeah. What is this so important? Because again, if we’re going back to treating us like it’s a casting call, right? We’re going to, we’re looking at paintings influencers and when payment comes to contract and where the contract comes to process. So, are they, you know, we’ve got to schedule your visit. We’ve got to send you a brief an application like in contract. You just sign, we need an invoice and, you know, details for your payment. Like, can you follow all these steps and can you follow them in a timely manner? And I will say that when you go through this process, obviously, the further down you get into this process, the further you might realize this person is not the best person to work with. But I think even up front there’s signs, right? How long does it take them to respond? I would, I don’t get too hung up right away because a lot of these people are doing it as a side gig. So just because someone doesn’t respond to me in 24 hours, doesn’t mean that they’re, you know, I’ve scratched them off my list. I try to give everyone about a week or so to respond, you know, but there’s going to be people who are on vacation, right? And the respond to you that that happens. But what is the response like? Is it just like, yes? Or are they going to come back and be like, wow, I love those who I’ve gone there since I was a kid. I can’t wait to work. I would love to partner with you on this. This sounds like a great opportunity. Or I’ve posted content about you before. This sounds awesome. Like just how enthusiastic do they really sound? And I’m not saying that, you know, especially if this is a new audience that you’re trying to reach that they need to be overly enthusiastic because again, they might not be as familiar with your, with your attraction, with your institution, right? But, but you know, it’s just like with anybody. I mean, I get this. If you’re going to go hire an agency to go produce, you know, a commercial spot for you, right? What’s their communication style like? So I think you’ve got to think about this with creators too because again, now we’re exchanging your gun contract. We’re exchanging dollars, right? There’s money behind this. And, you know, are they going to be good to work with? So, but yeah, I think just thinking a little further down the line, the process when we’re paying someone includes things like a brief. Can you follow this brief? Are you going to actually read this brief and include all the mandatories that we have placed in here? Are you going to actually work with us and revise it if it comes back and it’s not good? I mean, I’ve had plenty of influencers that I’ve worked with over the years who submitted a video and it was just off-marked. Like, you didn’t touch on anything that we had in the brief. And I’m, you know, you’ve got two options. You can go back and say, hey, we’re not, we’re not paying for this or now we’ve got to go back and forth and work together and figure out how you can adjust this content so that it actually fits the strategy that we put in place. So, if there’s someone who can’t even communicate with you at front or they’re not getting back really quickly enough, you know, are asking the right questions right at front, then chances are once you get to that end, the end of that, you know, relationship before they post that content, are you really going to get them to make all these edits that are required? So, just things to think about, since it’s not just a ticket exchange of come out whenever you feel like it, we hope you do something great. Here’s a one shooter on the event. Now, we’re actually, you know, asking for some more specifics and we’re exchanging payments. So, the expectation is going to be higher than if it was just a ticket exchange. I like it. All right. So, under the lens of using influencer marketing, working with creators like you would and casting a TV commercial, we first need to find number one that audience alignment. What’s the angle and is this really the best actor for a lack of a better terms to align with that audience that we’re looking to attract? Number two, we’re checking the follower account to make sure there is a certain threshold of a local audience assuming that this content is designed for that local audience, which many times it is. Number three, we’re checking that content. Previously done, we’re looking for things like the ability to tell a deeper story and voiceover for that search discoverability. Number four, we’re on metrics. We’re not so concerned about follower size, but we are looking at views and shares and saves. And then number five, are they cool? You know, knowing that this is going to be a multi-step engagement. This isn’t, here’s the tickets, see you later. We are going to breathe. We are going to contract. We are going to exchange money. So, can we work with them upfront? Or is it going to be a nightmare down the road? Excellent. All right. Those are our five ways to evaluate influencers. Jenny, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast. If you have a suggestion for a topic or would like to be a guest on the show, please visit our website at MarketingAttractionsPodcast.com.