Influencer System: Does it work? Is it a scam?
I have several influencers that I really liked and followed on my personal account and decided to apparoach them to ask if they would like a free product from me in exchange of an ig story/post or a mutual follow. An online webinar actually got me to do the influencer system as the owner was sharing how it was one of the factors that helped with her business - borrowing their audience. It made a lot of sense to me because as a consumer, when I see something I like on someone's IG, I'll click into the profile to find out more and would naturally follow to see more updates.
\\ The Process
So as mentioned above, I've got a list of influencers already picked out from my personal account. So based on their interests, my target audience, and their audience, they fit the bill perfectly. I would drop them a DM to offer a free product and just wait for a response. If i'm lucky, (which I did), I get responses from influencers with 20k to 40k followers. It wasn't my aim at that time to go for bigger scale influencers, I targeted mostly those whom I genuinely really liked but with less than 10k followers. So i took a leap of faith anyway and just dropped them a DM, at most they'll just 'seen' me, no big deal. Most of them were pretty nice, a few did request for more than what was given but they weren't extreme unlike the horror stories shared by other businesses (which just screams entitlement).
\\ A scheme....?
I approached some accounts that I chanced upon but have not heard of nor follow them on my personal account but because they are my targeted audience, I decided to give it a go. I saw their number of likes and comments: there were ALOT of comments and likes on their posts which I found did not match the ratio of followers they had but I thought maybe that post went viral and I did not explore further. So after a feature on their page, I did not get a single following. It happened for the first time so I thought nevermind maybe my products are just not appealing to their followers. I then approached a few more (a total of 7 of them) similar people recommended to me while I was at that said ⬆️ influencer's page and the results were all the same, I did get 1 follow from one of the accounts and that's it. Out of 7 of them, I got only 1 new follower. I thought it was pretty odd so decided to view their pages, turns out they all kinda know each other because everyone mentioned above will leave a comment on every single post posted by anyone of them above. So its 'a like for a like, a comment for a comment' kinda thing going on. The accounts that like their posts are pretty fishy in my opinion and so are their followers. Their followers comprises of people who are just like them or accounts that have 0 followers and posts (like spam accounts). They were also the ones who requested for more than what I offered. I was pretty disappointed to be honest but yeah, totally my fault for not doing proper research.
But on a good note, influencers that I follow on my personal accounts all gave me some following, a 40k++ following account gave me about 200 new followers. Those between 6k to 20k followers gave me somewhere between 10 to 50 followers. It is a small growth but I'm happy there's some progress. Some of them are also really nice as they support small local business like myself. Don't be afraid to reach out, just go for it, do proper analysis of LEGITIMATE influencers and, you'll never know what may come your way 🌷
✨Check out my small biz! @thepatchthings 🩶
From my experience with the influencer system, authenticity is key. It's easy to get tempted by influencers promising a big impact but whose engagement comes from fake or spammy accounts. To avoid wasting time and resources, I recommend analyzing influencers’ audience quality before collaborating. Check the ratio of followers to engagement, look for genuine comments, and see if their followers are real people interested in your niche. Also, when reaching out, personalize your message to show genuine interest in their content. Influencers appreciate this and are more likely to respond positively. Don't focus only on follower counts; micro-influencers with smaller but engaged audiences can bring better results. A pro tip is to track conversions or follower growth after each campaign to understand which influencer partnerships truly benefit your business. As I found, some influencers I follow personally were supportive and brought real followers, while others engaged in 'like for like' schemes that yielded little value. The OCR texts from messages I received also show that receiving genuine enthusiasm from influencers about your product makes the collaboration sweeter and more effective. When influencers truly like your product, their followers are more likely to trust their recommendations. In short, the influencer system can work if you carefully select legit influencers and build authentic relationships. Be cautious of schemes and always do your research to protect your investment and grow your brand steadily.
It’s called engagement pod!