There are two main data points that most brand managers will look at when researching the right influence: Subscribers and Views.
3 REASONS TO LOOK AT SUBSCRIBERS
Let’s take a look at some of the reasons the amount of Subscribers a creator has is a better indicator of his or her value as an influencer for your brand.
#1 INDICATES WIDER REACH
When a YouTube creator has a large subscriber base, that is their built in audience. Those are the people who, theoretically, follow them on a regular basis and pay attention to the content they put out. The larger the subscriber base, the greater the reach. Additionally, a larger subscriber base can become a force multiplier – more people will share content, that will then get shared by even more people.
#2 STRONGER SEO
Search engines have extremely complex algorithms for measuring the “strength” of a website or piece of content, and therefore what position it deserves for specific keyword searches. Though constantly changing, it is a known fact that video has high SEO value, and one of the greatest contributing factors to a video placing high on a search is the amount of subscribers the video creator has.
#3 VIEWS CAN BE DECEIVING
In this day and age, anything can be bought. Unfortunately, there are people out there that realize the value (or perceived value) of a large amount of views listed on a creators YouTube page. In recent years, a huge business of selling YouTube views (and likes, shares, tweet etc) has sprung up. The practice of buying views is quite common place. Investing money in this kind of black hat strategy is very risky. Every once in a while YouTube purges these fake views and creators will suffer.
3 REASONS TO LOOK AT VIEWS
Did you know that 97% of views in the beauty category go to non-brand creators? Let’s dive deeper into the idea of using views as a measure of a creator’s influence.
#1 SUBSCRIBERS CAN BE DORMANT OR BOUGHT
As with views, subscribers can also be bought, and they often are. Additionally, a creator can have hundreds of thousands of subscribers but they are all unengaged or are no longer around.
#2 PEOPLE ARE WATCHING
It might seem obvious, but a higher view count indicates that people are actually watching the content that a creator is posting. As opposed to looking at subscribers, a high view count directly proves that the content an influencer is putting out is actually get consumed by others. In the end, the goal is to have a real person actually see the content that an influencer puts out.
#3 INDICATES A BROADER APPEAL
An influencers subscribers tend to be people who are highly engaged in whatever topic, field, industry that the creator often focuses on. For example, a beauty influencer will often times have followers that are enthusiastic about beauty products. Looking at Views, however, can indicate that an influencer is not only appealing to his or her network, but draws interest from the every-day person doing a quick search about makeup.
5 OTHER THINGS TO LOOK AT WHEN CHOOSING AN INFLUENCER
Truth be told, you can’t just look at views and subscribers when considering an influencer, they both have their pluses and minuses. Here are a few more things to consider when doing your research:
#1 VIEWS TO SUBSCRIBERS RATIO
A good way to make sure that neither views or subscribers have been bought is to look at the ratio between the two. If there are 10 million views and 100 subscribers, that is a pretty good indication that something is fishy.
#2 NEW SUBSCRIBERS
Popularity is fleeting and just because someone had a large following 10 years ago, doesn’t mean they are cool today. Checking how many new subscribers a creator has gotten in the last month, week, or day will give a better indication of their influence.
#3 VIDEO QUALITY
Numbers aren’t everything. If a creator has a huge following, but the quality of his or her videos is very poor, you may want to consider if that is how you want your brand represented.
#4 ALIGNING WITH YOUR MESSAGING
Another qualitative measure is to analyze a creator’s library of videos and see if his or her style, voice, demeanor aligns with your brand’s messaging. Go through previous videos and see, not only if he or she is good at what they do, but if their overall delivery is that of a person who you’d like to be associated with your product or service.
#5 LEVEL OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Social media is supposed to be, well, social. The level of engagement an influencer is able to cultivate within his or her community is a great indicator as to how valuable of an asset they could be to your brand.