Right, let me tell you about a really insightful chat I had with Lewis the other day. We were chewing the fat about influencer marketing, specifically how token founders can avoid the common pitfalls and actually get a decent return on investment. You see, there are loads of articles out there about ‘influencer marketing this’ and ‘influencer marketing that’, but most of them just scratch the surface. What I wanted to drill down on was the data, the real nitty-gritty of how to make data-driven decisions about who you partner with. And let me tell you, Lewis dropped some serious knowledge.
We started by talking about the obvious: follower count is rubbish. Seriously, it’s a vanity metric. You could have a million followers, but if none of them are genuinely interested in your token, or even worse, if they’re bots, you’re just throwing money away. Lewis was really firm on this. “It’s about quality over quantity, mate,” he said, “you need to dig deeper.” And he’s spot on.
So, where do you start? Well, the first thing Lewis suggested was using social listening tools. Think Brandwatch, Mention, or even just really diving into Twitter analytics. These tools let you track conversations around your token (and your competitors’ tokens) and see who’s talking about them. Who are the real influencers in your niche? Who are the people genuinely excited about blockchain and decentralised finance, and whose audience actually cares about crypto projects?
He explained that you want to identify influencers whose audiences align with your target demographic. It’s not just about age and location, but also about interests, investment behaviour, and level of knowledge about crypto. You can use social listening data to build a profile of your ideal customer and then find influencers whose audience matches that profile. It’s about finding the right fit. Think of it like finding the perfect lock for your key.
Next, we delved into competitor analysis. This is where things get really interesting. Lewis suggested looking at which influencers your competitors are using and analysing the results. Are they getting engagement? Are they driving traffic? Are they actually selling tokens? Tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs can help you identify websites that are linking to your competitor’s site, which can give you clues about who’s writing about them and potentially collaborating with them.
But it’s not just about copying what your competitors are doing. You need to understand why their strategies are working (or not working). Are they targeting the right audience? Are they creating engaging content? Are they offering the right incentives? This is where data analytics comes in. You need to track the performance of each influencer and see which ones are driving the best results. Then, learn from those results and iterate on your strategy. It’s a continuous process of testing, measuring, and optimising.
Lewis then hammered home the importance of engagement rates. A high follower count doesn’t mean much if the influencer’s posts are only getting a handful of likes and comments. You want to look for influencers who have a highly engaged audience – people who are actively commenting, sharing, and participating in the conversation. And it’s not just about the numbers either. Look at the quality of the engagement. Are people asking questions? Are they expressing genuine interest? Or are they just leaving generic comments like “Great post!”? You want genuine, thoughtful engagement. Also remember to look at how many posts they create to gauge the typical engagement. Someone with a million followers but posting once a day with 20 comments isn’t as valuable as someone with 10,000 followers posting once a week with 200 comments.
Finally, Lewis talked about using predictive analytics to forecast campaign performance. This is where things get really sophisticated. He was saying there are tools that can analyse historical data and predict how a particular influencer will perform in the future. These tools take into account factors like audience demographics, engagement rates, content quality, and past campaign performance to give you a sense of whether an influencer is a good fit for your token. It’s not foolproof, of course, but it can help you make more informed decisions. Lewis suggested looking into tools that offer campaign simulations, where you can input data about an influencer and see how their audience is likely to respond to your campaign.
So, that’s the gist of it. The key takeaways from my chat with Lewis are: ditch the vanity metrics, dive deep into data analytics, understand your target audience, analyse your competitors, focus on engagement rates, and consider using predictive analytics. If you take these points to heart, you’ll be well on your way to building a successful influencer marketing strategy for your token launch.