9 Ways Artificial Intelligence is Changing Influencer Marketing

It’s hard to find the right influencers and even harder to track who’s said what about your product.

You also have to track their content, performance, and contracts. These endeavors take up a lot of time and resources that could be better spent on other aspects of your marketing strategy.

AI in influencer marketing streamlines data analysis, removing the guesswork out of your research. Therefore, you’ll build an effective campaign that leverages the right influencers and reaches the right audience with the right messages.

Keep reading below to find out how.

How do you use AI in influencer marketing?

AI is an umbrella term that refers to a slew of strategies and tools, such as machine learning and big data. Thus, your AI software can understand new data in the context of previous research/information you’ve inputted. As such, it can inform relevant choices.

It’s also no secret that AI gathers and analyzes data much faster than humans.

Thus, AI in influencer marketing helps collect and analyze information about your:

• Influencers
• Audience
• Competitors
• Business environment

Nowadays, marketers are focusing more on AI marketing tools to grow their business.

Let’s delve into some examples below:

AI influencer marketing advantages

Tech giants spent $20-30 billion on AI back in 2016, 90% of which was on deployment and research. WSJ states that in 2021, Alphabet alone allocated $31.562 billion for R&D, while Meta spent $24.655 billion.

There’s a problem with this, however. While many technological innovations and discoveries seem astounding; that doesn’t necessarily mean you should implement them. Make sure they can solve your problems first.

Let’s see which problems AI can tackle in your influencer marketing campaign:

1. Engagement calculators

More than two-thirds of companies using influencer marketing have fallen prey to fraud. The fake content creators inflate their engagement rates artificially to trick gullible marketers.

The solution is simple: Use a trusted engagement rate calculator – which, of course, relies on AI to analyze the enormous set of online data.

Warning: Not all such calculators are created equal; the older models can’t always distinguish between real and purchased followers. But since AI is constantly evolving, these tools will improve too.

2. Influencer audiences

Once you’ve shortlisted a few genuine influencers, you want to make sure:

• Their audiences match yours, or at least a segment of your target
• You share the same values

Humans take a lot of time to analyze influencers’ profiles and rely heavily on their intuition. By comparison, AI software gives you answers quickly, eliminating any uncertainty.

Bonus: AI can pinpoint precise people you want to target based on your existing customers’ profiles. Conversely, most human marketers were taught to sketch consumer personas. To do this, marketers rely on their gut feelings to draw correct insights from research.

3. Compensation and incentives

AI allows you to find the proper compensation easily because:

• Tools like an Instagram Money Calculator evaluate the budget of a potential collaboration with a specific influencer. The price range you will receive is instant and based on accurate data assessing that creator’s performance. Thus, you can choose the right influencers depending on your budget and their previous results.
• The algorithm can analyze your influencers’ profiles and activities to determine which rewards motivate them the most.
• You can compare influencers’ performances in a few minutes to create a gradual reward system.

4. Future performance

AI systems leverage natural language processing (NLP) to evaluate a given influencer’s work and online presence. As a result, the machine tells you without fault if a content creator will:

• Meet your campaign’s milestones and objectives
• Be an effective or harmful part of your campaign

5. Contract

Leverage AI to:

• Automate your contracts
• Send preset notices
• Gauge whether an influencer is likely to break your agreements

6. Content

AI software can:

• Decide which type of content works best for your audience and what insights you can use to create that content.
• Create some messages based on your input. However, you have to supervise these tools carefully; some AI writers are creative but not very accurate.
• Test messages and even complete campaigns on different audiences in just a few hours. As such, you can scale your campaigns faster and more efficiently.

7. Quick search

How many times have you needed to find all the websites/mentions about your brand or your competition? This information helps you discover:

• Negative reviews that you can reply, leverage or even delete if they’re inaccurate.
• User-generated content about your current influencer marketing campaign.
• Influencers that have already posted about your brand in the past. These creators are likely to stay motivated and offer quality insights if you partner with them.
• Collaborations between your competitors and other influencers. This data helps you gauge:
  • What worked for your competitors and what didn’t.
  • What your audience likes.
  • Who you can and can’t potentially work with.

8. Campaign results

AI can quickly show you detailed reports of your campaign results, showcasing a slew of metrics. From CPCs, CPMs, CPAs and ROI – your personalized AI software will help you:

• See the bigger picture.
• Make quick comparisons between current results and other campaigns.
• Predict potential outcomes.
• Come up with the best strategies to correct existing mistakes.

If you’re like 61% of marketers, measuring your influencer marketing campaign’s results feels particularly challenging. You may not even know what KPIs to keep track of, and it takes a long time to analyze the incoming data.

However, AI can quickly solve this problem and point you in the right direction.

9. Virtual influencers

Virtual influencers like Lil Miquela, Knox Frost, or Guggimon have millions of followers combined. These AI creators aren’t successful only because they’re something the world’s never seen before. Studies show that AI influencers:

• Have the same degree of perceived personalization as their human counterparts.
• Evoke word-of-mouth better.
• Work better for people who crave uniqueness.

However, virtual creators and CGI influencers have lower source trust. After all, everyone knows their messages are branded.

AI influencer marketing disadvantages

Now that you’ve seen how you can use AI influencer marketing, let’s look at some of the drawbacks:

• AI still needs to be managed by humans because machines aren’t fully discerning yet.
• AI has to undergo extended training to understand your company’s goals, trends and customer preferences. You must also provide data quality assurances, apart from the time and financial resources. Otherwise, the software will rely on outdated information and give poor outputs.
• You have to ensure your AI uses consumer data ethically, according to the current legal standards.
• Quantifying AI’s role in improving brand awareness or customer experience is complex.

AI will help you build better messages and consistent campaigns, plus choose the right influencers. Although AI isn’t entirely independent and flawless, it will reduce guesswork from your influencer marketing campaigns.