Influencers.

While established pro athletes are aware of their high profile’s ability to generate revenue, influencer activity isn’t the same as brand endorsements or other legacy sponsorship obligations.

Doesn’t every athlete wish they could plug get that kind of exposure? It’s hard to beat such a giant leap in visibility. In fact, it’s like having a digital support team in one person. 

But what does partnering with an influencer look like? 

What do you need to know?

Here, we’ll look at the essentials so you’ll get the best results possible from an influencer partnership. Luckily, it isn’t too technical for an athlete; you just need to be aware of a few considerations to get where you want to be.

Why should you partner with influencers?

Love’ em or hate ‘em, influencers are a big knock on the door for athletes. For those who don’t want to do it all alone, an influencer’s impact can smooth the transition from amateur to pro, or even from backyard to world stage.

Social media should be seen as one arena (with many platforms) that any athlete can effectively use to embed and promote their brand.

Influencer partnering means stepping into a daily traffic stream that can’t fail to raise your profile. Don’t be too intimidated, though－the best influencers will coach you on presentation and frequency, timelines, and other key points for social media success. 

They’ll prep you for the best results for both of you, and it can be fun working with them, too. When all is said and done, influencers get you in front of billions of eyeballs, and that can generate a cash flow alongside long-term loyalty and support.

The ideal relationship is for you to partner with and reward them, and in return, they promote you. Eventually, brands begin to seek you out because you’re active (or simply visible) on social media. They’ll sponsor or reward you for promoting their products or services. That’s the ultimate ideal－the student becomes the master, and the amateur goes pro across channels!

Ready to dive in?

Below is a checklist to tick when looking at an influencer partnership. 

Picking the right influencer for your brand won’t be hard. You’ll look at clinical metrics as well as their brand voice to make sure it’s a great fit. 

How to choose an online influencer

People like to follow athletes’ performance and development because it often feels like the effort and glory ‘rubs off’ by association. Sports stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Diego Maradona, Lance Armstrong, and Tiger Woods started their own journey in life, sporting or otherwise. Athlete influencers are authority figures for many people, including young – and rising – consumers.

Be yourself, share your athletic journey and insights, and you’ll transition from a latent athlete influencer to a sports’ personality with growing revenue.

Their followers can be in the millions, and in return for pitching you, you’ll reward them with product or cash.

An influencer is a paid brand advocate, and provides the digital version of ‘word of mouth.’ Depending on your aims, your collaboration can take various forms. 

Roles, payment type, and a host of other details are flexible, but in the end you’ll negotiate a deal that suits you both. 

#1. Set your objectives

First and foremost, be clear about your campaign goals. Have a strategy that will distill organically in discussions with your chosen influencer(s). You’ll have an idea of where you want to get to, and some idea of how to get there. They, for their part, accentuate the steps on that journey to accelerate it and (hopefully) generate some cash so you can prioritize your performance.

You’ll need to clearly outline your goals before searching for influencers. Your goal might be to generate brand awareness, whether you’re up and coming or an established pro. Additionally, you might want to generate sales of merchandise, pump up attendance, or simply build your subscriber list for your regular newsletter containing tips and advice.

If your aim is to build a social media following, working with an influencer puts your face in front of both mainstream and indie brands when they’re headhunting for their own purposes. Almost everyone enjoys following an athlete or two, so you have your tribe. 

Own it. 

This is a long-term consideration, so don’t neglect to encourage people to find you online directly on social media when you have their attention via an influencer.

By setting your campaign goals beforehand, you’ll shortlist influencers much easier. 

#2. Look at the audience

An influencer who will add value to your brand is one with a relevant and substantial following. You can easily research audience demographics via several influencer marketing platforms (more about this process below).

Spend some time sampling their audience by looking at comments and other feedback from their fans, but don’t get too emotionally picky about the audience. There are going to be trolls in any following, so make the sample large enough to be relevant (i.e., investigate a few dozen of their posts), ignore the trolls, and try to imagine that influencer’s community behind you as an athlete. 

Can you see it? 

Then your initial vetting is good!

Audience quality is important in terms of numbers, interests, and disposition (the demographics), but there’s a large tolerance here so a broad take on the influencer’s audience is sufficient. Their target audience should (generally) match yours.

#3. Determine their engagement rate

Engagement rates are a solid indication of an influencer’s influence, if you will! They show to what extent (and how enthusiastically) the audience responds to an influencer’s content. Good engagement is indicative of a genuine following, which is far more valuable than millions of followers who never say anything.

You can establish engagement rate by adding up the total number of comments and likes they get on a post. Divide the total by the influencers’ follower total, and multiply by 100.

Sample at least a dozen posts to get a legitimate figure. As importantly, look to see if the influencer engages comments in return. Influencers who don’t take the time to respond are building a house of cards. Even if by some magnetism they maintain their following, their followers are probably returning the favor by ignoring much of what they say– which isn’t so great for you as a partner.

More proactive influencers with a quick response time are the real deal. Their followers are likely far more invested in the relationship (and the offered content, too) because the influencer engages dynamically with them and takes the commitment to their followers seriously.

#4. Ensure relevance

The relevance of an influencer is determined by both the nature and extent of their audience, and their online tone and direction. For example, if you’re an emerging pro golfer and an influencer has a huge, relevant following but is pushing golf as a latent part of the problem of climate change, your interests aren’t going to be served well!

Of course, today’s green topics and causes are very valuable talking points and pursuits, but you might not want to join their crusade if it has the potential to frame you in a bad light, or simply isn’t the kind of stance that will allow you to achieve your aims in the partnership.

In a nutshell, collaborate with influencers that are a good fit for your brand. When you’re looking at them online, try to imagine yourself selling to or drawing support from their following. Influencers who have a suitable profile for your purposes will display an audience that would be interested in your journey, products, or services. This resonance is important.

#5. Gauge authenticity

Authentic influencers typically have a very dedicated following. They build their trustworthiness (and audience loyalty) through their expert enthusiasm in their niche. They will also often share their personal experiences of your sport, advice, and tips for newbies, as well as more newsy items (like you).

On Instagram, look at the influencer’s captions on sponsored and normal posts. Well-thought-out captions enhance value and convey a story. 

Do their post captions help their audience in some way? When promoting a brand (i.e., you), do they explain why they find it exciting, and talk about anticipated highlights of the future?

Additionally, it’s wise to jot down everything you find out about an influencer. This is a worthwhile exercise because it allows you to compare options off a shortlist. In compiling it, you’ll quickly start to spot deal-breakers, skip over those, and move on. 

When reviewing influencers as possible partners, take note of their:

• full names/monikers 
• social handles 
• follower metrics 
• current topics
• trends they highlight
• contact details
• collaboration rates/pricing

Score their brand values between 1 and 10 for your purposes, and list your impressions of who their target audience is. 

#6. Shared values

This is very often a major deal-breaker. Well before you partner together, you need to ensure that your values and the influencer’s match up. Don’t be overly sold on giant numbers (more on that below), but rather keep shared values front and center.

Ultimately, you’re telling people who you are by collaborating with another. If you find an influencer is overly cynical, mercenary, snobbish, silly, or just plain dull, you might want to keep the relationship short after exposure to their followers, or not start the relationship with them at all.

This is business; it’s your image, your brand. Is this person largely good news, or bad? Are they positive or negative? Having watched a few of the influencer’s clips, can you happily imagine them promoting you? 

Look at their bios, and enjoy a visual take of their online presence－what’s it saying? Their interests, causes, opinions on relevant news topics－all can generate a feel for who they are (and could be to you).

Lastly, when in doubt: Google ‘em! 

Any online nudity or risqué posts, any criminal implications, a string of lousy reviews, or any other socially unacceptable tags? Avoid them like the plague. 

Rather keep your end clean now, because you never know who might come knocking at your door in the future. Big brands might advertise as “cool” organizations, but they’re not going to do smutty or dodgy. Ask the influencer for a media kit－the pros will get it to you pronto.

#7. Look at content quality

When working with an influencer, they essentially have license to present you as they deem best. It’s not quite that scary, because you’ll have reached a preliminary understanding in your initial conversations with each other, but it’s absolutely a consideration.

They have substantial creative rein to generate content for your brand. Because their content is what their followers see of you, make sure that you’re both clear on who will provide what, and do have lots of visual content snippets available for your influencer to use.

Try to get a feel for whether their content quality is a good fit for your aims (Hint: No one accepts lousy online content anymore). 

Looking at their profile, content should be clear, well put together, and consistently creative. That sounds like a lot, but it’s a cinch for someone who does it for a living. Does their content seem out of context for the platform, or part and parcel? Do they post consistently? 

#8. Activity frequency

A component of content quality – yet a crucial metric that stands alone because of its importance – is the frequency with which influencers publish is important. 

How often are they publishing? 

Loyalty to an influencer typically comes only for those influencers who fill the gaps their followers want filled. Put differently, they need to keep people entertained, and although they’re not streaming constant video, they ideally need to say something valuable (or influential) daily, interact daily, and generally look as though they’re justifying the credibility they’re claiming. 

A stretch of two or even three days is also fine－the frequency can differ somewhat, but the rhythm needs to be visible. Are they posting sponsored content or standard, created content? If you see they’ve published three or more sponsored content snippets consecutively, that’s a red flag that they might be tanking－they’re shedding credibility by being absent and running ads.

Also, glance at the comments others have left on their sponsored content posts. If there’s a lot of negativity in the comment section, the influencer has 1) lost their balance between influencing and advertising; 2) are overreaching by carrying too many brands; and 3) their followers are starting to feel betrayed.

Too much like a string of ads? That’s a sign of a sinking influencer.

A great way to monitor the success of your association with an influencer is for them to employ an agreed upon hashtag across platforms. Using Sprout Social or a manual search, you can see where and how frequently you’re being highlighted online.

#9. Determine your influencer’s reliability

A day lost is a day that never returns. That might make for a speedy pace in manufacturing, but it’s also relevant to marketing your brand. If your chosen influencer always seems swamped or seldom sticks to timelines, then they may still be ‘feeling their way’ through being an influencer－at your expense.

This is going to be trial and error, although you’ll quickly figure out how reliable your influencer is based on their punctuality, reporting, and how often they make or miss deadlines and appointments. The best might be cool, chic, or even appear disaffected, but they’re still smart. They run a business and do it effectively. Reliability is a key part of that. Customer service, being on the ball… you’ll know it when you experience it – or not.

Just like a good coach, a good influencer reassures you with their competence. They shouldn’t frustrate or worry you. A good indication of how reliable they’ll be is their first response. 

Was it prompt and courteous? 

Or are you still waiting? 

Move on if it’s the latter! 

Where do athletes find influencers?

Before starting the quest for an influencer, know that fake influencer wannabes leave ‘footprints’ that reveal them as the phonies they are. If you can recognize their tracks, you’ll avoid the waste of effort (and often money) that comes from associating with them. 

Red flags can include:

• Their engagement is abnormally high or low considering their following
• Their content is poor or amateurish, yet they have a huge following or an abnormally high engagement rate
• They publish very little content, yet the same picture of large following or high engagement rate exists 
• The influencer’s profile is quite new, but they already have a large following (100,000+)
• They’re following more people than are following them. This is a sure sign of ‘I’ll-follow-you-if-you-follow-me’ or follow-unfollow tactics, which makes them wannabes and worthless for your purposes (Hint: look for big follower spikes followed by idle mode or shedding)
• A disproportionately large percentage of their followers have no profile pics, little or no content, anonymous profiles or strange usernames, stock photos on their profile, plagiarized bios, or dubious follower to following ratios
• Soon after publishing content, their post very quickly accumulates a large number of likes
• Most of the comments left on their posts seem formulaic, repetitive, or spammy
• Their video content gets very low viewership despite a giant following

The above signs are no guarantee that an influencer is 100% fake, but merely useful to look for. The more red flags you see, the faster you leave (three or four is enough to know something’s wrong, but by all means message them directly to find out more – there might be a logical explanation). Do not provide any product or cash incentives until you’re deeply convinced that their explanations make sense.

For example, on Instagram, an account’s followers can spike when their profile is featured on the Instagram Explore page, and that spike won’t be because they bought followers. Ideally for both parties, an influencer partnership will be long-term, so it’s well worthwhile to nitpick and pour over the details to start.

Where to find influencers: the short route. 

GRIN, HypeAuditor, and many other platforms offer software or services to pinpoint suitable, legitimate influencers for athletes. Here, you can employ platform filters to narrow your search for optimized influencers who match your aims.

If you’re more DIY, you can search for influencers via hashtags on the platforms. Focus on hashtags relevant to your game, and look for influencers who appeal.

Last words on partnering with an influencer

An influencer partnership isn’t static, and you need to do your part in building a relationship with them to whatever extent is necessary. Proactive brands are good for influencers because they supply great material for posts and keep them in the loop about upcoming events. 

A proactive stance from you ensures your value goes up for the influencer, who is then more genuinely able to promote you.

Discuss this with your influencer, but it’s usual for you to show your face and comment on posts of you and/or engage with their followers a little. It can be with an air of mystique or more wholesale, depending on the aims. Discuss it with them.

This is a two-way street, and your value goes up (along with your prominence in their activities) when you ensure they’ve got good media assets to work with. Give them your no-nos and deal-breakers, and your commitment to the long haul. 

Remember, you don’t have to get a perfect fit right out of the gate. It’s acceptable to sample influencers and, based on personality fit and track record, churn through a few until you find influencers you’re happy to reward for their efforts.

Of course, if you need to give your time to the track or field rather than to social media influencer liaison and participation, contact Numinal for a bespoke marketing and promotions plan for your career. We’ll ensure you can concentrate on winning performances while we manage the essential marketing that keeps you on the map.