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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

Like everyone else, Dylan McKeever was forced to stay home during the Covid years. But, as a stand-up comedian, it meant the entire standing-up in front of a crowd element of her job was impossible to do. So, she took to social media creating hilarious videos which immediately took off, and was able to grow her following to over 27K on Instagram.

As a transgender influencer, Dylan has the unique perspective and voice that brands are searching for. And, she’s hilarious. Making her a perfect resource for brands looking to infuse comedy and inclusivity into a campaign.

Dylan spoke with us about her newfound influencer career, and how behind-the-scenes collaborations can support brands just as much as sponsored posts.

How have you used social media as a platform to connect with a wider audience?

When the pandemic started, and I was doing stand-up comedy. I had only started doing it for 6 or 7 months. And, lockdown happened and there was no more stand-up comedy. So, I started translating some of my stand-up jokes for the internet, the “small, small screen”.

It’s actually been one of the best things for my career. I wasn’t doing it before COVID, and the response has been super positive. Things have really taken off. It’s been nice, I’m almost surprised by the response. I’ve had a long creative career, and it’s really interesting to see something take off with popularity because I’m really used to creating within a void and releasing things into nowhere. That’s the attitude I’ve grown accustomed to, and social media has really changed that for me.

How has this impacted your ability to collaborate with brands?

As far as collaborating with brands, I’ve gotten a few gigs out of this. The ones that I like the most are the ones where I’m doing a lot of work on someone else’s campaign. I’ve done writing and acting for companies, consulting for ad campaigns. Actually, in many collaborations I’m not the face of the brand, I help more with joke writing and I actually like being behind-the-scenes.

As a comedian, I feel like I really need to be authentic and keep people’s trust. So, I shy away from doing a lot of sponsored collaborations because I’m still growing my following and want to keep their trust. That’s why when I work with brands I tend to do more voice-over work, acting, and consulting. I enjoy it more, and I think it fits who I am best.

When entering a collaboration, and maintaining your authenticity, what is your vetting process?

This is all pretty new, but when I enter a collaboration I am a little picky. I wouldn’t say I identify as an influencer per se, it’s not a label I use. So, I think it allows me to be more discerning.

That being said, if it’s a product I actually use and like I’d be happy to work with the brand. As long as it fits into my life, I feel like the collaboration is authentic.

What type of products would be ideal collaborations for you?

I drink so much Kombucha. I eat a lot of pickled onions. Avocados. I really love this specific Giorgio Armani Lip Gloss. It doesn’t dry out the lips. Honestly, just things I would use in my regular life, nothing random.

It’s not so much about the brand, it’s more of a question to myself, “Would I use this?”. I don’t like telling people what to buy unless I’m actually using it.

In a post-corona world, do you see yourself continuing your online comedy?

I think so. I’m signing with managers, so that will change the process of getting gigs and writing jobs. I’m not sure how that will impact influencer-style collaborations. But, I really love the consulting element of it. Brands come to me, I give them a suggestion, and they bring my idea to life. It’s really an interesting process to see come to fruition.

What does your consultant process look like?

I’m working on Pride campaigns right now, and they are trying to get an authentic voice for some of the Queer stories they are trying to tell. And, also joke writing. That is more challenging because I am not used to writing for a brand. A lot of jokes I think of, I realize it would be okay if I said it but not a brand, so it’s a learning process.

So is behind-the-scenes work your ideal influencer role?

I think so. Writing is really one of my strengths, and I think I’m different from other influencers who aren’t comedians.

I also think there can be some tension being the face of a product. I was actually going to be the face of an abortion pill. And, I am trans, so I can’t get pregnant. I thought it would be weird if I was the face of the product. So, I suggested I just write the campaign and someone else performs it. That ended up being a good idea.

It’s really a balancing act of figuring out if my face should be on something. That’s also why doing voice-over work is fun.

Are you on other channels besides Instagram?

I started doing TikTok. It’s really fun there! It’s so much more loose and joyful than Instagram.

Did you guys know books have a buncha words in them??

I’m not the best at making short content, I go over a minute all the time. When I first got TikTok I would post and then leave, because I was afraid the teenagers would make fun of me. I actually didn’t read the comments for a few months. Then I came back and everyone was nice so I stayed.

Feeling inspired? Learn more about the great influencers waiting to collaborate with you!

Influencer Inspiration: How Dylan Mckeever Got Lemons and Made Damn Good Lemonade

Conducting an influencer audit before every Instagram campaign can help you find fake followers and add value. Here’s how to audit your Instagram influencers.

Why You Should Perform an Influencer Audit

How an Influencer Audit Can Help You Identify the Best Partners for Your Brand

What You Can Detect Performing an Influencer Audit

How To Perform an Instagram Influencer Audit in 6 Steps

Get Started with Your Influencer Audit with Meltwater

An influencer audit is a comprehensive evaluation of an influencer's online presence, content quality, audience demographics, engagement rates, and overall effectiveness as a marketing partner for brands.

The purpose of an influencer audit is to assess the authenticity, relevance, and impact of an influencer's online persona and audience to determine if they are a suitable fit for a brand's influencer marketing goals.

Many brands that have hired influencers in the past look at surface-level data and think, Boy, I've hit the jackpot! This influencer has 100K followers, hundreds of comments on every post, and thousands of shares.

So they wonder why, when they move forward with an influencer marketing campaign, their post gets tons of comments and likes but no click-throughs or conversions.

Sounds like their unicorn Instagrammer is more of an Insta-spammer! Unfortunately, the number of followers an influencer appears to have can be deceiving.

Instagram follower numbers can be artificially inflated by:

Yes, it can all happen when you use influencers based on follower numbers alone. 

Which is why influencer audits are so important — they ensure you’re collaborating with the right influencers. They help you to know your collaborations will be impactful and your campaigns are running as efficiently as possible.

Thanks to sophisticated, data-driven influencer management tools, vetting influencers has become easier than ever before. In the current climate where almost everyone wants to be an influencer (currently, one in four young people say that influencing is a career goal), it’s more important than ever for brands to take advantage of technology and vet their influencer partners.

Most influencer marketing platforms enable influencer discovery with an integrated influencer search engine, reducing the time you once spent performing manual searches for influencers. This makes it easy to learn how to approach influencers: Just let technology do most of the work.

But discovering the perfect influencer for your brand does not end there. Once you’ve identified potential partners, it is essential to perform a thorough influencer audit to ensure that your collaborations will generate the most impact.

Influencer discovery is only one element of an influencer audit. The entire auditing process is an important component of any influencer marketing strategy and will ensure every stage of your campaign generates a meaningful impact. Using an influencer auditor allows you to review past successes and make the best decisions moving forward.

Meltwater offers a sophisticated influencer marketing platform that will help you perform your influencer audit. Get a free tour today!

What You Can Detect Performing an Influencer Audit 

Additionally, performing such a review will help you identify past success and adjust future campaigns accordingly while ensuring that your partners align with your brand values.

Performing an influencer audit will detect and assess the following:

The authenticity of an influencer’s audience

Realistic expectations with a review of an influencer’s engagement metrics

Whether campaigns are penetrating the correct target audience

You may have multiple influencer partners across all your channels, such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter. No matter which platforms you use, the value of auditing remains the same. You don't want things like fake followers, fake accounts, spam, inactive users, or suspicious content killing your vibe.

For the rest of this guide, we're going to focus on auditing Instagram influencers. But keep in mind that you can apply a lot of these follower audit tips to each social media profile.

Using a dedicated Instagram audit tool makes light work of your auditing process. It's an important part of maintaining healthy influencer relationships, as it sets the tone for all of your influencer partners to follow.

Hint: You can include any specifics about your Instagram audit in your influencer contract, letting influencers know you plan on regularly vetting them as part of your program. Larn more about influencer agreements.

It’s also helpful to have a dedicated influencer auditor who will take the lead in fact-checking influencers before partnering with them. No matter what tools or technology you use, make sure you include the following steps.

Step 1: Verify Instagram Influencer Audience Quality

One of the most common mistakes when vetting social media influencers is selecting an influencer based on the number of Instagram followers in their network. This is typically based on the misguided belief that the more followers a user has, the more exposure their content will receive.

Unfortunately, this notion has caused follower count to become one of the most popular influencer selection metrics, resulting in a false understanding of how to measure a user’s social media impact.

Users may purchase followers to pad the size of their audience

Bots will automatically comment or like content to give the illusion of engagement

When collaborating with influencers, follower count shouldn’t be the end-all metric of evaluation.

Performing an authenticity assessment will allow you to detect users who have used malicious or deceitful practices. This ensures you are collaborating with users who not only have real followers but have followers who want to engage with your Instagram account.

Luckily, most influencer marketing platforms like the Meltwater influencer marketing platform can easily spot fake accounts better than humans can to save you from making a terrible brand mistake. 

Examples of Instagram influencer audit tools include:

Ideally, you can use the same platform to conduct your Instagram audit as well as manage the entire end-to-end influencer marketing strategy.

Step 2: Assess Influencer Reach and Engagement Metrics

When preparing for an influencer campaign, it’s important that everyone’s expectations are aligned. Whether you’re an agency creating a campaign for clients or a large team working with important stakeholders, influencer KPIs are a great way to address this. This will help you anticipate the impact of a potential partner.

Useful influencer metrics your auditor should prioritize include:

True Reach: The number of real views an influencer averages for a single piece of content.

Engagements: The average likes and comments an influencer typically generates as well as the engagement rate.

Klear Influencer Score: The Klear influencer score within the Meltwater influencer marketing platform measures an influencer's impact by assessing a number of variables, including engagements, true reach, interactions, network authenticity, and more to establish just how influential a user is.

Klear Brand Score: The Klear Brand Score within the Meltwater Influencer Marketing suite helps you determine how well influencers align with your brand goals.

This stage of the assessment not only establishes a deeper understanding of the potential of your partners but will create a sense of trust between you and your stakeholders.

Entering a campaign with realistic expectations that are supported by data shows that you’re a trustworthy partner who can be counted on to run a campaign successfully.

Assessing influencer potential and audience credibility are also great ways to ensure that you are properly compensating your influencers. Influencer rates can be mistakenly determined due to the size of an influencer’s network, which, as we addressed before, is not the best way to analyze impact.

Additionally, measuring an audience's impact analytics and KPIs (engagement, true reach, influencer score) will gauge the type of influencer they are, allowing you to set rates that are fair and aligned with industry standards.

Providing fair compensation can help you better build and manage influencer relationships, ensuring both parties are satisfied.

For more information on influencer rates, check out the most important influencer marketing statistics and download our influencer rate card.

*The pricing for Instagram Stories is calculated based on recent average views multiplied by $0.06. Additionally, for stories with swipe-up features and AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions, the influencer’s hourly rate may be added, or a percentage of the product's cost.

Identifying an influencer with an authentic audience that is generating real impact is only part of the process. Next, your influencer auditor should determine if the influencer is influencing and engaging with the correct audience.

This is where audience demographics come into play. By analyzing your influencer’s audience demographics, you are able to understand exactly who is in their network and ensure this supports the goals of your campaign.

For example, if you are running a campaign aiming to spread brand awareness in Germany, but the majority of your influencer’s audience is located in the US, then your goal will not be achieved.

Audience demographics play one of the most important roles in a campaign — don’t ignore them. They are one of the key metrics that will make sure you achieve your campaign goals.

Step 5: Perform an Influencer Risk Assessment

Once you’ve identified partners who have the ability to generate strong and relevant impact, you should assess the partnership for brand safety. This is typically done through an influencer risk assessment, which is meant to analyze the alignment of an influencer’s values with your brand’s values.

A risk assessment will help you ensure brand reputation control through reputation measurement and guarantee your influencers are generating a positive impact.

Step 6: Measure Campaign and Influencer ROI

An Instagram influencer audit is not only useful before the campaign goes live; it’s also a great way to assess the investment impact of your campaign.

Earned Media Value (EMV) offers a great perspective by showing a campaign and an influencer’s impact in relation to paid media standards. This allows you to understand the ROI of your campaign and determine if your Instagram audit strategy should be altered to drive more monetary impact.

Meltwater sets baseline values for EMV estimation, which can be customized for a specific campaign. Our research has determined that influencer content is worth 10.52X more than paid media. This allows us to automatically calculate the EMV of a campaign. This data is great for measuring campaign impact and for setting budgets for the upcoming campaign. 

Once you've weeded out fake influencers and confirmed there are no fake followers, inactive followers, spam, or bot content to slow down your influencer marketing, you can move forward with an influencer proposal. See our free influencer proposal template for more details.

Now you have everything in place to perform an Instagram audit. Remember, data is the most powerful tool, and it is essential to have a platform that provides you with the data to perform a comprehensive influencer audit and run a successful influencer program.

If you want to learn more about how Meltwater can help you perform an influencer audit, fill out the form below:

How To Perform an Instagram Influencer Audit

Brand safety is a very important part of brand management and reputation management. That also counts for influencer marketing. Learn how to run an influencer risk assessment to ensure you are partnering with like-minded folk who support your brand values:

Why Should You Perform an Influencer Risk Assessment?

What Are Key Components of an Influencer Risk Assessment?

How to Perform an Influencer Risk Assessment

Benefits of Performing an Influencer Risk Assessment

Start Your Influencer Risk Assessment with Meltwater

An influencer risk assessment is a systematic evaluation of potential risks associated with collaborating with a particular influencer for marketing purposes. It involves identifying and analyzing factors that could potentially harm a brand's reputation, credibility, or financial well-being if they were to engage in a partnership with the influencer. The goal of an influencer risk assessment is to mitigate potential risks and ensure a successful collaboration that aligns with the brand's goals and values.

When vetting an influencer there are many obvious metrics that marketers will look at; follower count, influencer location, general aesthetic. While these metrics can be easy to identify, they do not always paint the full or accurate picture of a potential partner, and can actually be misleading. That’s why it is important to look at multiple metrics, especially those that can be easily manipulated, in order to make sure you are getting the complete picture of an influencer’s potential.

So, let’s talk about a less common form of vetting, influencer risk assessment. This is a way to ensure an influencer aligns with and supports your brand’s value. By doing this you are able to avoid future risks from the collaboration and ensure your partner is authentic.

Tip: Learn how to find the right influencers to partner with your brand.

Risk assessments help ensure brand reputation control. Collaborating with an influencer that contradicts your brand values, or has made a statement/done something that your brand does not support can have an enormous impact on your brand’s reputation.

One of the most notorious influencer scandals was with Jared Fogle, aka The Subway Sandwich Guy. Remember those ads? He walked every day to a Subway sandwich store and lost a bunch of weight. He was one of the first brand spokesmen that were not a celebrity, but rather a regular person. And, it worked. Kicking off the trend of influencer marketing. However, in 2015, Jared was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexual misconduct and child pornography. Subway tried to distance themselves from the scandal, but there were reports that the brand had prior information on Jared’s crimes.

More recently incidents have emerged in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. As celebrities and public figures are facing public scrutiny for racist behavior, brands and partners are distancing themselves. For example, actress Lea Michelle was accused of racism and harassment by cast-mates and fellow actors and was subsequently dropped from her collaboration with HelloFresh.

And, managing your brand’s reputation will in-turn impact the way your clients perceive you. 

A scandal with a public figure who has endorsed your brand sends a message to your clients that you did not do your due diligence. This can cause customers to lose faith in your brand. Take television network TLC and the scandal surrounding the 19 Kids and Counting casemates. When it came out that one of the members of the family-friendly show had pled guilty to child molestation the show was immediately canceled. But the damage the scandal had on the family-friendly TLC network was hard to rectify.

Key components of an influencer risk assessment may include:

Reputation and Credibility: Assessing the influencer's reputation and credibility within their industry and among their audience. This involves examining factors such as past behavior, controversies, scandals, and public perception.

Content Quality and Brand Alignment: Evaluating the quality of the influencer's content and its alignment with the brand's image, values, and target audience. Content that is low-quality, offensive, or not in line with the brand's messaging can pose a risk to the brand's reputation.

Audience Authenticity and Engagement: Examining the authenticity of the influencer's audience and the level of engagement they receive on their content. Fake followers, low engagement rates, or a lack of genuine connection with the audience can undermine the effectiveness of the collaboration.

Compliance with Advertising Regulations: Ensuring that the influencer complies with advertising regulations and guidelines, such as disclosing sponsored content and adhering to truth-in-advertising principles. Non-compliance can lead to legal and regulatory issues for the brand.

Ethical Considerations: Considering ethical factors such as the influencer's integrity, transparency, and alignment with the brand's values. Influencers who engage in unethical behavior or promote questionable products can damage the brand's reputation.

Past Collaborations and Partnerships: Reviewing the influencer's track record of past collaborations and partnerships with other brands. This can provide insights into the influencer's professionalism, reliability, and success in promoting products or services.

By conducting a thorough influencer risk assessment, brands can identify and mitigate potential risks before entering into a partnership with an influencer. This helps to ensure that the collaboration is aligned with the brand's objectives and minimizes the likelihood of negative consequences.

It only takes 3 steps to perform an influencer risk assessment:

Obviously, when vetting an influencer, scandals won’t be presented on their Instagram page. But, there are ways to assess an influencer’s values which can help shed light on whether they complement your brand.

First, it is important to identify your core brand values across a variety of topics. That way, when the influencer assessment is performed you can easily match your brand value against your influencer’s values.

Tip: Take a look at our social media branding guide.

Step 2: Score of Influencer’s Value Affiliation

Identifying your brand’s values is just the first step, next determine how or if a potential partner aligns with your values. It can be time-consuming to review multiple influencers for an upcoming campaign. To make the process easier, we suggest creating a Risk Assessment Scorecard. This card will let you determine the risk of certain factors, easily letting you determine where an influencer falls on the risk threshold.

When creating the scorecard, we suggest taking the brand values you’ve identified and then creating Low-Risk, Medium-Risk, and High-Risk factors that can be easily identified by anyone doing an audit. Pro Tip: The Klear Brand Score within the Meltwater Influencer Marketing suite helps you determine how well influencers align with your brand goals.

Risk Assessment Scorecard Example 1: Brand Value – Recreational Marijuana

If your brand supports recreational marijuana usage, and are looking to collaborate with like-minded influencers, there still may be some important factors to consider.

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Low-Risk</th>
<th>Medium-Risk</th>
<th>High-Risk</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>An influencer who advocates Recreational Marijuana usage in a dosage that aligns with your brand’s values, or for medical purposes.</td>
<td>An influencer posting content while smoking Marijuana and driving.</td>
<td>An influencer who also promotes the usage of other drugs.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Risk Assessment Scorecard Example 2: Brand Value, Vegan

If your brand is vegan, you have a pretty clear ethos. Here are some things to consider when vetting new influencers.

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Low-Risk</th>
<th>Medium-Risk</th>
<th>High-Risk</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>An influencer who is a vegan chef.</td>
<td>An influencer who eats honey. Yes, honey is high-debated in the vegan community.</td>
<td>An influencer who has collaborated with non-vegan brands.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Creating Risk Assessment Score Cards is vital for ensuring you and your influencers have synced values. And, it can help contextualize the way certain topics were used, as some words may not be explicit, but may have an explicit connotation or vice versa. For example, “fat” may at first be considered explicitly tones, but when used in the context of body positivity, it can have truly different meanings.

Once you’ve defined and scored your influencer’s value affiliation, it is time to determine brand value correlation. Some tools can help make this process run efficiently and effectively. Meltwater's influencer marketing platform includes a brand safety tool that is a great addition to this process, helping you streamline your influencer risk assessment. Identify miscellaneous or explicit terms and Meltwater will run an automatic influencer marketing brand safety check and flag any keywords used by a specific influencer. Helping you enter collaborations with confidence.

The Meltwater Blog

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How To Perform an Instagram Influencer Audit

Why You Should Perform an Influencer Risk Assessment

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Influencer Marketing Inspiration: Tuft & Needle

Should Your Brand Be On Instagram Live?

How Does Meltwater Influencer Search Work?

Meltwater Influencer Marketing User Guide: Getting Started on Klear!

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