How to Check an Influencer Before Saying Yes

A creator writes to your business: "I'd love to feature you. Do you offer collaborations?" The profile looks good. The photos are beautiful. The follower count is big.

But a big number doesn't tell you if the right people will see your business. Before you send a free product, a meal, a stay or a tour, here are five checks you can do in about 15 minutes.

1. Look at where the audience lives

A creator can have 80,000 followers and still be useless to you if most of them live where your customers don't. Ask for the audience location by country. A serious creator will share it. If they dodge, that tells you something.

2. Compare likes, comments and followers

A real audience reacts in a steady proportion to the size of the account. Watch for these patterns:

• Thousands of followers and only a handful of likes
• Many likes but almost no comments
• Likes that jump wildly from one post to the next

3. Read the comments

Open five recent posts and read the comments. Real comments mention something specific: the product, the place, a question. Fake or pod comments look like "Nice!", "Love this 🔥🔥" or the same emoji from different accounts.

4. Check how the audience grew

Look at older posts. Steady growth looks natural. A sudden jump of thousands of followers in a few days, with no viral post to explain it, is a warning sign.

5. Look at their past collaborations

Check which businesses they've worked with before. Did those posts bring comments, tags or saves? Are those businesses similar to yours? A creator who has only worked with unrelated brands may not reach your customers.

What to decide

After the five checks, you should be able to say one of three things:

• Worth it: the audience fits, the engagement looks real, the content suits your business.
• Maybe: parts look good, parts don't. You could offer a smaller deal, such as a single product instead of a full package.
• Skip: the numbers don't add up, or the audience is in the wrong place.

Want an answer without the work?

Doing this by hand takes time, and some problems only show up in the data behind the account. We do this check for you. Send us the creator's handle and we'll tell you in 24 hours if it's worth it, maybe, or a skip.