Follower numbers, do they matter?

Upon the release of Joko Anwar’s Bumilangit Cinematic Universe, thousands of tweets dedicated to Adhisty Zara, former member of JKT48, stood out among her co-stars in the movies. She garnered more than 5,000 tweets, while other actors in the movies with bigger following numbers garnered fewer tweets.

“The fewer followers an influencer has, the more an influencer can do,” said SweetEscape Social Media Marketing Manager Andhita Zerlina. “The discussion topic will be much more varied and more private as if they’re real friends. The content are more relatable in the follower’s daily basis because customers tend to buy what their peers suggest.”

Fewer followers usually translate to fewer spam accounts and comments. For celebrities’ social media accounts in particular, the comment section is the giveaway. They are often filled with spam comments from online shops. In that case, engagement rate is unreliable.

However, also take note that engagement rate can be bought. It’s a practice that has been done since Facebook, which is done to reach certain KPI imposed by brands.

For digital marketers, the guideline to choose influencer for digital campaign is divided according to the goal of each campaign. “We use nano and micro influencers for sales, macro influencers for awareness and mega influencers for branding,” said Pranichia Resya who oversees social media marketing strategy of Unilever products under Unilever’s in-house agency, Oliver.

“Mega influencers - influencers with more than 1 million followers - that can sell a lot of products is an anomaly,” said Andhita. That being said, celebrities with millions of following act as important medium for building brand awareness among baby boomers and Gen X. “The impact of celebrity endorsement on older generation is relatively strong,” said Adelle Jewellery Marketing Director Jennifer Lovenia.

Brands also need to take follower demographic into account. For instance, a women’s ready-to-wear brand might not resonate well with the audience of a female streetwear influencer whose dominant followers are male. Imagine the influencer as the brand’s sales representative, does he or she fit into the brand’s image?

Another extra point is if the influencer happens to be a good sales person. “Working with an influencer who is a good sales and business person yields a great result in sales. That quality is very rare,” said Jennifer.

The most important thing in working with influencer, according to Andhita, is that the influencers don’t buy followers.