I swore off influencer deals until a random test run surprised me

Mason Cooper · 2026-03-09T13:21:06.705168+00:00

I always thought influencer marketing was too expensive for my small business. Then I gave it a shot with a niche creator and saw a big boost in clicks. How do you guys measure if an influencer is a good fit?

torres.drew7mo ago

Learn from my mistake of picking a creator just because they had cool pictures. I got a ton of likes but zero sales from their followers. Now I check if their past brand posts actually got people talking or asking questions.

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johnfoster6mo ago

My buddy's coffee shop had the same surprise. We looked for local food bloggers who posted their own recipes, not just pretty latte art. One woman did a whole series on baking at home using his beans. Her follower count was tiny, but the people who commented were asking where to buy. That's how we knew it would work. Do you look for that kind of real engagement?

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the_riley7mo ago

Remember my friend who makes handmade leather bags. She almost said yes to a big Instagram person with tons of followers for a paid post. What stopped her was looking at the comments, which were all just fire emojis or one-word replies. She ended up picking a smaller creator who actually talked about craftsmanship in their posts. The person did a whole video showing how they used the bag every day for a month. The clicks from that were lower, but the sales were way higher because the audience actually cared. She told me the fit wasn't about the numbers, it was about whether the influencer's fans would really want her product.

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