The Roster Audit: Tier Fit and Authenticity Red Flags
Objective: Given a six-creator export with follower counts, engagement rates, and brand-safety flags, apply the lesson's tier benchmarks and vetting checklist to decide which creators are safe to sign, at what partnership model.
You're building Care.com's first always-on creator roster, focused on parenting and caregiving content. Your team pulled a six-creator shortlist from an outreach campaign and needs a go/no-go call before contracts go out.
Compare each creator's engagement rate to their tier's benchmark, flag authenticity red flags, and recommend a partnership model for each creator that survives the audit.
Before you start
What you'll need
Free path (everything below is enough to finish)
No cost, and tier benchmarks are a simple lookup, no specialized software needed for the first pass
Paid upgrades (optional, faster/deeper)
Manual spot-checking a spike doesn't confirm bot inflation the way an audience-quality tool does
No access? Manually cross-check flagged accounts' follower-growth charts on a free tool like Social Blade
The process
1 step
Step 01 of 01
The lesson sets tier benchmarks (nano ~18% TikTok engagement, micro ~12%, macro ~8%) and warns that a creator with 200K followers and 1% engagement, or a sudden follower spike, is a bot-inflation red flag worth a fake-follower scan before signing.
Of the six creators in the export, which pass their tier's engagement benchmark, which show inflation red flags, and which need a 90-day brand-safety check before any offer goes out?
Procedure
- Tag each creator's tier by follower count: nano under 10K, micro 10K-100K, macro 100K-1M+
- Compare their actual engagement rate to the tier benchmark from the lesson
- Flag any account with a recent follower spike that doesn't match a viral post, a bot-inflation signal
- Cross-check the flagged accounts' last 90 days for controversy or competitor mentions
- Recommend a partnership model only for creators that clear both the engagement and safety checks
Creator: @carewithkayla, 42K followers (micro), 11.5% engagement -> passes benchmark, no flags -> recommend affiliate + base fee Creator: @nannylifeofficial, 180K followers (macro), 0.9% engagement, +30K followers in 9 days with no viral post -> FLAG: bot-inflation, do not sign until re-audited
Healthy
Two of six creators cleared for an offer, four flagged for either benchmark failure or safety review.
Unhealthy
Signing all six because follower count alone looked impressive.
What this means
Size is not the metric that matters, trust is, and engagement rate against the tier benchmark is the fastest proxy for it.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| A creator's engagement rate sits well below their tier benchmark | Run a fake-follower scan before any offer, don't rely on the raw follower count | 30 min |
Final deliverable
A six-row audit table with tier, benchmark comparison, red-flag status, and a go/no-go recommendation per creator.
See a reference example
Zillow home-content creator audit (excerpt) Creator: @firsttimehomebuyerdiaries, 28K followers (micro), 13.2% engagement, clean 90-day history Verdict: SIGN, recommend affiliate/commission tied to mortgage-partner referral link Creator: @luxurylistings_official, 310K followers (macro), 1.1% engagement, no recent controversy but engagement well below the 8% macro benchmark Verdict: HOLD, request platform-level reach data before any offer
Success criteria
You're done when you can:
- Correctly benchmarks each creator's engagement against their tier
- Flags the follower-spike account as a bot-inflation risk, not just a low performer
- Only recommends a partnership model for creators that clear both checks