Companies enforce brand safety during discovery in a number of ways:

1. Manual Vetting: Brands can manually review potential influencers’ content and public image. This is time-consuming, but it allows for thorough checks and nuanced decisions.

2. Platform Filters: Some influencer marketing platforms (like Flinque) offer brand safety features. These can include content filters for explicit content, hate speech, or controversial topics. It’s important to understand that these tools help streamline the discovery process, but they don’t replace human judgement.

3. Past Campaign Reviews: Brands often look at histories of previous campaigns and affiliations. They might avoid influencers who have worked with conflicting brands or who have faced public backlash.

4. Audience Demographics: Brands typically want their influencers to have an audience that aligns with their target market. Advanced platforms provide detailed audience analytics that assist in ensuring a right fit.

5. Engagement Analysis: Brands may analyse the engagement an influencer has with their audience. This includes looking at the feedback on their content, the behaviour of their followers, and the influencer’s interaction with them.

6. Using Trusted Networks: Brands often prefer working within trusted networks or platforms, which pre-vets influencers for quality, authenticity, and brand-fit. Flinque, for example, has a handpicked, quality-assured database of influencers which can minimize risks.

These strategies are not mutually exclusive and a comprehensive brand safety approach may incorporate several, or all, of these measures to ensure brand alignment and mitigate potential risks in the influencer selection process. Ultimately, the best approach will be determined by a brand’s specific needs and constraints.