Success with influencer marketing, with Magda Houalla, Aspire

The following was transcribed from a recent interview on The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström podcast. 

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Today we’re going to talk about how to be successful with an authentic #influencermarketing campaign. To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Magda Houalla , Director of Marketing Strategy at Aspire .

[Greg Kihlstrom] Let’s start by you giving a little background on yourself as well as what you do at Aspire?

[Magda Houalla, Aspire] Yes, absolutely. I am the director of strategy at Aspire. So I'll start with a brief intro on who Aspire is, for anyone who might not be familiar. We are an influencer marketing platform and we really focus on helping brands with every stage of working with influencers. We have a search engine where brands can discover creators. We have a CRM that allows brands to manage all of their relationships with those creators. And most importantly, we have a robust analytics dashboard so brands can really understand every way in which these influential partnerships are impacting their business. We have a marketplace where people can apply inbound to work with your brand, and we've worked with brands really across the board, from very small companies that are just getting started to massive corporations, think HelloFresh, Bed Bath & Beyond, Wal-Mart, really work with brands across the spectrum.

Personally, at Aspire I oversee all things influencer strategy, so I really want to make sure that I'm keeping my thumb on the pulse on everything that's going on in the influencer space. As I'm sure you've seen, influencer changes a lot. There are always updates to social platforms. There are changes in the creator economy. There's lots going on. And we want to make sure that we're able to provide the best strategic recommendations to all of our clients, based on whatever their goal is, whether their goal is just getting started and they want to build that ever important brand awareness or they're a more mature brand and they're looking to really drive direct trackable sales through affiliate links, and everything in between. We want to make sure that we're sharing all of those best practices. So I oversee the team that brings those best practices to life. So that's a little bit about me. I think another thing that's interesting about Aspire is just the work that we've done with creators. I actually just got this data point from our team that, from 2020 to 2022, we have paid out over $100 million to creators, so pretty incredible, and I'm sure we'll get into this, just to see how the creator economy has grown over the past several years. And it's awesome to see Aspire really at the epicenter of that.

We're here to talk about influencer marketing and how brands can be successful while staying true to their core identity. So Aspire recently released its 2022 state of the influencer marketing report. I thought it would be good to discuss a few of the key findings within it. So before we get started, can you provide your definition of what exactly influencer marketing is, and how does it fit within a brand's overall marketing approach?

Sure, so influencer marketing, just at its core, can be defined as a strategy where brands are leveraging the trust that an influencer – and I'll add a caveat there that “influencer” can certainly be a term to define a social media persona, someone that has amassed a large number of followers over the years. But influencer is so much more than that. Think about it like this. Anyone can really be an influencer, whether you have a huge following or you have just a small community of friends and family that take your recommendations. We're really seeing that definition evolve. But I digress. Influencer marketing really is just a strategy where brands are leveraging that trust that the influencer has built with their community to increase whatever the brand's goals are, whether that's leveraging that trust to increase brand awareness in a new market, redefine reputation, launch a new product, drive product sales. Typically we're seeing this done, traditionally, through endorsements on any of the social media platforms, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, et cetera. But really it’s just that partnership between the brand and the influencer. And there's a lot of different spinoffs from those partnerships. Partnerships have evolved quite a bit over the past couple years. But that is at its core the definition.

According to the report by Aspire that I mentioned earlier, 50% of brands are now working with affiliates and brand ambassadors, and 76% of those brands that are already using influencer marketing are planning to increase their influencer marketing budgets in 2022. So what do you think is driving this shift, and can we expect these numbers to continue to rise?

Absolutely. So I'll separate out those two data points and start with the first one of 50 percent of brands working with affiliates and brand ambassadors. So I definitely see, or foresee this number continuing to rise. And really what this means is that brands are moving away from the traditional transactional influencer relationship. So think back just a couple years ago. Influencer and brand partnerships were really rooted in a transactional experience. “Hey, we'll pay you $100; post one time on your Instagram. We’ll shake hands, part ways, and then move on from this partnership.” But we're seeing an uptick in affiliate programs and brand ambassadors. And really what this is showing is that brands and creators alike are getting more savvy with what their partnerships look like and ultimately figuring out ways to compensate creators that is beyond just that flat-fee, transactional relationship. 

So by adding an affiliate component to an influencer partnership, you're basically able to make sure that the creator has a little bit more skin in the game. If they're getting a flat fee to promote your brand but then they also have an opportunity to make commission for, let's say, the rest of the year, that's really compelling. We're seeing this style of payout work incredibly well. Influencers are posting links in their bio on social media where they are talking about products, brands that they love. And then every time someone is visiting that page, there's an opportunity for them to make basically passive income. So it's a huge win for the creators. And it's a win for the brand. The more the creators are able to make from these affiliate links, the more exposure the brand's going to get, because those individuals will be motivated to post more. So it really is fueling the creator economy in a really interesting way and providing an additional revenue stream, while also adding benefit to the brand, because they're able to pay creators based on what those creators are driving in terms of sales.

The report also mentions that many brands, 70% of them, are working with nano or micro influencers. So first if you could define what that means exactly, as well as what's the reason for this approach, and how is it able to be effective at that level?

Yeah, so nano or micro influencers, it varies platform by platform. But think about people that don't have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers on social media. These are individuals that have maybe a smaller community. Let's think 10,000 to 100,000. And really the benefit of working with micro and nano influencers is that these individuals have a lot of trust within their community. They are not these massive celebrities that seem unattainable, or massive celebrities that already have deep relationships with existing brands. These are people that are creating content and growing their follower base based on authenticity and based on content that resonates with their audience. So by leaning into micro and nano influencers, you're essentially able to create this high trust commerce experience, especially if you work with these individuals for more than just one post. I can't stress it enough. It is so important for brands to work with influencers over a longer period of time. We mentioned brand ambassadors earlier. Think about working with someone for three to six months, having that repeat visibility on their social channels. Also, it's just more cost-effective. You're going to be able to work with a handful of micro and nano influencers for the same cost that it would be to secure one post from one macro creator. 

So it really is just a better way to test out which type of influencer persona works best for you and, again, just take advantage of the trust that those people have. Last point, I do think it's important to note that you can grow with these nano creators. Someone who maybe starts out with 10,000 followers at the beginning of your partnership, by the end of that three to six months, they could easily have doubled if not tripled that. And you are essentially continuing to grow with them. And I think that that's where I've seen some of the most impressive brand and creator partnerships, is when it really is rooted in growing together, getting creative together. That’s just where we've seen a lot of success.

Let's talk a little bit more about best practices. So, platforms change, whether that's increasing usage of a particular platform like TikTok or something like that. Usage amongst demographics change, things like that. But what are some common aspects that good influencer marketing always contains?

First is consistent cadence. So you want to make sure that there are always influencers posting about your brand, and most importantly, that you have repeat visibility within the same influencer. So having that handful of loyal ambassadors that are posting on a regular cadence really is going to make sure that you are building trust with your target audience. I think the other thing that's really important is giving creative Liberty to these creators/influencers. And we use this term interchangeably. But, you know, gone are the days of having very rigid creative briefs. Basically, feeding a script to an influencer is not going to work. Their audience can smell out inauthenticity from a mile away. So providing guardrails but not guidelines is something that I think is critical and a good influencer marketing program. So you can make sure that you're checking the box on anything from a legal perspective that's important, but also basically saying, “Hey, you know your audience. You know what's going to resonate. We want to empower you to tell our brand story through your unique voice.”

Do you have an example of an unexpected influencer marketing success story, maybe a brand or an approach that was unconventional?

Yes, so one that sticks out is a coffee company. They had historically partnered with foodies, think the coffee fanatics, people that are a little bit more in the world of food and beverage. And then they decided to go in a different direction and partner with a TikToker named Corporate Natalie. So this TikToker, basically all of her content is around making fun of millennials in the workplace, making fun of the 9-5, making fun of the jargon that we use. It's all very satirical. And this coffee company basically said, “All right, do whatever you want.”

She made a hilarious video that again was basically making fun of coffee drinkers, making fun of your co-worker that's obsessed with their coffee order. I liked this piece of content. I shared it and I saved it before I even realized that it was an ad. And that's really what you're looking for, you know. It was something that was very out-of-the-box and perhaps unconventional for the brand to do. And I'm sure that five years ago the thought of them basically having an ad that was making fun of their product would not have landed well. But, yeah, so that was one that I really loved. I loved seeing that unfold and actually seeing other partnerships that this one specific creator has gotten as a result of that. She's just absolutely crushing it with these very creative narratives. So that's just one example that I really love.

You touched on your platform, Aspire, a bit, when you were introducing yourself, but wanted to get back to that. It functions as a marketplace for both influencers as well as for brands. Can you talk a little bit more about how it works, as well as what are some of the things that have kind of evolved as influencer marketing has evolved over the last several years?

Yeah, so our platform has definitely evolved. The biggest way in which we've evolved is expanding the way you can find influential individuals. I mentioned this earlier, but there used to be this notion that an influencer was really only someone that had over, let’s say, 10,000 followers on Instagram. Now we're seeing even people that only have 2,000, even less than that, can have a huge impact on a brand. So first thing we wanted to do is open that up so brands could find anyone that could have impact on their brand. So there's a number of ways that we enable brands and creators to find each other. The first is with our influencer search engine. So we allow brands to search and contact over 100 million influencers across all of the main platforms, again, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook. They're able to use it essentially like Google. You can type in whatever keyword you want. You can also use image search if you're looking for a particular aesthetic. But that's one of the biggest ways that we are helping brands find influencers, is through this incredibly robust search engine. 

But then, on the flip side, we also wanted to empower creators to be proactive and basically see brands that they wanted to work with and raise their hand. So what that has actually led to is we have a creator marketplace that we have grown over the past several years. And essentially this is where creators can log in and scroll through a number of campaigns from very different brands and basically just apply that way. It is all free for the creators. And I have just heard so many success stories and seen so many videos, actually, that creators are making on TikTok about how they were able to find their dream partnership through our Aspire marketplace. So that makes me really happy. But ultimately that takes a lot of the pressure off of the brand. If a brand wants to search they can, but also, if they want to just list their campaign in the marketplace, they can take a step back, list their campaign on Friday, reopen up their computer on a Monday, and see dozens of applicants that they can then sift through.

Who are these influencers? What kind of influencers are you looking for? And how do you work to ensure that you're providing the value that the brands are looking for?

We definitely do quality control. We want to be as open as possible, but we do want to gauge for a couple things. We want to make sure that these influencers have a real following. So we're able to track if they've purchased followers, for example. We also want to make sure that these people are creating original content, they're not just reposting other people's content. So those are the gates that we set, along with a couple others. But we really span all verticals. We are able to surface beauty creators, home decor creators, gamers, skin care specialists. Really, anything that you could think of, there will be more than a handful of those individuals in the marketplace.

About the Guest

Magda Houalla, Director of Marketing Strategy at Aspire.

About the Host, Greg Kihlström

Greg Kihlstrom is a best selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur and host of The Agile Brand podcast. He has worked with some of the world’s leading organizations on customer experience, employee experience, and digital transformation initiatives, both before and after selling his award-winning digital experience agency, Carousel30, in 2017.  Currently, he is Principal and Chief Strategist at GK5A. He has worked with some of the world’s top brands, including AOL, Choice Hotels, Coca-Cola, Dell, FedEx, GEICO, Marriott, MTV, Starbucks, Toyota and VMware. He currently serves on the University of Richmond’s Customer Experience Advisory Board, was the founding Chair of the American Advertising Federation’s National Innovation Committee, and served on the Virginia Tech Pamplin College of Business Marketing Mentorship Advisory Board.  Greg is Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certified, and holds a certification in Business Agility from ICP-BAF.