Influencer Networks: More Than the Sum of their Parts
Once upon a time, here at Everywhere Agency, before there were influencer networks, we had a giant Excel spreadsheet with the names of hundreds of bloggers from near and far who published on platforms like Blogger and Typepad. We were a social media marketing agency who used these “mommy bloggers” to post and increase the reach of our clients’ messages and drum up awareness for their products and initiatives. We tracked, tagged, and became increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer size of our spreadsheets – and an influencer marketing agency was born.
Over the last 8 years we have expanded, grown, and developed into a fully-fledged influencer marketing agency – evolving right along with the micro-influencers who helped us create successes for our clients. As their content (and their rates) gained a larger share of the marketing mix, we saw that an influencer marketing wave was about to hit – ready or not. We took our lists of names and built our newly trademarked database and search system, InfluencerConnect® as a solution for scaling.
These days, everyone and their mother seems to have an influencer network or a new platform for running campaigns, which has led to a lot of philosophical questions here at Everywhere Agency about what having a network really means. We’ve sat through a litany of demos of platforms promising to allow us to sit back and count our cash but have hit a roadblock at every turn. As the self-serve ads and databases of influencers continue to saturate our market, the differentiators of our agency and in-house network, Everywhere Society, are becoming increasingly important to distinguish. Maybe one day they will get it right, but until then, here’s why we refuse to join the ranks of automated platforms.
You’re building our unique stories, not pushing out ads: We don’t spoon feed our influencers content to share. We give them parameters and inspiration – and then get out of their way. We pay these people, not just for their numbers, but for their ability to create quality content and to offer authentic narratives that feature our brands in an organic way. We find that content that’s been pulled off a technology platform, always feels like “brand speak” does not perform as well, and automation is inherently not authentic.
B***h Better Have My Money: Many of the platforms available require you to process payment through their service. The majority of influencers are freelancers, meaning that they don’t have the security of a regular paycheck. At Everywhere, we pay within two weeks of proof of campaign completion even when our client may be paying us on a net 60 basis. We have discovered that reliable payment, processed quickly translates into influencers going above and beyond the call of duty. They’re more open to making edits, creating extra social shares, and generally enjoy working with us more. When MODE went down in flames, they left a wake of unpaid content creators that had no one to contact, and no way to recoup their payment. Trust in payment is just another way we build our relationships.
Human Touch: The database “push messaging” eliminates the level of contact we want to have with our network. Despite all the growth and evolution we’ve experienced over the years, there are a few things that didn’t change in our approach to influencer marketing. We still write individual emails and read every word of the blogs that are produced for our clients. We still pick up the phone to answer influencer’s questions and hug them when we meet IRL at conferences. We still send flowers when they have babies and cry when we lose one of our own. Humans form relationships – and are more likely to do their best work for someone they like and have a genuine connection with.
Essentially, we have an influencer network built of people – with names, families, aspirations, and more importantly, a point of view – and we still care a whole lot about them. Until we can find a form of automation that doesn’t cheapen our relationships, we’ll happily continue to do things our way.
Love this so much! Thanks for the great blog post.