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- Leveraging Radio Influencer Marketing To Grow Musical Artists
- Disney Double Downs on the Creator Economy
- ESPN launches creator network to attract Gen Z
- How influencers became the new power brokers for media agencies
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Great Reads
E.l.f. Becomes First Beauty Brand On BeReal
The BeReal app is a new app designed for authentic, unfiltered content. Gen Z has quickly become early adopters of this app, and many brands are eager to join in. However, the app’s restrictions to promote the posting of authentic, unstaged photos can be tricky for some brands.
However, this didn’t stop e.l.f. from becoming the first beauty brand on BeReal. Today, they share with us their reasoning for joining BeReal, their content plans, and the benefits of the BeReal app.
“BeReal is all about being authentic – and our strategy is to share with our community a mix of unfiltered, unretouched moments at e.l.f. headquarters and in-the-moment messages to connect with our superfans” Chief Brand Officer Laurie Lam shared.
The brand’s BeReal channel @elfyeah will provide glimpses of day-to-day life at the e.l.f. headquarters, including product drops, sneak peeks, happy hour hangouts, photo shoots, and much more.
When asked about the benefits of e.l.f. on BeReal, Laurie shared the following with us.
“The connection to real, unfiltered, authentic content. We will have this opportunity to show our authentic, unfiltered selves. We are also planning to have different e.l.f. employees take over the @elfyeah BeReal page, so you will see what life is like at e.l.f. from their unique points of view.”
For example, the following photo shows an employee highlighting one of e.l.f.’s skincare products and a swatch on their skin for the front camera photo.
YouTube in challenge to TikTok to give Shorts creators 45% of ad sales
YouTube unveiled a new way for creators to make money on short-form video, as it faces intensifying competition from TikTok.
The Google-owned (GOOGL.O) streaming service announced Tuesday that it would introduce advertising on its video feature Shorts and give video creators 45% of the revenue. That compares with its standard distribution of 55% for videos outside of Shorts, and TikTok's $1 billion fund for paying creators.
Hairstylist-turned-YouTube-creator Kris Collins, who goes by Kallmekris, lauded YouTube for offering revenue-sharing for Shorts.
"Other platforms are focused on getting people their 15 seconds of fame, which is great," she said. "But YouTube is taking a different approach. They're helping creators make stuff in multiple formats."
The internet's dominant video site has struggled to compete with TikTok, the app that got its start hosting lip-sync and dance videos and has subsequently burgeoned to 1 billion monthly users.
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Campaign Insights
Leveraging Radio Influencer Marketing To Grow Musical Artists
Mike shares that Best Of The Next offers a variety of services to help musicians grow and jumpstart their brands.
“[We] help them get exposure on different platforms, like TikTok [and] Instagram. We have a service helping promote artist music through Facebook ads and Instagram ads and through TikTok and Spotify playlisting… We have developed our own marketing strategy called Radio Influencer Marketing, and that’s really one of the differentiators that we offer.”
He explains that one of their services, Radio Influencer Marketing, helps musicians find new audiences through radio exposure by working with established radio personalities and radio DJs.
“There are millions of people that are still listening to the radio, but they’ve kind of evolved to now listening through online apps and on the radio station websites and just tuning in online… If you think about it, every car still has a radio. Every new car, every used car, they all still have radios.”
He adds that many people think radio is dead because of how dominant streaming is, but there is still a substantial demographic of radio listeners. Radio also inspires greater trust in listeners.
“Radio influencers are so influential, and people trust them as consumers, trust them because they hear them on their radio all the time. It’s a voice that they’re familiar with, and they know that’s someone they can trust in terms of if they’re recommending a product or they’re recommending a certain song.”
Disney Double Downs on the Creator Economy - All About Disney Creators Lab 2.0
In a similar vein to the former program, Disney Creators lab 2.0 aims to seek out developing content creators and offer them a wide range of opportunities to help increase their engagement. As a group of 21 influencers, these Disney content creators are extremely passionate about the franchise, making them highly attractive to others who are looking to plan their next vacation.
The program will showcase a variety of workshops, training seminars, and events to push these creators to bond with each other and produce an assortment of high-quality content. Data from Disney’s Global PR department expressed that 20% of the first cohort saw an increase of up to 30,000 followers. Therefore, this signifies that the brand is able to provide favorable outcomes for even the smallest of influencers.
Disney Creator Labs 2.0 is working to build stronger connections between influencers, devising an intuitive creator marketplace. As such, the program now allows influencers to indulge in a series of in-person events such as brunch mixers and field trips to the Walt Disney Studios.
For the last cohort, the brand mostly focused on short-form content, particularly on TikTok. To boost engagement and reach even further, Disney has recruited influencers from a variety of platforms. The brand is also heavily focused on YouTube Shorts, indicating the growth of this platform.
Chevrolet EV campaign uses Fleetwood Mac, influencers
Chevrolet is calling on Fleetwood Mac, Conan O’Brien, a bevy of influencers and a big media buy in NFL games to draw consumers to its growing fleet of electric vehicles. The band’s classic hit “Everywhere” backs a new ad debuting Saturday that begins what one executive described as Chevy’s largest-ever campaign.
The spot, a joint effort from Chevy agency Commonwealth/McCann and Vice Media Group, spotlights new electric models hitting dealerships in 2023—including the Equinox EV, Silverado EV and Blazer EV, as well as the Bolt EV, which debuted in 2016 as Chevy's first dedicated electric vehicle.
The commercial portrays singing, smiling people driving the vehicles and positions Chevy EVs as “for everyone, everywhere.”
That social reach will heavily rely on what Kubitskey characterized as “a really big stable of influencers”—a first for Chevy—which the brand has dubbed internally as “Chev-angelists.”
“We didn’t go after LeBron James and Tom Brady,” she said. “We’re going after some influencers with millions of followers and then we are going after a lot of micro-influencers who have more of ... an authentic voice in their own communities, so they might have a few thousand followers.”
Four of the influencers appear in the TV ad. They include Terrence Jenkins, a model and entertainer known as Terrence J, who is a popular advocate for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Jenkins, who has previously worked with Chevy, will be called on to spread the word about the Blazer EV on social media; he has 3.1 million Instagram followers
How Acceptmycash™ is Leveraging Influencers to Become The Fastest Growing Loan Marketplace
Acceptmycash™, an emerging player in the online loan marketplace, is disrupting traditional advertising models by leveraging a deep relationship with social media influencers and average users alike. With a network of over fifty [50] household names on social media, the company has fostered a symbiotic relationship to benefit influencer, consumer, and the company.
With its influencer relationships, and fun content, the company is quickly amassing a large social media following. “We intend to become the most popular loan request service on social media, then we will compete for [simply] the most popular” Thomas, a brand spokesperson, explained.
The company, who’s founder has been deeply involved in online lead generation for the lending space since 2007, saw a swift change in user appetite after the isolation events in 2020. As hashtags, such as #tiktokmademebuyit became a reality, the founder’s saw a swift demand for “real” companies to provide more than a service to their customers – they needed to provide entertainment and social validation as well.
Fast forward to 2022, Acceptmycash™ was formed with the very same network of lending companies but a fresh focus on marketing. The company has chosen to dedicate 100% of its marketing budget to improve the bottom lines of influencers, while at the same time producing a brand with “social validation.”
The company offers list management and bio-link monetization services to influencers. By offering these services, the influencer can maintain brand deals while building a “safety net” of follower data in the event of suspension or rebrand. Most exciting to it’s influencer connections is the ability to receive a passive income from the monetization efforts provided by Acceptmycash™.
ESPN launches creator network to attract Gen Z
ESPN is launching ESPN Creator Network, providing up-and-coming content creators with access to ESPN’s sports properties and resources. Front Office Sports first reported the news.
The first iteration will feature 10 creators and focus on TikTok. It will begin in October and run for about four months. The creator network is a partnership with social-led content agency Blue Hour Studios.
“What we’re continuing to see from our sports community on social channels increasingly is this gravitation toward first-person, authentic content creation,” ESPN’s vice president of social media Kaitee Daley told Front Office Sports.
With the creator network, ESPN is looking to engage with niche sport fan communities on Instagram and TikTok, where the network has more than 26 million followers. While creators will not be compensated, they will be provided with travel, tickets, access, equipment, a series of learning courses and discretion over how they program their channels.
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Interesting People
Marissa And Gabrielle Green Of The Green Twins On Their Content Strategy And The Creator Marketplace
Marissa and Gabrielle Green, otherwise known as The Green Twins, are fitness models, identical twins, and 28-year-old cheerleaders out of retirement. They share inspiring and helpful content on their Instagram and TikTok.
The twins share that they’ve been posting content on social media for six years. Their content typically focuses on fitness, health, nutrition, try-on hauls, and twin-focused content, such as competitions against each other or twin challenges.
Marissa explains, “We also do try-on hauls as well because it’s important to know that we can showcase how it looks on twins. It sounds strange, but even though we are the same, some people say that [outfit] definitely suits Gabrielle or suits Marissa, and that’s a cool concept to see as well, how the same outfit can look so different on identical people.”
Some of their best-performing content includes dance videos, twin challenges, and small snippets of interactive content. Their most viewed video is a TikTok featuring a handstand challenge, which has accumulated over 36.4 million views.
About their most popular TikTok, Gabrielle shares, “It’s me and Marissa doing a handstand challenge. The exact same. We look the same. We do the movements the same. It’s only about 10 seconds long, and we just encourage other people to do the handstand challenge, and I think because there’s two of us doing it the same time, it encourages groups of people to get together and train.”
How an empowered creator economy is challenging marketers
Earlier this month, the D’Amelio family, famous for having a combined 200 million-plus followers on TikTok, announced the launch of D’Amelio Brands, a venture that will build off the family’s experience marketing to consumers to create brands of their own. The family — Marc, Heidi, Charli and Dixie — said they’re slated to launch two brands by the end of this year, with plans to expand in 2023.
“I would be concerned if I were in any category that the D’Amelio’s decide to go after with their new brand development fund,” said Dylan Conroy, chief revenue officer at The Social Standard in an email. “They have a combined audience of 300M viewers across social media, that’s 3x the size of the Super Bowl audience every time they post. Brand building takes time, but they have a massive advantage in any category they launch into.”
The D’Amelio family’s ability to create a business, which has recruited execs including Apple’s senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, is a far cry from the family’s media presence just a few years ago. The marketing machine that is the D’Amelio’s began with Charli and Dixie, both who joined TikTok in 2019, taking to the Byte Dance-owned platform to film dancing tutorials and lip-syncing videos. Over time, they’ve repped brands including Prada, Hollister, Dunkin’ and Amazon, to name a few. Before long, posts that were earning them about $50 rose to six figures a piece, according to details Marc D’Amelio shared with CNBC.
Millennial nostalgia sells. Just ask these influencers making their livings off it
Erin Miller has mastered the art of unlocking millennials’ core memories.
Miller, 33, has grown a following of more than 1.7 million people on TikTok by posting videos re-creating relatable — sometimes cringeworthy — moments they may have also experienced in the late ’90s and the early 2000s.
Like frying her bangs with a flatiron ahead of a garage party — because that was the cool hairstyle at the time (and no one knew any better). Or asking classmates to sign her plain white T-shirts with a sharpie on the last day of middle school (Miller’s caption on the video reads, “Who else remembers this?”).
Tapping into that millennial nostalgia has become the way Miller and many other creators with similar throwback content pay their bills.
Nostalgia sells, according to some marketing experts. And brands know that partnering with such creators, who have specifically built their followings around nostalgia content, can help them get more exposure from a desired demographic.
“It’s a psychological thing. You feel comfort when you go back in time,” Lisa Sciulli, a marketing professor and the department chair at the Eberly School of Business at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, said of nostalgia-related marketing. “You reminisce about when times were simpler.”
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Industry News
YouTube announces Creator Music, a new way for creators to shop for songs for use in videos
With Creator Music, however, YouTube is also simplifying a sometimes complicated process of finding backing tunes for creators’ video content.
“Creators have told us, time and time again, that finding the right song isn’t the hard part. It’s actually figuring out how to license it,” noted Amjad Hanif, VP of Creator Products at YouTube.
As explained at the event, when a creator typically uses a song they don’t own, they have to give up all the ad revenues to the music license holder. That means commercial music will often not be used in YouTube videos — something the company’s new offering aims to change.
Instead of passing the revenue to the rights holder, the tracks on Creator Music can either be purchased directly or will involve a rev-share deal. With the former, the creator is buying a license where the terms and rates are spelled out. In the case of the latter, creators will split a portion of their revenue with the artists and songwriters but will not face any upfront costs to acquire access to the songs.
“Music can power that emotional connection between artists, creators and all of their fans — and we want to strengthen this by offering creators more choices to work with, while at the same time helping artists meet the fans where they already are: right here on YouTube,” added Hanif.
Amazon’s live radio app Amp is launching a new creator fund
Amazon’s live radio app Amp is launching a new creator fund that is designed to reward creators who create engaging shows and build loyal audiences. A spokesperson from Amazon told TechCrunch that Amp has allocated “millions of dollars” to pay creators through monthly rewards but didn’t provide an exact figure. The company says the range of payments for each creator varies based on different factors and that the number of creators it rewards each month may change.
Any eligible creator who has hosted a show in a qualifying month can be rewarded from the fund. Creators will be assessed based on show performance and listener engagement, such as show popularity with new and recurring listeners. Amazon says it’s looking at different ways to reward creators, so the metrics it uses to determine reward amounts may change over time.
Each month, all eligible Amp creators will be automatically considered for a reward, and creators who have been selected will receive an email with instructions on how to claim their rewards.
“Creators are the heart and soul of Amp, and the creator fund is our next step toward recognizing the commitment of people who are doing what they love by making innovative shows that inspire and entertain,” said John Ciancutti, the vice president of Amp in a statement. “We’ve spent our beta listening to the early adopters of our creator community, and we understand that monetization is crucial for them. The Creator Fund will support loyal creators who are spending their time creating great programming and building a community of followers on Amp.”
GGWP Academy raises $1.125M for influencer marketing for games and esports
GGWP Academy has raised $1.125 million in funding to help change the way influencer marketing is handled in gaming and esports.
GGWP Academy is an e-learning platform that helps gamers earn and learn, and 50-plus global brands tap top talent. And now it is pushing into the U.S. market.
Founded by Jacqueline Garrett in Melbourne, Australia, the company is offering content creators and streamers a chance to invest in their own futures with an equity crowdfunding campaign.
“We teach content creators how to become best-in-class content creators. And then we give them opportunities to work with brands from all over the world. So we’re basically saying that smarter influencers equals higher ROI for the brands that have engaged them,” Garrett said in an interview with GamesBeat. “There are a lot of influencers or content creators who got there through luck or being there at the beginning, or collaborating with the right person, but they didn’t necessarily know how to professionally grow a brand to engage their audience, and to deliver ROI on marketing campaigns.”
TikTok just launched a BeReal clone called TikTok Now
TikTok launched a new feature today that is basically just a copy of BeReal, the buzzy French social app that’s been steadily gaining popularity. BeReal invites users to take a front and back camera photo at a random time every day, designed to capture a more authentic picture of what our friends are doing all day (but, of course, you can just wait to post until you’re doing something interesting). Snapchat and Instagram have already launched front and back camera features, and Instagram is rumored to be working on its own time-based, ephemeral feature. But TikTok beat its competitors to the punch by being the first app to just outright cut-and-paste BeReal into its platform.
“TikTok Now invites you and your friends to capture what you’re doing in the moment using your device’s front and back camera,” the company’s blog reads. “You’ll receive a daily prompt to capture a 10-second video or a static photo to easily share what you’re up to.”
Every day when the BeReal goes out, users get a push notification telling them that “it’s time to BeReal,” bookended by alert emojis. TikTok’s notification looks the same — users are notified between lightning emojis that it is “Time to Now,” which admittedly does not have the same ring to it as BeReal.
Instagram Says it is Falling Behind on Creator Satisfaction
Instagram head Adam Mosseri has told staff that the app is falling far behind TikTok and YouTube in all aspects of creator satisfaction.
Mosseri made the comments to Instagram’s employees in a private memo a few weeks ago, according to a report by The Information on Thursday.
In the memo, which was read by The Information, Mosseri says that surveys of creators showed that Instagram “lag[s] behind TikTok and YouTube on all the dimensions that are most important to creator satisfaction,” including several unrelated to the ability to make money, such as “fun, reach, fair algorithm and care.”
In the internal memo, Mosseri also notes that the Instagram team is “behind where we need to be” on initiatives to help creators make money on the platform but is “upping our urgency and progress.”
The news that creators are unhappy with so many aspects of the app is concerning especially as Instagram was once seen as the main competition for TikTok. However, since Mosseri announced that Instagram was no longer a photo-sharing app in December, the app has lost its appeal to many longstanding users.
Facebook adds new Pages features to help creators connect with fans and get discovered
Facebook is introducing new Pages features that are designed to help creators get discovered and connect with their followers, the company announced on Tuesday.
Most notably, the social network is rolling out a new setting for creators that makes content exclusively available to top fans and subscribers. Creators can select the option by going into their Audience settings and selecting the “Top fans” option when sharing a new post. In the future, Facebook plans to roll out a new setting for creators that will allow them to give some fans early access to special content.
The company is also launching “Creator Endorsements,” which gives creators the option to spotlight each other and invite their followers to follow another creator that they like. Once a creator that you follow endorses another creator, you will receive a notification that will ask you if you want to follow the recommended creator.
In addition, Facebook is adding “Rising Creator Labels” to make it easier for users to discover up-and-coming creators on the platform. Creators who have earned a spot in the top 1% of rising creators in a given week will be notified. Facebook notes that the label shows that a creator’s content has received strong audience engagement, while meeting quality, originality and integrity guidelines. The label will be displayed on the creator’s Page and in users’ feeds under a “Discover more rising creators to follow” carousel in order to help the creator grow their audience.
TikTok’s BeReal clone is now available as standalone app outside the US
TikTok over the weekend launched its BeReal clone, TikTok Now, as a standalone mobile app across global markets outside the U.S., largely on iOS. The app offers a similar feature set to the TikTok Now experience being introduced into the U.S. TikTok app, announced last week. But as an independent mobile app, it allows users to opt in to receive the push notifications just for these social check-ins — even if they have their TikTok notifications silenced.
While the company had noted the TikTok Now experience would be offered as its own mobile app in some markets, it hadn’t yet launched that app at the time of its announcement on Thursday, September 15, 2022. It also wasn’t clear which markets would gain access to the feature within TikTok itself or as a standalone app, or when the app would roll out.
According to data from mobile intelligence firm Sensor Tower, the TikTok Now app launched globally late on Sunday, September 18, 2022. Despite being a new major offering from one of the world’s most popular apps, the TikTok Now app has yet to rank in the Top Overall iPhone apps chart in any market as of the time of writing.
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Great Paywalled Content
How influencers became the new power brokers for media agencies - Digiday
A reported 10,000 eager customers lined up in the first 10 minutes after MrBeast, one of the world’s biggest YouTubers, opened the first physical restaurant in his burger chain.
MrBeast, whose name is Jimmy Donaldson, has over 104 million subscribers on YouTube, and following his enormous success online, decided to expand his popularity into the fast-food business.
His venture Beast Burger was first launched in December 2020 as a ghost restaurant — a delivery-only service with burgers cooked in the kitchens of partnered restaurants — starting with 300 locations, and then expanding to 1,000 locations across the U.S. and Europe. In July 2021, the YouTuber announced on Twitter he had already made $100 million in revenue from the business.
Instagram Building a Tool for Creators to Make Media Kits Within the App - Business Insider
Instagram is dipping its toes even further into influencer marketing with a new internal prototype.
The platform is testing a product that would help creators make media kits directly within the app, the company confirmed to Insider.
The prototype was first spotted by Italian mobile developer Alessandro Paluzzi, who reverse engineers Instagram code to produce renderings of prototypes before they launch to the public. According to Paluzzi's renderings, creators will be able to write a bio, highlight their favorite posts, showcase collaborations with brands and other accounts, and provide audience data (aka Insights).
As the influencer marketing industry has matured over the last several years, big-tech platforms and creator economy startups have tried to create tools and features around media kits.
In January, YouTube launched a media kit tool for video content creators on the platform. Meanwhile, new startups like MediaKits help creators make interactive, web-based media kits with audience demographics updated in real-time.
Providing creators with the option to make an Instagram-native media kit would follow the platform's already apparent path toward inserting itself deeper into influencer marketing (an entire industry that in part came about because of Instagram).
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