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- How Does The TikTok Algorithm Work?
- MrBeast goes full Willy Wonka
- Whalar Taps Former Hasbro, Snapchat and Spotify Execs
- Khaby Lame x Hugo BOSS
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Great Reads
How The Vacationeer partners with creators to power its travel influencer marketing campaigns
The pandemic restricted travel, which has left many of us excited to begin traveling again. This leaves travel brands in an excellent position to market to potential travelers through social media marketing campaigns. To give you an edge, we had a chance to sit down with Jonathan LASTNAME from The Vacationeer to chat about how he partners with influencers to drive qualified leads to his travel business.
Jonathan has a background in real estate – both as a real estate agent and a real estate investor in the Massachusetts area. Today, he owns The Vacationeer, a travel agency specializing in Disney vacations, such as bookings for Disneyland, Disney World, Universal Studios, and the Disney Cruise Line.
With The Vacationeer, Jonathan frequently works with influencers to market his business. He started by identifying his target audience, which is people who are not necessarily searching for information on planning a Disney vacation but are people who are scrolling through social media and enjoying browsing travel content.
He specifically looks to work with influencers who are not “general travel” influencers but influencers in the Disney travel space. His personal strategy is to work with larger influencers because of the higher likelihood of getting a better return. Jonathan occasionally works with influencers on different levels, but he says he typically prefers working with larger influencers.
Once he’s identified influencers that The Vacationeer is interested in working with, Jonathan will launch into his influencer marketing strategy.
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Campaign Insights
International TikTok star Khaby Lame, Kendall Jenner, Hailey Bieber Star in Hugo BOSS Rebrand Campaign
Dubbed #BeYourOwnBoss and featuring BOSS’s Spring/Summer 2022 collection, the campaign (shot by Mikael Jansson) stars famous faces Kendall Jenner, Hailey Bieber and Joan Smalls, South Korean sensation Lee Min-ho, rapper Future, international TikTok star Khaby Lame, British boxer Anthony Joshua, Italian tennis pro Matteo Berrettini, and German runner Alica Schmidt.
In tandem with the campaign, Hugo Boss says it is rolling out “a true 360-degree rebrand” across all consumer touchpoints. It will feature a new logo with bolder, more graphic typeface meant to convey a contemporary look. The brand’s design direction, retail buys, store concepts and messaging is getting an overhaul as well, “centered on a more playful and casual aesthetic while staying true to the brand codes of dressing excellence.” Overseeing the shift is CEO Daniel Grieder.
Playful and casual are two adjectives that describe TikTok star Lame, who is one of the most popular personalities on the platform with 129 million followers. A Sengalese talent based in Italy, Lame regularly posts wordless reaction clips, and the hilarity translated to social fame and being featured in the pages of The New York Times and on CNN.
MrBeast goes full Willy Wonka, launches his own Feastables food brand
Donaldson is officially debuting his new Feastables brand and consumer-products company, starting with the MrBeast Bar—three flavored chocolate bars made with only four or five simple, plant-based, gluten-free ingredients. (As someone with Crohn’s disease, Donaldson has long found it challenging to find products that meet his needs and standards on ingredients and are also fun.)
Naturally, this would not be a MrBeast production without an elaborate, epic-level stunt-of-a-launch. To start, Donaldson has announced a $1 million sweepstakes in prizes and offers, including Teslas, Sea Doos, Super73 electric bikes, Artesian Builds gaming computers, Turtle Beach gaming bundles, Beats by Dre earbuds, a lifetime of chocolate, cash prizes, MrBeast merch, and (believe it or not) more. Then, over the coming months, Donaldson is going Full Wonka and inviting 10 lucky Grand Prize winners to travel to compete in a MrBeast video for the chance to win MrBeast’s Chocolate Factory.
No7 Beauty Company educates influencers on skin care with new initiative
No7 Beauty Company has announced the launch of a skin care education programme in partnership with the British Beauty Council (BBC) to help educate up-and-coming social creators on skin care.
Tackling misinformation in the beauty industry, the first-of-its- kind initiative aims to up-skill creators by providing education modules designed to tackle misleading and incorrect content on social media platforms.
The online course has been created by educational technology company Learning with Experts and will form the starting point of the No7 Beauty Company Creator Collective.
David MacDonald, Vice President of Communications at No7 Beauty Company, said: “As a leader in the beauty industry, we have a responsibility to ensure people receive high quality, factually correct content about skin care so they can make informed choices about the beauty products they purchase.
“Our ambition is that through this work, we can support social creators in becoming true skin care experts creating valuable and factual content for their platforms that consumers can trust, and we hope to support their career growth in the beauty industry as a result.”
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Interesting People
Dr. Kelly McBride: Using PR Packages To Boost Your Influencer Marketing
The presentation of the PR box may sound nice. However, if you send these boxes to influencers with millions of followers, they may get lost among the elaborate and luxurious PR boxes they are used to getting. Emerald Vines Media targeted small and mid-sized influencers with target audiences that best fit their needs to avoid this conundrum.
Of course, Dr. McBride doesn’t expect influencers to be wowed by the idea of free products when so many companies are vying for their attention. To stand out from the crowd, she uses a unique hook to catch their attention.
Imagine getting an email with the subject line: How Would You Like An 8,000 Year Old Wine?
Thanks to her experience in public relations, Dr. McBride is used to needing to pitch and get people’s attention immediately, which helped her come up with this hook. Of course, the wine itself isn’t 8,000 years old, but the country (Georgia) it’s from is.
She saw immediate results with this email subject line. The rest of the email was simple – going over the origins of the wine and offering them a box of complimentary wine. There was never any mention of expecting anything in return. To date, they have gotten a fantastic response from people who mention their products on Instagram, TikTok, and even write blog reviews on their products.
Business-Owner-Turned-Influencer Michelle Madonna on the Evolution of the Instagram Influencer
After establishing a women’s accessories company in 2011 called Flower Children Only, Madonna was one of the first to use Instagram as a platform to share her business. Thanks to the relevance and shareability in her products, Flower Children Only quickly rose to popularity among celebrities like Paris Hilton, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Gigi Hadid. Acquiring a strong following base, after almost 10 years, Madonna used her Instagram platform to transition into a full-time career as an influencer/content creator.
Today, the influencer boasts more than 261K followers on Instagram where she shares fashion tips, outfit ideas, and realistic try-on’s for girls with similar body types. As a Latina, Madonna additionally hoped that her content would reach other minorities that seek fashion inspiration on how to dress and style based on their body types and ethnic background. Still, Madonna’s content remains relatable to more than just minorities. Sharing her looks for different seasons and occasions as well as her travel chronicles and brand partnership collaborations, the influencer has managed to land opportunities to work with brands like Delta Airlines, Lexus USA, UGG, The Bachelor on ABC, and Zappos.
“When I started my business, Instagram was a different place,” Madonna says. “But what I love about it is how it continues to evolve with what’s going on in life. I look at my fashion from then and see how my style has evolved too and I love that I get to share that with my followers.”
Chicago TikTok star Chrissy Chlapecka talks authenticity, internet fame
Though Chlapecka is sure of who she is, strangers on the internet are not always supportive. She, like many social media stars, has to contend with trolls and hate comments, most of which she said come from men.
But Chlapecka said she actually enjoys responding to hate comments, and doing so in a satirical way helps her take them less personally. She said the most challenging part of being a creator is not the negativity she receives but “inner saboteur” and the pressure she places on herself.
“It is really hard, like, just unreasonable expectations,” she said. “Looking at other people and being like, ‘God, right now they’re doing so much better than me. Why am I not there?’ ”
Chlapecka said the pressure she feels can cause her to burn out quickly, so she has had to learn to take time for herself to recharge. Additionally, she said she has been able to lean on her management team — which connects social media stars with brands — as well as other influencers across the country to help her navigate the difficulties of online fame.
Though the millions of eyes on Chlapecka can be “a lot,” she is thankful for the experience and said she is in a better place than ever before because of her followers.
‘It’ Girl Influencer Shea Marie Signs With CAA
Creative Artists Agency has signed Shea Marie, the influencer with 1.4 million Instagram followers.
Originally from California, Marie — showcasing her style and frequent travels on social media — is a fashion and lifestyle content creator. But she’s also the founder and chief executive officer of swimwear, resortwear and activewear label Same, launched in 2016 and seen on the likes of Kendall Jenner and Tyra Banks. The luxury brand is sold at Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue and Harrods.
The influencer has also ventured in beauty, introducing a skin care and body care line, The Feelist, in 2020. Available direct-to-consumer, the brand utilizes plant-based ingredients.
In September, industry veteran and modeling agent Anne Nelson joined CAA’s fashion division — a department that continues to grow.
“I look forward to deepening CAA’s connection between fashion and creative clients alike through innovative deal-making strategies that harness the agency’s resources in popular culture,” she told WWD at the time.
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Industry News
How Does The TikTok Algorithm Work? Here's What You Need To Know
The TikTok algorithm is a complex system designed to serve users content based on what it believes to be of high interest.
According to TikTok: “The system recommends content by ranking videos based on a combination of factors — starting from interests you express as a new user and adjusting for things you indicate you’re not interested in, too.”
What Factors Influence the TikTok Algorithm:
The TikTok algorithm serves videos to users based on a number of different factors, including:
Video Likes, Comments, Shares, Completions, and Re-watches: The more engagements and views a TikTok video receives, the more likely it will be served to larger audiences.
Subject Matter: TikTok is great at categorizing content based on user interests, so subject matter is an important factor when it comes to reach potential on the app.
Device Settings: The algorithm recognizes a users device settings such as posting location and language — typically sharing local content.
Audio: When a video includes a trending sound or song, the more likely it’s served to a larger audience.
Hashtags and caption keywords: Including hashtags and keywords in your captions informs the algorithm what your content is about.
User Activity and "Not Interested" Feedback: The TikTok algorithm is always trying to serve high-interest videos to every user, and it uses previous activity to determine this. Likes, comments, shares, and re-watches are all major indicators of interest.
YouTube Shorts - Everything You Need To Know About It
In September 2020, Chris Jaffe, the VP of Product Management at YouTube, announced the launch of a new ‘short-form video experience’, called YouTube Shorts. This concept was first rolled out in India, where it managed to gain an incredible amount of traction and showed promising results from the start. YouTube Shorts allows influencers to produce short-form video content using a smartphone camera, making it accessible for all creators.
YouTube officials aimed to create a new platform that would increase engagement and revenue streams, allowing smaller influencers to gain more views and followers. After the success in India, YouTube Shorts launched in the US in May 2021, again earning a similar amount of praise. This new platform was then implemented onto the YouTube homepage, making it easier for viewers to catch up with their favorite influencers’ Shorts."
Welcome to the Link-in-Bio Economy
Like a lot of singers, Piper Rockelle has a link at the top of her TikTok profile page where her over 8 million followers can check out her music. But instead of sending them to YouTube or Spotify, the link opens up an external landing page crammed with a little bit of everything. Splashed across a looping clip of Rockelle is a stack of hyperlinked blocks that direct fans to her merch store, her tour schedule, and her latest music video. You’ll also find a “love jar” that lets her accept tips, an “Ask Me Anything” form, an app where you can pay to pitch a dare for Rockelle to complete, and a private social feed that fans can unlock by either sending money or correctly answering a trivia question.
All of that is contained within Rockelle’s “link-in-bio”—one of the most coveted pieces of real estate on Instagram and TikTok. Both of the platforms are hyperlink deserts: Users can post only one or two external links anywhere on the sites, and the most important appears, yes, in the bio at the top of their profile. But why link to just one page if you don’t really have to? For a few years now, start-ups have attempted to maximize the space, offering clean, simple landing pages that stack multiple links on top of one another.
They’re not so simple anymore. An explosion of companies sporting names such as Shorby, Linkin.bio, Beacons, Tab Bio, and Koji—Rockelle’s tool of choice—are giving the link-in-bio a glow-up. Instead of just housing links, link-in-bios now allow their users to, say, embed a Spotify song, paywall a newsletter, and display NFTs (non-fungible tokens). These upgrades are turning the humble link-in-bio into a sprawling interactive page that rivals the capabilities of full websites. Link-in-bios aren’t maturing all on their own: Influencers are now leveraging their followings to build ever more sophisticated business juggernauts that include merch, brand sponsorships, and music releases. For these Instagram and TikTok stars, a stripped-down page of lists just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Airrack Raises $3 Million For YouTuber Film School
Creator Now, the online film school for would-be YouTubers, co-founded by Airrack — known for having scrappily amassed 1 million subscribers in less than a year — has raised $3 million in seed funding.
Investors include Upfront Ventures, Casey Neistat, Colin & Samir, Justin Kan, and Jack Conte. The venture is profitable, Airrack – whose real name is Eric Decker – tells Tubefilter, though is currently re-investing revenues back into the business.
Funding will be harnessed to grow the platform so it can welcome more creators. Down the line, Creator Now also intends to introduce more specified courses, including those around storytelling, brand partnerships, team-building, editing, and product development.
Decker launched Creator Now over the summer alongside Zack Honarvar (who serves as its CEO) and Kate Ward — both of One Day Entertainment, his management company. Every two months, the program invites groups of 300 participants – who pay $250 apiece – to participate in a six-week cohort.
Whalar Taps Former Hasbro, Snapchat and Spotify Execs
Whalar is undergoing some serious growth. The creator commerce company, which manages talent and launches influencer marketing campaigns with its own proprietary technology, just added three new executives. Marco Bertozzi is the president of Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), Jamie Gutfreund is the global CMO, and Gazmend Alushi is the president of measurement and analytics.
“Having been on the brand side and the agency side, I saw this as the future,” Gutfreund, who previously served as chief experience officer for Hasbro and CMO for MGA Entertainment, told Adweek. “I’ve seen the evolution of marketing for 20-plus years, and this is the most exciting space that has emerged.”
These new hires are part of Whalar’s push for a diverse and internationally based senior team as it expands into new markets, brands itself as a hub for both influencer marketing and SaaS, and grows its talent pool. Whalar’s client roster includes Nike, Apple and Mac Cosmetics, and the agency is an official marketing partner of Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
“We have unique ambitions to continue to grow significantly and be a leading force in the creator economy,” said Whalar global CEO Rob Horler in a statement. “To do that, we need to hire smart, and bringing on expertise in measurement, marketing and sales allows us to deliver on our must-see creative capabilities.”
Koji gets $20 million for tech that helps social media influencers make money
San Diego startup Koji, which provides an additional avenue for influencers on YouTube, Instagram and other social media sites to engage with followers and make money, said late Tuesday it has secured $20 million in new financing.
The funding brings the total raised by Koji — co-founded by Dimitry Shapiro and Sean Thielen — to $36 million. The company will use the funding to grow its engineering team and platform, as well as develop crypto offerings.
The company has created a parallel ecosystem for social media posters to interact with followers beyond the big platforms such Instagram and YouTube. Koji has about 200 apps that allow social media influences to add content to their Link in Bio landing pages. They range from easy-to-design games to a Tip Jar app to bigger utilities such as Shoutout, which lets influencers offer personalized videos to their fans. There are also e-commerce storefront apps.
Link in Bio services are tools in the social media space. Some large social media websites like Instagram allow posters to provide one link to non-Instagram websites on their personal page. But for those trying to build and monetize an audience on social media, one link sometimes isn’t enough. So, Koji and others such as Linktree have created what’s essentially a landing page template that can accommodate multiple links.
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Great Paywalled Content
U.S. Moving—Some Say Too Slowly—to Address TikTok Security Risk - WSJ
The Biden administration is moving to revise federal rules to address potential security risks from TikTok and other foreign-owned apps, eight months after opting not to pursue a forced shutdown of the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform.
The Commerce Department recently concluded a public-comment period on the proposed rule change, which would expand federal oversight to explicitly include apps that could be used by “foreign adversaries to steal or otherwise obtain data,” according to a filing in the Federal Register.
“That rule is going to be significant, and will be a tool in the way that we deal with the threat,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in an interview.
The U.S. military has already banned its members from using the app on government-issued devices. Some lawmakers including Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) say the White House is moving too slowly to come up with a comprehensive plan.
“TikTok remains a serious threat to U.S. national security and Americans’—especially children’s—personal privacy,” Mr. Rubio said. “The Biden administration undid critical measures that President Trump took against the app, and the timid steps it has taken on data security are not nearly enough.”
TikTok and Instagram travel guides add diversity to the business - The Washington Post
If Chicagoans are known for their Midwestern modesty, then Shermann “Dilla” Thomas is an outlier. While national news outlets seem fixated on the city’s gun violence and crime, Thomas has built an impressive audience by highlighting his hometown’s best qualities. As “Chicago’s TikTok historian,” he broadcasts snippets of cellphone video to 66,000 followers, revealing the Chicago origins of Motorola, the fireman’s pole and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
“I blame the city because we’re terrible with our own message,” Thomas said. “Everything great about America comes from Chicago, and I’m probably the only dude that ever says that.”
As a Black man who has spun his online success into a real-life tour business, Thomas stands out in a travel industry that predominantly centers the White experience. From airline pilots to travel start-ups, tourism authorities, advertising campaigns and influencing marketing, people of color have long been underrepresented. Internet personalities of color interviewed by The Washington Post say they don’t receive the same attention as their White counterparts, and some Black content creators have pointed out that brands have excluded them from trips."
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