4 Reasons Why You Should Book Influencer Ambassadors

We find that influencer ambassadors are crucial to brand marketing success and encourage you to seek out influencers who can serve as your trusted brand advocates.

1. Establish Continuity In Your Marketing

Ambassadorships form long-lasting relationships with influencers and develop marketing partnerships that can last months or even years. This allows you to integrate your brand into the influencer’s everyday life, telling a story through multiple rounds of posts and establishing brand familiarity with the influencer’s audience in the process. Continuity in marketing increases the likelihood of audiences purchasing a product, as the continued presence of the brand in an influencer’s content establishes trust and long-term loyalty.

2. Continue Relationships With Top-Performing Talent

If you are unsure of who to cast as your influencer ambassadors, look to top-performing talent from previous campaigns. Short-term partnerships are a great way to test the waters with different influencers, but once you have done so and have found the influencers who can effectively market your brand to their audience, you should prioritize working with them on a large-scale, long-term basis. These are your tried-and-true influencers. Booking them as ambassadors elevates the partnership and will likewise further elevate the content they produce.

3. Save Budgets With Cost-Efficient Package Deal

Long-term partnerships come with a larger upfront cost since they include several rounds of posts, but influencers will often offer multi-post partnerships at a discounted rate per post. For brands looking for the most cost-effective way to book influencers, we advise that it is more cost-efficient to book 10 influencers for 10 posts each than it is to book 100 influencers for 1 post each, and you will likely see better results in the long run, as well.

4. Experiment With New Platforms & Post Types

Multi-post partnerships allow you to experiment with different platforms and get creative with post types throughout the program. Leave room in your creative briefs and contracts to test out secondary social media platforms beyond your primary platforms and try out formats that stray from your typical marketing styles. You can lean on your influencers as creative collaborators, letting them brainstorm fun ideas that will make the content their own. With time and many posts to work with, you have the freedom to have some fun with the branded content your influencers put out.

7 Ways To Make Your Influencer Marketing Pop This Holiday Season

It’s officially time to map out your influencer marketing for the holiday season and begin booking influencers. With talks of inflation, which is expected to top 6% by Christmas according to the Pew Research Center, consumers are expected to spend less this year and be more mindful of purchases in general, which means your marketing campaigns must be expertly crafted and launched with plenty of time in advance to catch the attention of holiday shoppers.

There’s never been a better moment to lean heavily on influencer marketing, partnering with personality-driven creators who can demonstrate your brand’s key products and benefits through engaging and relatable content.

Strengthen your holiday campaigns by:

Planning ahead and launching early.

Holiday shopping starts earlier each year, with 31% of consumers in 2021 starting their holiday shopping before Halloween and 55% before Thanksgiving, according to a survey done by Jungle Scout. Expect that number to rise this year as consumers seek to avoid supply chain delays and seek out the best deals. With this in mind, you should plan to begin promoting holiday offerings in early October and ramp up in November to capture holiday consumers before they’ve checked off their shopping lists for the year. Even date-specific sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday should launch earlier than their traditional start so that you can advertise deals early.

Getting a head start on your holiday campaigns also means securing influencers before they become booked and locking them in before they charge a premium for last-minute holiday campaigns as well.

Partnering with strategically selected creators.

The creators you select for holiday influencer campaigns will be integral to the success of your marketing efforts, especially if you are seeking sales conversions. Creators who excel in short-form video content, have highly engaged audiences, and have a proven track record with sales conversions will be your key partners. Our extended network includes thousands of creators that we can match with your brand to ensure your goals are met.

Crafting creative that emphasizes value.

Consumers are inundated with a surplus of options these days, which is why emphasizing your brand’s benefits over the competition should be a focus of your campaign messaging. Provide influencer partners with unique discount codes to increase the campaign’s success and use influencer marketing to bring awareness to limited-time offers throughout the holiday season.

With consideration to the current economic landscape, consumers may be shopping for practical gifts, especially in the home and travel categories, while younger shoppers will likely still have trendy items on their wish lists. Take your brand’s target audiences into consideration when deciding what products to highlight for the holiday season and how influencers speak to your brand.

We can work with you to craft effective messaging that drives these points home and provide you with the right influencer partners to bring these messages to life through their content.

Activating Story content for limited-time offers and last-minute promotions.

Think of influencers as your valuable partners in informing consumers about important sales, back-in-stock items, and other informational content during the holiday season. Stories are a great way to highlight limited-time offers and time-sensitive information, like letting audiences know that a best-selling item is finally back in stock. This is why building up strong influencer relationships will give you a leg up during this busy season, as pre-existing business relationships will make it easier for you to add on last-minute campaign additions if needed.

Bringing company values to the forefront.

When faced with an overwhelming amount of choices on where to shop, consumers are mindful of supporting brands that have similar values. Showcase your charity partners and craft a campaign that features a charity component to bring your brand’s values to the forefront, using influencers with like-minded values to amplify your message.

Optimizing content.

Ad amplification is a necessary component of holiday marketing, but it is important to know that the digital ad space will become crowded as we near peak holiday shopping. Plan out your ad strategy in advance and monitor performance continually so you can make the best use of top-performing content and maximize your return on investment. Lytehouse’s team knows how to monitor and optimize ads across platforms, and can run your amplification program on your behalf.

Using the holiday season to jumpstart your 2023 ambassadorships.

Holiday is an important time for marketers, but don’t forget about a new year of marketing just beyond that! It is never too early to start thinking about your 2023 plans, and your holiday campaigns can be a great opportunity to test out influencer partners and assess potential 2023 ambassadors based on top-performing talent. With our team of influencer experts who can analyze campaign performance and provide key learnings for a new year of marketing, we can help you kick off your 2023 efforts on the best foot forward.

3 Tips To Maximizing Your Infleuncer Campaign’s Effectiveness

Just as we adjusted and adapted at the beginning of the pandemic to new normals in our strategies, we encourage you to adopt the key lessons learned in 2020 for your upcoming campaigns, considering a potential economic downturn in the latter half of the year: larger flexibility around posting, leveraging influencers to create content for brand usage, and leaning into the strengths of influencer partners for campaigns that will bring you the most bang for your buck.

Marketing budgets often see cuts in times of economic uncertainty, which means we will all need to adjust our strategies to accomplish more with fewer resources. To do so, we advise refining your campaigns in 3 major areas: influencer selection, content strategy, and campaign optimization.

Enhance Your Strategy Via:

1) Thoughtful Influencer Selection

Your influencer selection needs to be deliberate and planned out. The farther out you can lock in influencer partners, the better prepared you will be, with plenty of time to develop campaign content and the ability to book influencers at their standard rates. Contracting influencers for long-term partnerships can help ameliorate costs while also building the efficacy of your campaign. We also recommend working with influencers who have proven track records with sales conversions (either through Instagram Shop or another affiliate program) if your goal is to achieve high sales conversions through influencer content.

2) A Defined Content Strategy

Focus on content types that will maximize your campaign goals. For Instagram, Stories are typically slightly less expensive than in-feed posts and can feature clickable links, ideal for brands with sales conversions top of mind. Short-form video is also a priority on Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms, with the ability to run them as whitelisted ads, a simple way to maximize return. 

3) Campaign Optimization

Ad amplification and usage can run up influencer fees, which is why we recommend adding these on to influencer campaigns on an as-needed basis as a way to pay for only what you will use. Contracting for extensive usage upfront might seem easier, but for brands looking to cut costs, you may end up paying more for content that ends up going unused. Instead, assess organic content performance and select the optimal content pieces for ad placements and additional usage based on how well they do.

Representation In Marketing Is An Ongoing Commitment. Here’s How To Keep Up The Momentum.

We’ve been ecstatic to see brands significantly improve their diversity efforts in marketing, and we want to continue striving for better representation now and go forward. Let us help you get there so that diversity goes beyond surface-level marketing and truly reflects the core values of your brand.

At Lytehouse, we’ve made it our commitment to propose casts that are diverse and represent creators of different races, genders, sexualities, religions, disabilities, body shapes, ages, and cultures. While the majority of brands we work with are receptive to these casts, we have also dealt with brands that are hesitant to feature diverse casts, not out of prejudice, but out of budget constraints or fear of backlash on social media. We understand that budgets can’t possibly accommodate the entire spectrum of diversity in a single campaign, but as our partner, we can ensure that when you look back, your campaigns over the course of time are collectively inclusive.

Backlash, on the other hand, is inevitable, but we’d like to put it into context; the 90/9/1 Rule, a concept coined by Jason Nielsen, states that in online communities, 90% of users do not contribute to online conversations, 9% contribute a little, and only 1% of users contribute frequently. In other words, the vocal backlash comes from a small percentage of consumers and does not reflect the actual sentiment of the majority, and the digital conversation is never the full conversation.

The long-term benefits of representation in your marketing will also outweigh the short-term perceived negatives; earned media from press is one such benefit, as is gaining attention and support for the communities you are representing, expanding your brand’s audience base, and building a supportive and diverse community. Representation alone will not solve all the issues that plague our country, but it does help and it does have a tremendous impact on those who see themselves in media where they couldn’t see themselves before. It is why we here at Lytehouse have established a commitment to diversity in casting to ensure that the campaigns we work on affirm our own values.

Our Reminders for Brands

Utilize marketing as a way to highlight your brand’s values.

Your customer base is diverse. When your marketing reflects and represents your customers, they can clearly see where your brand’s values lie. Committing to diverse representation in your marketing lets customers know what your brand stands for and helps humanize your brand.

Remember: diversity comes in many forms.

The best inclusive campaigns celebrate diversity and intersectionality, featuring models, influencers, and/or everyday people of different races, genders, sexualities, ages, body types, religions, cultures, and disabilities. 

Represent, don’t tokenize.

It is apparent to consumers when brands are using diversity for some surface-level representation brownie points. Casting is only the first step; once your influencer partners have been selected, craft your brand’s creative briefs to highlight each individual’s story, providing plenty of creative room in your briefs to let the influencers guide the storytelling. Additionally, your diversity initiatives and support for social movements need to be backed up by your brand’s actual politics and policies. Publicize your brand’s charity and nonprofit partners, provide ways for your brand’s community to get involved with partner organizations, and speak out about social injustices.

Commit to ongoing goals for representation.

Truly diverse marketing does not simply mean working with LGBTQIA+ creators during Pride or Black creators during Black History Month. It is an ongoing goal that should be ever-present in your campaigns. Small brands may not be able to book a diverse roster of 100 creators every month, but across a whole year of marketing initiatives, you should be able to assess your influencer partnerships and see a diverse roster of creators represented.

Acknowledge pay disparities within marginalized groups.

The pay gap exists in the influencer world as well. Brands understandably want to maximize their budgets for influencer campaigns, but it is important to recognize that there is no set pricing rate for influencers and that influencers from minority or underrepresented communities might charge a higher rate than another influencer with a similar profile and following. This can be due to access to a diverse and highly engaged audience regardless of the follower tier they fall under.

Expand your goals beyond simply sales conversions.

Related to payment and maximizing budget, brands tend to sacrifice diversity goals in favor of sales conversion metrics, which we view as shortsighted and detrimental to a brand’s long-term goals. While we understand that sales are the ultimate end goal for brands, we encourage you to think beyond short-term sales conversion and consider additional metrics like community engagement, brand awareness, and brand permeance. These metrics will demonstrate if your brand is succeeding at building and maintaining relevance in culture, which will bring new customers into your brand’s community and lead to long-term success.  

Work with creators as partners.

Bringing in diverse creators as true collaborative partners will help ensure that your marketing initiatives move beyond surface-level representation and achieve true representation. Cast influencers as ambassadors, collaborate with them on upcoming launches, develop co-branded collections with them, ask for their feedback on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and take their lead when it comes to speaking to the communities they represent.

The Main Advantages of Working With An Influencer Agency

Harness the expertise of a full-service agency.

Brands are investing more into influencer marketing than ever before, which means scaling up a marketing strategy and spending more resources planning, executing, and reporting campaigns. Below are 3 reasons why we recommend working with an influencer marketing agency like Lytehouse to facilitate your influencer marketing campaigns:

1) Agencies have fostered strong influencer relationships.

Agencies like Lytehouse have worked with a wide range of influencers of every following size and niche, with a database of thousands and the inside scoop on past campaign performance. We can assess your campaign goals and efficiently pair your brand with the right influencer partners, saving you countless hours of sifting through influencer profiles and wondering if they’ll get the job done.

2) Agencies can offer key learnings.

We are constantly monitoring campaign performance and assessing the data, utilizing a suite of analytical tools to provide brand clients with actionable insights along the way. With our years of insider knowledge, we can assess performance and help you recalibrate for the future, providing your team with key learnings that will make the next campaign even more successful than the last.

3) Agencies have full-time staff to quickly scale up campaigns.

Influencer campaigns are dynamic and ever-evolving. As you scale up your influencer programs, you’ll want to have an on-call team to help you quickly and effectively scale up your campaigns so that you can achieve your goals in our rapidly-changing space of digital media.

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Want to work with Lytehouse on your next influencer campaign? Let’s chat.

Monitoring KPIs and Determining Success in Gaming Influencer Campaigns

Now that you know why brands are getting into gaming-centric campaigns (more on that here) let’s discuss how you can track campaign performance and find success in the space.

Gaming influencer campaigns are often geared towards brand awareness and brand affinity among an increasingly valuable audience; however, they are now also being leveraged for product purchases, launches, and user acquisition.

The Key Performance Indicators to Track for Gaming Campaigns

• Average Concurrent Viewers (Avg. CCV): The average viewership at a given moment throughout the stream

• Peak Concurrent Viewers (Peak CCV): The highest level of concurrent viewership reached during the stream

• Unique Viewers: How many unique viewers engaged with the stream

• Views: Impressions of the stream

The best way to guarantee your influencer campaign in the gaming space is a success is by partnering with influencers who are passionate about the brand partnership and enthusiastic with their audience. That energy will translate to higher audience engagement.

How Brands Can Engage & Find Success

Brands have the opportunity to activate alongside creators in a depth of ways, including sponsored streams and live-streamed events, VODS and long-form series, and short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram. The brands prioritizing these areas are finding more ways to creatively own the gaming scene alongside creators. 

A big trend has been the creativity and ownership of esports content by the creators themselves. From creator tournaments like Ludwig’s Fortnite Mondays, live-streamed series like OTK’s series Schooled, and big stunts and challenge videos with influencers like Mr. Beast and PrestonPlayz, gaming creators are often at the heart of today’s innovations.

It’s worth noting that while production quality is an important factor to consider, the true keys to success in content include showcasing personalities, bringing creators together, and telling entertaining, organic-first stories.

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Have questions about launching a gaming campaign? We can walk you through the whole process. Get in touch. 

4 Reasons Why Brands Are Getting Into Gaming Marketing

The old cliché that gamers are either male kids with no purchasing power or social misfits still living in their mothers’ basements is long outdated: we've seen a 79% increase in sponsored streams on Twitch and YouTube, and there's a big reason why.

The fact of the matter is that gaming cannot be ignored. The gaming industry is projected to reach a value of $175 billion in the United States this year, with 227 million gamers in the United States in 2021 according to a study from the Entertainment Software Association. As it pertains to the world of influencer marketing, gaming influencers are incredibly popular, with 1 in 10 adults worldwide following at least 1 gaming influencer according to a study from market research company YouGov, and amongst teens in the United States, gaming influencers are the second-followed influencer type behind music personalities. 

Beyond the high usership, gaming audiences are highly engaged with the content they consume. 30 million people are tuning in to Twitch to watch live gaming content on a daily basis, there were over 800 million gaming-specific tweets in Q1 2022 alone, and the gaming spend is expected to exceed a record-breaking $200 billion this year. Across watching games, talking about gaming, and spending on games, a new kind of fan experience is being forged through this industry.

And while we are discussing gaming today, platforms like Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Facebook Gaming have found success beyond video game live streams, with plenty of popular creators hosting cooking streams, conversational chats, and other lifestyle streaming content. The possibilities of activating within the gaming community are essentially endless.

1) Young Audience Demographic

With 38% of gamers falling between the ages of 18 to 34, the gaming space is ideal for reaching Gen-Z and young millennial consumers. It is also more gender-balanced than many assume, with 41% of gamers in the US identifying as female in 2021, meaning gaming is a great space to reach young consumers of all genders.

2) Hyper-Customization

There are significant levels of creative concepts and executions that can be pursued, especially compared to the established sponsorship formats of traditional sports, music, and film. Gaming integrations go beyond purely media and product placement, and into owned events, gamification, and experiential content. 

3) Audience Engagement

Creators on platforms like Twitch have subscribers that can pay a monthly fee for access to exclusive content, meaning that they have truly opted into the creator’s content and are more likely to engage with it, including branded content. Partner with gaming influencers who have a strong subscriber base if you wish to see high engagement and conversion rates.

4) Depth of Opportunity

While streaming apps like Twitch are dominant in the world of gaming influencers, influencers in the space activate across social platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, allowing for brands to develop powerful omnichannel campaigns that reach varied audiences. 

7 Places Where You Can Amplify Influencer Content

Expand your amplification strategy. Expand your campaign reach.

Most brands spend the majority of their amplification efforts on Meta-owned properties Facebook and Instagram (and if you need some tips on Facebook amplification, we have those), but there are a number of platforms that allow amplification:

1) TikTok

Brands on TikTok can amplify and whitelist influencer content to run as video ads. They can also boost brand-posted content to target audiences.

2) Pinterest

While Pinterest doesn’t support the option to whitelist influencer content at the moment, brands can run photo, video, shopping, and carousel Pins as ads.

3) Twitter

Twitter’s Promoted Ads feature allows brands to promote Tweets to specific audiences (these Tweets don’t have to show up on the brand’s profile). Brands can also whitelist Influencer content to create Promoted Ads that appear from the influencer’s handle.

4) Snapchat

Snapchat supports a number of advertising options, including pre- and mid-roll ads, branded filters and lenses, story ads, and catalogs. 

5) LinkedIn

LinkedIn provides a number of advertising options, including image, video, carousel, and event ads, as well as message ads and pre-filled forms for lead generation. 

6) YouTube

YouTube allows brands to run pre-roll and mid-roll video ads.

7) Hulu

Hulu has recently launched the Beta for their self-service advertising platform, allowing brands to set target audiences and market video content during Hulu content ad breaks.

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Now that you know where you can amplify influencer content, let’s work together to strategize your next influencer marketing campaign. Get in touch with us here.

Why Did My Influencer Campaign Fail?

What happens when a campaign doesn’t meet expectations?

When a campaign fails to meet expected benchmarks, this is typically a result of one of a few things:

Poor Budgeting

The most common culprit of underperforming campaigns is a lack of budget necessary to book quality influencers at a large enough volume to achieve a high return on investment.

Lack of Strategy

We see plenty of people try a generic strategy or one-size-fits-all approach that doesn’t translate to the product being marketed. Planning and strategizing your influencer approach is essential to seeing results.

Too Much Client Control Over Creative

Overly-strict creative briefs and scripts may seem like good ways to ensure all brand talking points are hit, but they can easily hinder an influencer’s creativity and ability to make branded content come across naturally.

Unrealistic Benchmarks

Industry standards are always shifting, which is why we are constantly keeping a pulse on major changes and adjusting benchmarks accordingly, but it’s easy to measure against outdated or irrelevant benchmarks. We also see brands—especially those focused primarily on sales metrics—fail to consider variables like product pricing, influencer content messaging, website UX, and other factors that can have an impact on conversions.

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Work with an agency like Lytehouse and we’ll make sure you are setting yourself up for success, not failure. We can guide you through budgeting, strategy, benchmarks, and everything in between to make your influencer programs a hit.

What Goes Into Influencer Rates?

What is the monetary value of influencer marketing? It’s a question we get asked all the time, especially when it comes to allocating budgets toward influencer programs.

After all, influencer marketing has been heralded as a way to receive a strong return on investment for smaller budgets than traditional advertising requires. So why are influencer rates all over the place, and why can it seem so expensive to launch an influencer campaign? Let’s break it down:

Know what goes into influencer fees.

When you book an influencer, you are paying for:

• Photography/videography

• Model(s)

• Creative direction

• Location

• Photo/video editing

• Copywriting

• Agency fees (potentially)

• Usage rights (potentially)

• Exclusivity (potentially)

All within that one influencer fee, whereas those costs are spread over multiple departments, employees, and outside services for most companies. 

While many companies measure traditional marketing efforts in terms of CPM, that metric traditionally only accounts for media fees. When calculating influencer CPM, you must also account for influencer, agency, production, usage, and exclusivity fees in addition to media fees, so it’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Additional factors can also have an impact on what an influencer charges for a project:

• Scope of work

• Production costs

• Exclusivity and usage rights

• Brand affinity

• Influencer demand

• Caliber of influencer

• Engagement and conversion rates

• Niche

There is no formula for influencer rates.

Each influencer has the ability to set their own price for branded content, combining both quantitative (following, engagement metrics) and qualitative (demand, brand affinity) factors to determine what they charge. This is why you can speak to two influencers who on paper have near-identical profiles and present two varied fees for the same project.

Working with an agency such as Lyehouse will help you understand the larger landscape of influencer rates. While there isn’t one “industry standard” for determining rates, we continuously monitor project fees in this ever-changing industry and can help you separate the realistic numbers from the outrageous.

Provide clear and fair payment terms.

Paid partnerships are the main source of income for many influencers, so it is important to present clear and fair payment terms when partnering with influencers. For one-off partnerships, a net-30 payment is typical, but for larger programs, we suggest being flexible with payment terms to ensure creators are receiving compensation in a timely manner. This may come in the form of 50/50 payment terms so that influencers aren’t waiting until the program is complete to receive any payment.

Including payment terms that are fair and get influencers compensated in a timely manner will only improve your reputation amongst influencers and help keep the influencer marketing industry transparent and fair for all.

If you're ready to get started on your 2022 influencer marketing campaigns, don't be afraid to reach out.

What To Include (And What To Avoid) In Your Influencer Campaign Brief

Creative briefs should be less prescriptive & one-size-fits-all to allow influencers to do what they do best: creating content that tells a captivating and authentic story that speaks to their audience.

What creative briefs should include:

Scope of Work

The content requirements for the campaign, including platforms and post types. Consider a flexible scope that allows creators to choose content types they are best suited for based on social presence and consumer relationships across those channels.

Timeline Details

Set expectations for when drafts should be received, when content needs to go live, and how long amplified content will run (if part of the scope).

Do’s and Don’ts

What must creators absolutely include within their content? This could be brand tags or hashtags, photo requirements...on the other hand, is there anything that would trigger an immediate reshoot? Spell out any do’s and don’ts plainly so that there is no confusion on what the brand is looking for.

A Holistic Overview of Content Guidelines

Provide an overview of key talking points, visual requirements, and the overall storyline of the campaign. 

Examples of Content the Brand is Looking For

Examples of visual and caption content that the brand loves help illustrate exactly what the brand is seeking out of influencer content. While brands should not expect influencer partners to directly recreate example content, it helps give everyone a clear understanding of content expectations.

Want successful influencer content? Don’t do these things in your creative brief:

DON’T Provide a script or caption that influencers must read/post word-for-word.

Social media users are savvy to branded content and won’t be moved by generic, overly-branded messaging. Allow room for each influencer to tell a story through their content and make the campaign their own.

DON’T include frame-by-frame guidelines on what content needs to look like.

Likewise, a rigorous frame-by-frame outline of requirements will stifle an influencer’s creativity and prohibit them from making the content their own. Instead, provide a holistic overview of required talking points but allow flexibility for the creator to make their content unique.

DON’T require influencers to post on a platform or create a content type that they’ve never shared before.

Unless you’re activating an A-list celebrity to create their first post on a social media platform (think: Jennifer Aniston finally joining Instagram to promote the Friends reunion) we advise against requiring an influencer to post on a brand new platform or create a type of content they haven’t shared before. It’s why we recommend a flexible scope of work that allows the individual influencers to select the content types they are best at making. If your brand is insistent that every influencer partner post to a specific platform, do the research into suggested influencers ahead of time to ensure that each one has the ability to create that type of content.

Need help crafting your influencer campaigns? Lytehouse can help! Let’s work together.

What To Know About Amplifying Influencer Content

Social media amplification has been an effective tool for brands looking to maximize their advertising dollars and efficiently reach new potential customers.

New privacy settings and changes in data collection have made targeted amplification trickier, but with strategic tactics and performance monitoring, we still find amplification to be a powerful means to extend the reach of influencer content and marketing efforts. And when you partner with Lytehouse, we work to create a customized amplification strategy that meets your brand’s individual marketing needs.

Whitelisting vs. Boosting

There are 2 main types of social media amplification: boosting and whitelisting.

Boosting, or using the Branded Content tool on Facebook and Instagram, is the simpler of the two. This allows a brand to boost out an influencer’s post exactly as it appears on their feed and extend it to a larger audience. This is quick and easy to do, but lacks the options to customize copy and imagery for different performance metrics or target a lookalike audience, and does not provide detailed data past 14 days.

Whitelisting is where influencers give brand partners access to their accounts in order to modify and promote content directly from the brand account. Whitelisting allows brands to customize captions, images, and calls-to-action to target different performance metrics, provides the option to dark post content (where a sponsored post appears to come from an influencer’s profile but does not appear on their feed), and allows access to detailed metrics. 

How does whitelisting affect influencer rates?

Influencers typically charge an added fee to allow brands the ability to whitelist content. It is important to clearly lay out where and for how long your brand intends to amplify influencer content so that fees can be determined accordingly.

These factors typically affect influencer rates when amplification is added on:

Content Usage: Influencers will charge an added fee for brands to use influencer-created content for amplification purposes.

Duration of Whitelisting Content: The longer your brand requests access to whitelist influencer content, the higher their fee will be. 

Nature of the Brand and/or Content: Influencers can charge a premium for partnerships that discuss potentially sensitive topics.

How can I optimize content for performance-based metrics?

Amplification is a game of trial and error. Test different combinations of captions, images, and CTAs for different marketing goals, try out different audiences, budgets, and durations, then assess what’s working and recalibrate your strategy from there. Or you can work with an agency like Lytehouse that can do all the heavy lifting for you and run amplification in-house.

For more information on whitelisting, read our Whitelisting vs. Boosting blog post.

Lytehouse’s Influencer Marketing Dictionary

We use a lot of lingo in the influencer marketing world.

If you’ve ever come across an industry term you’re unfamiliar with, or an acronym you can’t decipher, this is your secret weapon to knowing all the essential industry terms and sounding like a total pro.

Affiliate Marketing

A marketing model in which brand affiliates earn a commission on sales made through their promotion for a brand, usually tracked through personalized affiliate links or codes.

Amplification

Putting ad spend behind social media content to extend the reach of the content beyond the poster’s pre-existing followers. 

Analytics

The numerical data available for social media posts and accounts. 

Also referred to as: metrics, insights

Average Watch Time

The mean number of how long a piece of video content has been viewed divided by the total number of viewers.

Why it’s important: Average watch time is an important metric in determining if the majority of viewers are watching a piece of video content all the way through. An average watch time that is close to the total duration of the video indicates that the majority of viewers are watching the video all the way through, while a lower average watch time indicates that most viewers are not completing the video.

Awareness

A common goal for influencer campaigns in which a brand seeks to extend the familiarity of the brand amongst consumers. 

Benchmarks

The hypothetical goal set ahead of time to gauge future campaign performance. Typically set using industry standards to present an approximate idea of how content will perform.

Boosting

A type of amplification tactic that allows a social media account to put ad spend behind a pre-existing post and amplify it to a larger audience. With boosting, you can add in a call-to-action but you cannot make edits to the caption or visual components of the post. Boosted posts also have limited audience targeting capabilities.

Learn more: To learn more about boosting and another form of social media amplification called whitelisting, check out this blog post.

Call-To-Action

A sentence, phrase, or button that encourages viewers to take a particular action. Common examples include “Shop Now” or “Learn More” with a link to the relevant product or website. 

(Campaign) Brief

the set of guidelines that a brand or agency shares with an influencer that details the creative expectations for the campaign. 

Campaign

A marketing program run by a brand or agency.

Celebrity Influencer

Influencers who are public figures and typically known for their profession outside of social media. Actors, musicians, athletes, authors, and television personalities can all be considered celebrity influencers. Like macro-influencers, celebrity influencers generally have large, general followings and are ideal brand partners for increasing brand awareness and securing press coverage.

Content Creator

Someone who creates photo and/or video content, typically shared to social media platforms or their own website. See also: influencer

Conversion

The ability to turn consumer views into purchases.

Cost-Per-Mille (CPM)

The price an advertiser pays to achieve one thousand views on a piece of advertising content. 

Also known as: Cost-Per-Thousand (CPT)

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

The cost of advertising a piece of content compared to the number of clicks said piece of content earns.

CTR (click-through-rate)

The percentage of viewers that click through to a link on an ad or other piece of linked content compared to the total number of viewers.

Dark Posting

When a promoted social media post appears to come from an influencer or brand’s social media account but does not appear on their profile feed, or as an organic post in follower’s timeline feeds.

Deliverables

The assets that an influencer agrees to provide for a brand campaign. These can include social media posts, event appearances, photo or video assets for brand usage, etc. 

Demographics

The data behind an audience’s makeup. This can include statistical data on the locations, genders, ages, interests, and behaviors of social media followings.

FTC Disclosure

Identifying the relationship between the influencer and brand. This can be done by adding a “Paid Partnership” label, adding #ad, #advertisement, or #sponsored clearly in the caption of the post, or otherwise clearly indicating a paid business relationship between influencer and brand. NOTE: Gifted product does count as payment according to the Federal Trade Commission. For more on disclosure best practices, check out our blog post on FTC disclosure best practices.

Earned Media

Additional publicity gained outside of branded or advertising content. This often includes press placements or mentions as well as shares, mentions, and/or reposts of either brand or ad content.

Engagement

Most broadly, the number of interactions a social media post receives. Those interactions can be likes, comments, saves, or shares. 

Engagement Rate

The rate at which a user’s followers interact with their content. This can be calculated by the following formula: the total amount of engagement a post receives / the poster’s total number of followers x 100 = Engagement Rate %. Engagement rate is an important metric to measure when assessing influencer partners because it tells you what percentage of their audience is likely to interact with their content, providing a more complete picture of a user’s audience than simply their follower total.

Exclusivity

The terms that limit speaking on or working with competitor brands during a mutually agreed-upon period of time. 

Experiential Marketing

Immersive brand campaigns that invite consumers to experience the brand and/or its products. Popular examples of this include brand pop-ups, branded speaker panels, classes, tutorials, and other branded events. Experiential marketing often refers to in-person activations but can refer to virtual events as well. 

Following

The action of opting into a social media account’s content. When a user is “following” a social media account, the user will be served that account’s content on their home feed.

For You Feed (FYF)

The tab on TikTok that displays videos from both creators a user follows and suggested videos based on a user’s engagement with similar content, as determined by TikTok’s algorithm. Commonly referred to as the “For You Page” or “FYP”.

Gifting

When a brand sends free product to an influencer, typically in lieu of financial compensation. 

(Instagram) Guide

Guides are a way to share content, locations, and products as a collection. You can think of them as mini blogs or catalogues that are accessible directly on Instagram.

For more on Instagram Guides, check out this explainer: https://lytehouse.agency/blog/instagram-guides-explained 

Idea Pin

A type of post on Pinterest that allows a user to share a collection of up to 20 photos, videos and/or text pieces as a single post that viewers can click through. These are somewhat similar to Stories on Instagram, except for the fact that Idea Pins live permanently and are visible on the Pinterest home feed.

Impressions

The number of times a piece of content is viewed. This number includes people who have viewed a piece of content at least once, but will count each time they view the content; for example, if 1 person views a piece of content 2 times, that will count as 2 impressions.

Influencer

A person, typically on social media, who uses their platform to provide advice, recommendations, and inspiration to their followers through the content they create and share. Ideally, an influencer has the ability to guide or have an impact on followers’ decisions.

Interactions

A metric that adds up the total number of ways users have engaged with a piece of content on Instagram.

For a post, this will add up the total number of likes, comments, shares, and saves.

For a story, this will add up the total number of link clicks, shares, website clicks, sticker taps, and profile visits.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

The way to measure the success of the main objective(s) of your campaign. 

For more on how to measure KPIs, take a look at our infographic here.

Macro-Influencer

An influencer with an extremely large following on social media, typically with a following of 500,000+. These influencers are great to work with when you want to reach a general audience and increase brand awareness. 

Metaverse

A virtual world focused on social interaction.

Micro-Influencer

An influencer with a small following on social media, typically between 10,000 and 100,000 followers.

Mid-tier Influencer

An influencer with a mid-size following on social media, typically between 100,000 and 500,000. 

Nano-Influencer

An influencer with an extremely small following on social media, typically between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. These creators typically speak to a hyper-specific niche or demographic. Despite their small followings, they tend to achieve high levels of engagement and are ideal for when a brand wants to market to a hyper-specific audience. 

Niche

The specified category or categories that an influencer speaks to in their content. 

Objective(s)

The goals for a social media campaign.

Organic: 

Can mean:

1) Content that is shared without any brand relationship or financial incentive

2) The data results of how a piece of content performs without any advertising budget set against it

Paid Media

Content that has an advertising budget set for it to increase the reach of said content.

Performance

The actual results of the campaign based on the final influencer cast and actual performance. A combination of influencer and paid results if amplification is included.

Pin

A photo or video post shared on Pinterest.

Quote Tweet

When a Twitter user adds their own additional commentary to a Retweet.

Reach

The number of users who see a piece of content. Unlike Impressions or Views, this metric does not account for multiple views, so even if a user views a piece of content 10 times, they will only count as 1 account reached.

Retweet

When a Twitter user re-shares a Tweet to their own audience without additional commentary. 

Revenue Share

A payment model between brand and influencer where the influencer earns a mutually agreed-upon percentage of sales made through their promotions of the brand. 

Return on Investment (ROI)

The ratio of the net income generated over a period of time compared to the cost of the marketing campaign. 

Saves

Users can bookmark content for future reference using the save button. Examples of commonly-saved content pieces include recipes, tutorials, motivational quotes, and infographics.

For more on Instagram insights, check out our full explainer here: https://socialyte.com/business-of-influence/instagram-insights-analytics-explained 

Sentiment Analysis

The evaluation of audience or consumer attitude towards a brand product, or service being promoted, whether good, bad, or neutral.

Scope of Work (SOW)

The mutually agreed-upon list of deliverables and/or services a creator is expected to provide over the course of a brand partnership agreement.

Shares

Users can share a post by clicking the “paper plane” icon, either through direct messages with friends, or to their Instagram Story. A shareable post can be anything posted to Instagram, including your own, from a hilarious meme to a news update to a cute pair of boots that someone wants to share with their friend.

Social Listening

The process of tracking social media mentions and conversations around a particular brand, product, influencer, or another subject.

Story

A photo or video post that only lives on a user’s profile for 24 hours. These are typically in-the-moment, less-curated content pieces. Stories can be posted on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat.

For more on Story insights, read this.

For tips on using Stories in your influencer marketing, read this.

Story Highlight

A collection of Story posts that live on a user’s Instagram profile permanently.

Strategy

The approach a brand or company takes to achieve and execute their marketing objectives.

Total Watch Time

The sum of all hours (or minutes) all viewers have logged viewing a piece of video content. 

User-Generated Content (UGC)

Social media content that features a brand and/or its products but is created independently by social media users. This could include a customer sharing an organic review, posting a photo featuring a brand, an influencer featuring a brand in a post organically, etc. 

Usage

The mutually agreed-upon terms designating where, how, and for how long a piece of influencer-created content can be used for brand purposes.

Views

The number of times a piece of content is seen. This number tracks multiple watches by a single viewer, meaning that if a single viewer watches a piece of content 10 times, that will count as 10 views. 

Whitelisting

Whitelisting is where an influencer gives a brand partner access to their account in order to modify and promote content directly from their account. Through whitelisting, brands can ​​customize a post’s captions, images, and calls-to-action to target different KPIs and achieve various campaign objectives and can also create posts that appear to be shared from the influencer’s channel but do not appear on their feed. In addition to customization options, brands also have access to a vast number of performance insights such as reach, engagement, impressions, and clicks.

To learn more about whitelisting, read this.

Managing Long-Term Influencer Partnerships

Long-term partnerships between brands and influencers are the way to maximize the potential of influencer marketing.

As a brand, you’re able to establish a long-lasting relationship with both influencer partners and their audience. Now is the perfect moment to start securing influencers for brand ambassadors for 2022 programs, and we have a few tips for you so your upcoming influencer programs can break through.

Our tips for planning your upcoming influencer ambassador programs:

Select performance-based influencers: Long-term ambassadorships are an investment, and you’ll want to prioritize influencers who can deliver on the KPIs you are after.

Test creators with short-term partnerships first: Before you commit to working with influencers for a year, try working with them for a shorter period of time to test their content’s performance and ensure that their audience is aligned with your target audience. You can even use upcoming holiday programs as the trial run.

Look for organic brand supporters: Sponsored content fatigue is real. Audiences will be able to tell right away if a sponsored post is a poor fit for an influencer. Avoid this by partnering with influencers who are preexisting brand fans or whose content and style align with that of your brand.

Understand audience demographics: Not only will you want your influencer partner to align with your brand, but you’ll also want to check that their audience demographics make sense as well. When you hire influencers to promote your brand, you’re really looking to market to their following, so ask for their audience insights ahead of time so you know the content will be reaching your target audience.

Mix up posting types throughout the program: One way to keep a long-term campaign exciting is by switching up the post types throughout the program’s duration. Instagram Posts and Stories are always popular, but try out an IGTV video, blog post, live video, or another content type to see how various posts perform. We also encourage you to activate across different platforms such as TikTok, Clubhouse, or YouTube, as cross-platform campaign strategies extend the reach of the branded content to additional audiences.

Offer incentives to influencers to encourage above-and-beyond content: Ambassadorships are about relationship building, not just between your brand and the influencer’s audience, but between you and the influencer. Incentives like a commission system, gifting, and VIP experiences will strengthen your partnership and encourage the influencer to go above and beyond with their content creation. We recommend providing each influencer with a personalized discount code to provide with their audience, as it incentivizes the audience to purchase directly from the influencer’s content while at the same time providing your brand a way to track performance and sales conversion. 

Be okay with adjusting your strategy: Even the best-laid plans can go awry, which is why it’s important to know when to take a step back and recalibrate if a campaign isn’t performing as expected. Instead of continuing with content that doesn’t work, alter your strategy for the remainder of the program. Just know that such alterations may require contract edits and rate negotiations with the influencer

TikTok Analytics, Explained

Brands can no longer ignore TikTok when it comes to influencer marketing. The platform’s unmatched algorithm presents a unique opportunity for content to go viral and reach millions of potential consumers, and TikTok creators are savvy about developing engaging video content that converts viewership to patronage.

Whether you’re launching a TikTok account for your brand or simply working with influencers on the platform to create branded content, you’ll want to understand TikTok’s available analytics and how to interpret them in order to perfect your TikTok marketing strategy. So let’s break down everything TikTok analytics!

How To Access TikTok Analytics

First thing’s first: how do you access TikTok analytics?

You’ll need a Creator or Business Account on TikTok (don’t worry, it’s free) to view analytics. Head’s up: you’ll only be able to access analytics for content after you sign up for a professional account, so go ahead, visit your settings, and switch ASAP so you’ll have access to metrics.

Now that you have your Creator or Business Account set up, go to Settings > Creator/Business Tools > Analytics, and you’ll be greeted with your Analytics overview.

Understanding Your Analytics Dashboard

There are 4 main tabs under your analytics: Overview, Content, Followers, and LIVE. Each tab provides important data for you to understand your account performance. Let’s take a deeper dive:

Overview

Overview shows the overarching trends of your account analytics over a given period of time (the default is “Last 7 Days”, but you can also view “Last 28 Days”, “Last 60 Days”, or enter a custom date range), including:

Engagement: how many times audiences are viewing and interacting with your account’s content *click the arrow to view this data represented in graph format*

1. Video Views: the total number of times all videos on your account were viewed

2. Profile Views: the number of times your profile was viewed

3. Likes: how many likes videos on your account have received

4. Comments: how many comments have been left on your videos

5. Shares: how many times your videos have been shared

Followers: how many followers your account has, including net gains

Content: how many TikToks you have published during the set time frame 

Live: how many Live sessions you have hosted over the set time frame

Content

This is where you can see view numbers for recent posts and also find your Trending Videos.

The Video Posts section is pretty self-explanatory; it shows you all the videos you’ve posted in the past 7 days, their view numbers, and compares your number of posts to the previous 7 day period.

Below you’ll find the Trending Videos section, which is really valuable for you to understand what content of yours is performing best. This section shows the top 9 videos with the fastest growth in view numbers over the past 7 days.

How to use this data: Take a look at these videos and try to identify any trends or commonalities: maybe a certain topic you’re posting about is performing really well, or perhaps you started a trend that’s garnering a lot of engagement. Look at your popular videos and lean into that content!

Followers

This tab is where you can access demographics on your followers, as well as how your followers interact with other TikTok content.

First, you’ll see your follower count and growth rate over the past week. You can use this and the Followers information from the Overview tab to track increases in following.

Below, you’ll see a pie chart illustrating the gender of your followers.

Below that, you’ll see a percentage breakdown of where your followers are from, by country. Pro tip: Depending on where your followers are from, you may want to consider ensuring your content is accessible and relatable to international audiences (for example, adding translated captions if you have a large international following).

Further down, you’ll see Follower Activity that shows when your followers are most active on the platform, both by hour and by day.

Pro tip: this data is all recorded in UTC, so adjust for your time zone to understand when the best posting times are for your audience. (And if we’re being honest, we wouldn’t worry too much about posting at specific optimized times, as TikTok’s algorithm boosts content old and new alike to the “For You Page”).

LIVE

This tab specifically shares analytics regarding live stream content on TikTok. You have the option to view data for LIVE sessions either over the past 7 days or the past 28 days.

First, you’ll be provided with an overview of LIVE video data, including the number of LIVE videos hosted, the total number of views, new followers, total time of LIVE videos, and top viewer count.

Below that, you’ll also see how many unique viewers have watched your LIVE videos at least once.

Last, you’ll see how many “diamonds” (aka digital gifts viewers can send you during LIVE videos that can be redeemed for money) you’ve earned during LIVE videos.

Viewing Individual Video Analytics

Now that you have a better understanding of your account analytics, let’s talk analytics for specific videos!

To view your video’s analytics, click on your video and click the 3 dots on the lower right corner. One of your options will be “Analytics”, so go ahead and click that. You’ll now be able to see your video’s performance.

At the top, you’ll see 4 icons with numbers below each: a play button, a heart, a comment bubble, and an arrow:

The play button represents the total number of views the video has received.

The heart represents how many likes the video has received.

The comment bubble represents how many comments have been made under your video.

The arrow represents how many times the video has been shared (which includes link copies and DM shares).

The next section displays total play time (in hours), total views, the percentage of viewers who watched the full video, reached audience, and average watch time.

Pro tip: Average watch time is one of the most important metrics on TikTok and can make or break a video’s frequency on the FYP. A short average watch time means that viewers aren’t interested enough in the video’s content to watch through to the end, while a high one means your video is doing a great job keeping people engaged. Make note of your videos with high average watch times vs. low ones, and strategize different ways of getting information across if you’re seeing consistently low watch times.

The next section showcases traffic source types, meaning where your content is being seen on the app. Your viewers can find your videos from the following sources:

For You

Personal Profile

Following

Sound

Search

Hashtag

The last section shows audience territories for your specific video; in other words, where your viewers are from. 

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Now that you have a better understanding of TikTok’s analytics, you can now interpret content performance both from your brand’s account and from influencer partners and create a successful future TikTok strategy.

Have more questions about TikTok or interested in running a TikTok influencer campaign? Lytehouse can answer your questions.

3 Benefits of Working With An Influencer Agency On Retainer

As you build out your brand’s influencer marketing strategy and consider amping up efforts, you may consider hiring an agency like Lytehouse on retainer.

Having an influencer agency on retainer means access to a dedicated team that can assist with strategy, casting, execution, reporting, and scalability on an ongoing, on-call basis. From one-off castings to nimble strategy-led programs, an agency retainer provides ongoing support.

Here are some reasons why you should consider hiring an agency on retainer:

1) Access team expertise whenever needed.

Agencies like Lytehouse are staffed with influencer marketing experts who have unparalleled industry knowledge and experience. Whether you need help building out your year-long strategy or simply have a question about the latest Instagram update, an agency on retainer can answer questions and provide insight on questions big and small.

2) Receive dynamic data analysis.

Hiring an agency on retainer cuts down on the time-intensive process of onboarding and reviewing previous data. Partnering with an agency like Lytehouse for a long-term retainer allows the agency to access campaign data and provide you with data-based feedback and recommendations for the next campaign.

3) Build up your influencer database.

Agencies have strong connections with influencers (especially one like Lytehouse which has a sister influencer management agency, Socialyte!) that your brand may not have the bandwidth to cultivate. With the agency team at the ready and familiar with your long-term marketing needs, the agency can establish a robust list of influencer partners for upcoming campaigns, whether that’s a one-off partnership or long-term ambassadorship.

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Want to work with Lytehouse on retainer? Let’s chat.

Best Practices For Your Holiday 2021 Influencer Campaigns

The holiday season is quickly approaching, which means now is the perfect time to get on top of your end-of-year marketing strategy.

Here are our tips on how to make your influencer programs for the holiday 2021 season incredible:

Start booking influencers now.

The sooner you book your influencer partners for holiday marketing initiatives, the better. Influencer content calendars fill up quickly, as they can limit the number of partnerships they accept so they don’t overwhelm their audience with sponsored content. Booking influencers last-minute means you risk being unable to book your top choices. As we get closer to the holiday season, influencers can also charge a premium fee for booking during an in-demand time.

Consumers will be shopping earlier than in previous years as well. Last year, 38% of shoppers planned to start their holiday shopping in October, and 60% before December, and this trend is expected to continue this year. Start booking your influencers now so that you can secure your top choices for a reasonable rate and market to consumers ahead of the competition. 

Enter With A Game Plan.

Start with the “why” of your campaign and work backward: set your goals and key performance indicators (KPI) from the beginning, identify the metrics you’ll need to track, then select influencer partners and build out your content strategy with these end goals in mind. You should also plan go-live dates ahead of time to account for key shopping moments like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and holiday shipping deadlines to ensure viewers see holiday marketing content in time to complete and receive purchases in time.

For more tips on how to pick your KPIs and track campaign performance, click here.

Book Influencers As Ambassadors.

Consumers respond well to brand partnerships that are truly genuine. They’re also more likely to turn into customers the more they are exposed to your brand messaging from the same source. Consider seizing on an influencer’s organic affinity with your brand (i.e. an influencer that has already been using your product/service organically) or re-book well-performing talent from one of your previous campaigns.

Influencer marketing is all about relationship building, both between influencer and follower as well as influencer and brand partner. The best influencer partnerships understand this, working with influencers not as one-off contractors but as trusted brand ambassadors. Whether this means seizing on an influencer’s organic brand affinity (ex. a cooking influencer has been using a specific brand of cookware for years and now works with that brand to create sponsored content) or building audience trust through a yearlong partnership with several rounds of branded posts, viewers will respond well to brand partnerships that feel genuine. They’re also more likely to turn into customers the more they are exposed to a brand’s messaging.

Video Is The Way To Go.

Instagram has already announced that it is no longer simply a photo-sharing platform, shifting its focus to video content on Reels, Stories, and IGTV. TikTok and YouTube are video-focused by nature, and even Pinterest has prioritized short-form video content with its Idea Pins. The bulk of your influencer marketing for the holiday season—and in general moving forward—should be short-form video content.

Not only are social media platforms prioritizing video in their algorithms, but video tends to drive stronger consumer engagement for marketers. 60% of marketers found Facebook videos to earn more engagement than images, according to a Databox survey, as well as higher click-through rates, and according to a 2021 report by HubSpot and Mention, organic video content on Instagram receives 38% more engagement than photo posts. Video allows creators to showcase products in an engaging manner and lead with personality, and the visual cues demand users to pause their scrolling momentarily and engage with the content for a longer period of time than they would a static image.

Have A Clear Call-To-Action.

Each piece of influencer content you book should include a clear call-to-action (e.g. a swipe-up link for conversion) that directs viewers with what you would like them to do after seeing the content. Is your goal to encourage purchases? Ensure each influencer includes a swipe-up link in their Story content that brings viewers to a product page. Are you hoping to have viewers create organic content? Create a dedicated hashtag and use influencers to promote the hashtag and start the trend. Does your brand have a charitable tie-in for the holiday season? Include specific information on how audiences can get involved and support the charity. A clear and concise CTA will ensure that your campaign turns viewership into action.

Amplify Strategically.

During a competitive season, paid amplification is the best way to extend the reach of your holiday influencer marketing to a wide, yet highly targeted audience while guaranteeing a strong return on your investment. We recommend allocating at least 20% of your overall campaign budget towards ad amplification. With this amount set aside, along with day-to-day ad performance monitoring and adjusting, Lytehouse has seen brands achieve close to 100% return on investment. Facebook and Instagram ads are tried-and-true amplification methods, but we also recommend sharing sponsored content on TikTok and Pinterest to reach additional audiences.

Use Content To The Fullest.

You’ve worked hard to secure quality influencer content for the holiday season, now make sure you’re maximizing your campaign. Secure usage rights in the contracting phase so that your brand can utilize influencer-created content on brand-owned channels. (Do note that the more extensive the usage rights, the higher the rate can become.) Develop an amplification strategy to reach new potential customers beyond the influencer’s and brand’s existing audiences. Book evergreen content that can live beyond the holiday season so that you can run longer ads and get a head start on 2022 marketing.

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Let’s recap:

• Book Influencer partners ASAP for holiday campaigns

• Set campaign goals and KPIs first

• Schedule out posting dates to hit key holiday moments

• Cast influencers as ambassadors for larger programs

• Prioritize short-form video content

• Include a clear call to action with all campaign content

• Amplify strong-performing content to reach wider audiences

• Secure usage rights so you can use influencer-created content on brand channels

4 Ways To Use Instagram Guides

Extend your brand identity and partner with influencers to make the most of your Instagram profile.

We’ve laid out the basics of Instagram Guides. Now it’s time to discuss some applications for this feature of Instagram. We find Instagram Guides so valuable because they provide a number of ways for you to build out your brand identity, share products, and provide information about your company, all without users having to leave the Instagram app. Frictionless brand experiences are essential to converting viewers into customers, so the more they can access in a centralized location, the better.

How Can You Use Guides In Your Next Instagram Campaign?

1) Curated Shopping Picks

Product Guides are a great way to showcase your brand’s latest collections, curate best-sellers, or display influencer favorites. If your brand has an Instagram Shop, a Product Guide will help encourage social media followers to shop your brand with ease. You can also add photos, either from your account or from another user’s, and tag shoppable items below it as a clickable, shoppable catalog that lives within your Instagram profile.

2) Mini Blog

Influencers have been turning to Instagram Guides as a way to write out mini blog posts that can live on the Instagram platform rather than a separately-hosted website. The ability to combine text and imagery allows for powerful storytelling, and for smaller accounts that are unable to include swipe-up links in their Instagram Story, they can share a clickable preview of their Guide and drive readers.

For brands, a blog-style Guide could highlight user-generated content, share inspiration imagery for the latest collection, or feature interview questions with team members or interesting individuals who relate to your brand’s ethos.

3) Travel Guide

Places Guides are so helpful in creating travel and location-based recommendations for your audience. This could include a guide to a far-off locale that’s influenced your brand, a list of local recommendations where your brand headquarters are located, or anything else related to destinations near and far. 

4) Tips & Tricks

A great way to utilize Guides is as a visual FAQ. What do people want to know about your brand? Are there secrets to making the most of your product? Different ways to wear or experience items? You can use Instagram Guides as a place to centrally store different Reel and IGTV tutorials, answer frequently asked questions, and provide expert tips on making the most of your product.

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No matter how you decide to implement Guides into your Instagram marketing strategy, we see this as a perfect opportunity to partner with influencers to develop innovative Guide content. Whether they’re sharing the must-have products from your brand or showing your followers through a tour of their hometown, Guides present a unique way to extend your brand and find creative partners to help curate the content.

Ready to work with influencers on an Instagram Guide? We can help pair you with the perfect creators.

How Social Media Platforms Are Wooing Creators

As competition for users heats up, social media platforms are offering new incentives to encourage creators to prioritize their app.

If you feel like you’ve read more headlines in recent weeks about social media platforms offering new creator incentives, you’re not alone. In recent weeks, Instagram, Twitter, Clubhouse, Snapchat, and other apps have made splashy announcements about new tools and funds made to win over creators who feel stretched thin across the different platforms. The goal? Incentivize creators to use their app the most.

From affiliate programs to subscription services, here are the ways the major social media players are attempting to woo creators to stay active on their platforms, as well as what it means for marketers moving forward:

Instagram Gets On The Affiliate Train

The creator benefits they’re offering: Instagram has made a lot of headlines in recent weeks as they work to lure creators back to their platform with creator-focused features. These new features include Milestone Bonus Badges for hosting Instagram Lives and an Affiliate Program for creators to earn money for items they share that are on Instagram Shops. After years of influencers relying on external affiliate programs like LikeToKnowIt and ShopStyle, Instagram is finally making a play to bring a native affiliate program to the app.

Twitter Introduces Subscriptions & Tips

The creator benefits they’re offering: Twitter is entering the subscription business, introducing a “Super Follow” option that allows users to pay to receive exclusive subscriber-only content. Twitter has also introduced a “Tip Jar” as a way for followers to monetarily support their favorite creators.

TikTok Refines It’s Creator Program

The creator benefits they’re offering: TikTok set itself apart from other social media platforms by prioritizing creator growth in its early stages, introducing the TikTok Creator Fund as a way to pay top users for creating strong-performing content. The benchmarks for entering into the program have changed; initially only 10,000 followers were needed, but as of March 25, creators now need 100,000 followers to qualify for the Creator Program. 

Clubhouse Facilitates Creator Growth

The creator benefits they’re offering: Clubhouse is also investing in providing its creators tools to succeed on the up-and-coming platform. Their “Creator First” Accelerator Program launched in March to assist select creators with developing their Clubhouse strategy and grow their audience. The app has also introduced Payments for users to send money to creators as a way to show their support.

Twitch Provides Tiered Programs For Creators

The creator benefits they’re offering: Twitch offers two tiers of programs for creators: Affiliate and Partner. The Affiliate program serves creators who are building their platform and growing, offering tools like subscriptions and affiliate payments for game sales. For established creators, the Partner program allows creators to display ads on their channel and earn revenue from ad views, channel customization, access to opportunities to participate in panels, meet & greets, and other events, as well as the subscription and affiliate opportunities presented at the Affiliate level.

Snapchat Rewards Viral Content

The creator benefits they’re offering: When Snapchat introduced their TikTok competitor Spotlight, they did so with a big draw for creators: a $1 million-per-day fund to distribute to creators with top-performing Spotlight content. Since the launch of this program, some creators have become literal millionaires off of their Spotlight earnings, with $110 million given out across all markets since the program launched in November. 

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So, what does all this mean for brands?

You might be wondering what all these creator-first developments have to do with brand marketing. While brands may not be directly involved in these creator programs, these pushes to bring creators to certain apps will guide the landscape of social media for the next several years. 

If Successful, These Programs May Influence Where Creators Spend Their Time

Platforms that can successfully lure creators to prioritizing their app over others will succeed in the long run. Keeping an eye on where the creators are flocking to will help you, as brand marketers, know where to look for influencers and what platforms to prioritize in your social media marketing efforts.

Not All These Programs Are Sustainable

However, some of the splashiest creator incentives may not be sustainable forever. While some platforms are adopting a revenue-share approach or providing monetization options where users are the investors, other apps have introduced funds that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, or even billions. Unless usership and revenue skyrocket drastically for the latter, these valuable funds may disappear, further influencing the popularity of different apps amongst creators.

Creators Will Shift How They Approach Brand Partnerships

The most immediate effect of these creator programs is also the most impactful for brand marketers. With creators earning money off of their organic content, they will approach brand partnerships in a new way. As a result, creators may be pickier about the partnerships they do accept, or raise their rates for sponsored content. This is why cultivating long-lasting relationships with influencers is essential for brands, as is developing a thought-out strategy that targets influencers who are a natural brand fit. If you’re not sure where to start with influencer casting, Lytehouse can help you out—let’s chat.

5 Reasons Why Twitch Is A Great Space For Influencer Marketing

The surge in video game streaming throughout the past year has introduced a growing power in the influencer marketing space.

If you haven’t been paying attention to Twitch already, you should be. The streaming site boasts 3 million monthly broadcasters and 15 million daily active users, and its power only continues to grow. Video game enthusiasts aren't the only ones taking note of Twitch’s growth; Lytehouse has observed brands like e.l.f., Nike, and Wendy’s utilize the space recently, and we’ve received a lot of requests from brands looking for ways to activate on Twitch in the past couple of months.

Here are 5 reasons why you should consider making Twitch part of your influencer marketing strategy:

1) Gaming Is More Popular Than Ever

Gaming saw a massive surge in 2020, and while pandemic-related free time may be to blame, data indicates that there are no signs of decreased interest. In fact, Business Insider reported that there will be an estimated 177 million monthly gamers in the United States. In 2020, Twitch averaged 93 billion minutes watched per month.

In the competition between livestream gaming platforms, it’s the most popular platform by far, with 5.4 billion hours watched in Q4 of 2020, compared to 1.9 billion hours watched during that same time on YouTube Gaming Live and 901 million hours watched on Facebook Gaming. So if you are interested in the gaming space at all, Twitch needs to be your first priority.

2) Gen Z & Young Millennials Love The App

As you could probably guess, Twitch usership skews young and male. 41% of Twitch users are between the ages of 16 and 24, with another 32% falling between the ages of 25 and 34. For brands looking to engage with young audiences, Twitch is a great avenue to explore.

Twitch’s audience is also predominantly male, with 65% of its users identifying as male. This is much higher than other social media platforms like Instagram (49%) and TikTok (40%). Brands hoping to reach a young male audience should definitely prioritize Twitch.

3) Users Are Highly Engaged

While Twitch’s usership numbers are still much lower than other platforms like Instagram, and TikTok, those who are on the platform are incredibly engaged. The average user spends 95 minutes per day watching livestream gaming content on Twitch, an impressive number when compared to other apps like YouTube (40 minutes per day) and Instagram (32 minutes per day). When you’re activating on Twitch, you’re reaching out to a highly-engaged audience who will watch content for longer than on other platforms, providing your brand with more opportunities to speak to said audiences and get your brand in front of them.

4) Opportunities For Innovative Brand Integrations

So, how are brands activating on the app? Partnering with popular creators on Twitch is a logical first step, but brands are getting wonderfully creative with how they showcase their offerings.

In May, e.l.f. Cosmetics became the first beauty company to launch a branded Twitch channel, hosting livestream beauty tutorials, DJ sets, and gaming sessions to market their brand to Twitch’s Gen-Z audience. In December, Wendy’s partnered with Twitch streamers to create signature meals offered through Uber Eats to encourage customers to order Wendy’s for delivery so they can continue gaming all day long. The fast food company also has its own Twitch channel with over 115K subscribers.

As Twitch grows to become more than just a video game streaming platform, with creators using the app to live vlog, showcase beauty and cooking tutorials, and host music content, there are more opportunities to get creative on the platform everyday.

5) Ability To Speak To Niche Audiences

One unique aspect of the gaming world is that it is extremely segmented, with users extremely loyal to specific video game content and Twitch streamers. A Fortnite fan may want nothing to do with Call of Duty content, and vice versa. This high segmentation may seem difficult to navigate, but it offers an opportunity to market to niche audiences and tailor content to their specific interests and needs. A multi-pronged campaign that speaks effectively to different niches within the Twitch community, with curated content strategies for each niche, will help you reach audiences across the platform.

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Still have questions about how to market effectively on Twitch? The good news is that we’re here to guide you through influencer marketing on Twitch. Let’s chat about setting up your next campaign.