Influencer agency: the essential link between brands and influencers
An influencer agency is a structure that allows brands to promote their image or products by leveraging the popularity of influencers. That's the theory. In practice, the role of an influencer marketing agency goes far beyond simply connecting advertisers with opinion leaders. From designing a creative influencer strategy to distributing campaigns and negotiating contracts with influencers, here's a brief overview of the work of an influencer agency as we experience it at So Bang.
Influencer marketing, a real profession!
Gone are the days when influencer marketing simply meant displaying your brand on blogs or social media without a real strategy. Today, influencer marketing practices have become professionalized. A symbol of this evolution is the emergence of influencer agencies like So Bang. Their role? To find the most relevant influencers for brands and also to manage the creation and distribution of their campaigns through these influencers.
At So Bang, everything begins with a careful analysis of our clients' expectations in our Paris offices. What are their business objectives? What product or service do they want to promote? Who are their target audiences? What message do they want to convey? And so on. Up to this point, a fairly standard marketing approach. But where an influencer agency truly brings its expertise is in its ability to translate the brand's communication intentions into the most effective terms of influencer marketing.
Our influencer marketing project managers are the guarantors of a campaign's success. And for that, nothing is left to chance. From the established guidelines and the best way to interact with each channel, to the angle for deploying the branding strategy, and more, our experts continuously monitor trends and emerging practices in influencer marketing to offer brands the most relevant solutions for their target audiences. Numerous tools are available to assist them in this task.
The qualities of a good influence agency: responsiveness and anticipation
Having a thorough understanding of the current state of the art is indeed an essential prerequisite. Because in the field of influencer marketing, as in the digital world in general, everything changes very quickly. We saw this clearly with the Covid-19 crisis: while Instagram remains one of the most lucrative social networks in the influencer market, a network like TikTok is increasingly becoming a key communication channel to leverage (on this subject, read our article " Influencer Marketing on TikTok: In 2020, This Is Where It's Happening").
Among the other increasingly popular channels of influence, let's not forget the opportunities offered by a platform like Twitch. With no fewer than 100 million users, the video streaming service is starting to make a name for itself. Thus, in this constantly evolving landscape, demonstrating responsiveness and adaptability must be a true calling for an influence agency.
Mapping and recruiting influencers comes next. This is a crucial step that requires time and careful consideration. Choosing the right ambassador profile also relies on a thorough analysis of the brand's expectations and challenges. And here again, in influencer marketing, what's true today isn't necessarily true tomorrow. Today, content produced by micro-influencers is all the rage with consumers. But will that still be the case in six months? Already highly valued on TikTok, will nano-influencers (with a community of between 5,000 and 10,000 followers) become a more attractive avenue to explore in terms of engagement? Here again, an influencer agency must be able to anticipate as much as possible to select the best influencers for the target audience. In short, it's not easy to describe the process behind this essential task in just a few words. That's why we'll discuss it further in a future article ;).
Why use an influencer agency to promote your brand?
As we've said before, working with influencers isn't something you can just wing. It's a real profession. Entrusting a campaign to an influencer agency will allow you to properly prepare the ground from the outset. Because without this preparation, you risk fake influence or even a PR disaster. In this regard, we remember certain campaigns, such as that of a famous American cigarette brand that collaborated with an influencer who was too young according to her country's laws to promote its products in Russia. The result: a complete failure for the brand, which had to withdraw its campaign following the outcry.
We could multiply the examples that disregard best practices. Using the professional services of an influencer agency also helps avoid risky product placements, poorly designed content, inauthentic messages, and so on.
In another vein, partnering with an influencer agency also offers the advantage of being able to formalize contracts with influencers. How they are compensated, the frequency and manner in which you want them to promote your brand (the brief), etc.—all these aspects must be clearly defined by a transparent contractual agreement. Otherwise, your entire influencer strategy could fail to take off, or worse, backfire. At So Bang, we pay particular attention to the conditions under which we build partnerships with our influencers. Each collaboration undergoes a thorough review.
Influence agency: priceless expertise
After this quick overview of what goes on behind the scenes at an influencer agency, the question you might be asking yourself remains: how much does it cost to collaborate with an influencer agency? The answer is actually quite simple: it all depends on the results you want to achieve. In other words, influencer marketing can be done with very different budgets, depending on your objectives. Traffic, loyalty, brand awareness, engagement, conversion…
Each objective has its own influencer budget. Of course, the reputation of the influencers, the size of their communities, the social network used, and the type of content offered (video, photo, articles) are parameters that must also be taken into account in the budget of an influencer marketing campaign.
While it's difficult to give an average price for collaborating with an influencer agency, one thing is certain: in a rapidly growing sector, the expertise of these agencies will represent an increasingly strategic investment for brands. Moreover, according to a recent Business Insider study on the state of the influencer marketing market, corporate investment in this sector is expected to reach $15 billion by 2022. In this flourishing context, influencer agencies have every incentive to continue professionalizing to provide advertisers with the best possible reach for every campaign they create. This is a challenge that motivates us every day at So Bang. Interested in challenging our teams for your next influencer campaign? Let us know!