Fireside Chat: The dos And don’ts of working with influencers

[Music] [Music] the cap it's in your influence you run real style which is a sort of influencer marketing agency or agency I guess so I can hear me now so you just happen to be looking after the biggest duty board games you ship in the world in the PDP so how did that come about just just rock up how does that happen it wasn't quite that random real style started as a strictly e-commerce company so creating products merchandise lipstick you name it for youtubers and watching their conversion so we worked

with about 200 youtubers in our first year which was about six years ago and one of the youtubers that we were fortunate enough to work with was cutie pie Marcia who is Felix says now fiancee and she over indexed and converted super well so we kept doing work with her and that relationship really blossomed into more of an agency management type relationship and that's when the company sort of split into two different divisions and we now have that side of the company as well as this sort of e-commerce area as well so that's how we ended up working with PewDiePie lots of visits to Brighton coming sit down people come on the back seats 30 20 minutes okay so if you want to see if you've got Pugh pie and and and Marcio cookies yeah do you have other other youtubers on there we have a couple things going on so exclusively speaking we have Marcia Felix we also work with a

Spanish speaking youtuber and twitch streamer named Lulu games who's one of the largest spanish-speaking gamers in the u.s. he's pretty fabulous okay and then we also work on exclusively and again this ties in to the e-commerce side of our business nicely we work with a lot of lifestyle influencers on exclusive ecommerce projects so for example we are launching a home collection for Lauren Elizabeth who's based out of LA this spring and that project is exclusive to us so we'll look for sponsors around that in different ways for brands to integrate into those projects and that ranges across about a dozen a dozen to 15 projects a year that are exclusive to us so we sort of become that ecommerce outlet for some interesting youtubers so tell me about you everyday so you know as a talent sort of manager I must it must be eventful um what do you how do you how do you interact with with Felix and Marcia and and the others how does that

look sure on a day-to-day I spend most of my time working with them over any form of chat so whether that's discord or whatsapp or however they want to communicate at that moment it depends on what platform they're sitting in front of so if they're on their phone versus on the computer I spend a lot of time constantly my vision constantly you its discussing kind of briefs so you kind of telling them not to do things I mean what is the we know what is that like right it's the same reason I don't like the term manager because the talent that I work with isn't looking to be managed they're looking for someone to help them grow and develop their business so I'm not there to tell them what to say what not to say I will happily advise them if I feel that they've crossed a line but what I try and do is let them know what

sort of content behavior that that sort of stuff will help grow their business and what could help what could possibly hinder it as well okay so so describe typical poster briefs can I come through you you are you going out liaising with kind of clients on their behalf or you know how does that work does someone briefing and go we want we want we want Peter to cover this game here's what we want as it come to use it go to him how does that kind of work sure most of it comes in to us directly but I would say about 30% of that converts into an actual paid campaign 70% we're going out and hustling ourselves so you know and I think a big part of what that liaison over chat is all days sitting with Marzia and Lu Zhu and Felix and saying okay we have this project coming up or there's this gap in your schedule what kind of brands can we go after who you guys loving right now because we see the best ROI and that best engagement when they're really loving the brands so we

we go and chase after them most times that's very interesting so I would imagine that the the yours or Felix's inbox is about business mine I could imagine is probably getting the call of requests or incoming inbound requests to play my game cover my game etc etc is it you have a filter through that is that this interesting you're saying you're going out looking for brains I think overwhelmed by inbound really sure I used to be overwhelmed by inbound it so when we started working together a lot of people didn't believe that we worked with him or Marcia or lose ooh okay because we're a team that is predominantly female based out of Toronto that's a very strange combination in the industry female Canadians so a lot of people didn't believe that we were working with him so he said well I can put your email address up on the about page on my channel and I was like oh yeah that'll solve that no that created a host of

other problem so I spent a lot of time digging through spam you know there are a lot of people that are interested in him sending money and you know all that nonsense so I spent a lot of time digging through spam so I get a lot of inbound leads yeah but like I said we're looking about 30% of the business converts that way okay so it's low and so typically like you've got you know a guitar stand published at this conference who are looking to work with influencers you know obviously a peak is very very popular influencer for expensive what advice would you offer to developers here looking to work with with other people or other influences what is kind of the best practice for approaching you in the only 30 percent kind of converts is that because you're filtering out or was that because you just can't come to terms I answer almost every email that comes in okay so he's telling them that promo video keep [Laughter] so I think I think the best approach whenever you're sort of you know the inbound you know when you're sending out

emails to people that are managing influencers are working on their business development is really to be super clear in the ask upfront and I think I mean it sounds like a very obvious advice but saying that you're looking to engage with them on a paid campaign yeah you're gonna move to the top of the list in terms of because while I'm sure Felix would love to play every game that's produced and tested on his channel I I mean there's no possible way for us to filter through all of that same thing with most of the women we work with on the beauty and lifestyle side I mean marzia gets an insane amount of emails can can she wear a my clothing for free can I send her a package of lipsticks like you know it would be so difficult to manage your business that way so the people that see the most success and that connection really quickly are the ones that are able to say and be super clear up front you know this is the game we're looking to work with you on and this is a paid a paid

promotion okay again Marcy's never won the closest anyway she took up a promotion I mean so we saw lots of figures up there before from from from Zork was quite interesting I was quite interesting international stereotypes quite always enjoy this with a Swedish guy who lives in the UK who also loves Russia what is a ballpark for for you but what's the get out of bed sort of range I'm not expecting to say exactly how much but is it you know are we talking is it you know is it gotta be hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of where's the where's that kind of range for for working he's taken seriously I guess I would say generally speaking just from and again obviously depends on the ask in the product I think you're looking at the tens of thousands to be sort of considered in the space but knowing that right now we're able to monetize his influence and all of our influencers across Instagram Instagram

stories twit you tube so you know the price is obviously arranged and then I think the other thing to really consider with all of the influencers we work with is their willingness and and wanting to work with the brand because I've had a lot of influencers that we've worked with over the last six years come to me and say I want to work with this brand I want them associated with the sponsors that I have on my channel I don't care how much I get paid so they'll say just go out and find it for me so you know lots of brands are pleasantly surprised when we knock on their door and say okay you know what I mean so I've said you said you're male I've got my I care 1 I've got X 2,000 pounds I wanting to play this game as a playthrough or whatever what does the kind of deal look like then is it is it kind of money upfront is it kind of based on views I mean typically where I'm sure there's variants but typically what sort of

deals you kind of seeing or going for sure we don't do a lot of paper download type games because again we'd end up in this rut we're at because everybody has a cost per download that they can that they can throw at us so I think there's always a floor to get into that sort of discussion with someone like Felix or Lu Zhu or even Marcia a lot of the fashion brands are now coming to us and doing the same sort of thing pipe installed lipstick how does that work the affiliate deals okay so typically then you've got like a fun fee or and that's kind of commits it and then there's some sort of depending on performance there's there's some sort of back-end I guess usually yeah it depends on what the brands are after - and a lot of the mobile gaming companies we work with as well don't want to do a cost for download because the just that fear alone that's you know what happens if he

gets you know 250,000 downloads yeah yeah or 10 million yeah no exactly they want to cap their kind of spots that's that's the kind of thing for the people that used to mobile you a it's very quantifiable controllable it's like I'm gonna spend this much in this market see I get this back you know they're constantly looking at data in it and in many ways influencer marketing is much more cover old-school marketing like the marketing though you know media I'm I'm used to as well is it's it's you put it out there you think it's the right location and there's a little bit of ever gonna gray area about whether it's going to kind of gimmick ownership do you think it's gonna stay that way or do you think it's gonna be forced to move I mean the moment there's a massive demand but then a number of influences is growing everyday why someone's been influenced early second there's a whole there's a whole kind of you know plus offset of kids crawling up with with with mics and cameras now so do you think he'll stay this way was it win the Golden Age of influences right now or I definitely think it's gonna shift I've seen it shift over the last two years or

so with the demonetized a tion of YouTube more brands are coming to the creator directly to work with them I think that's really important and I think the way people are looking at things is changing as well some of the bigger brands are able to come to us now and look at the spends well I sort of liken it to radio where they're able to target it a little bit but it's not perfectly targeted they're reaching pretty precise audience and they're measuring a lot of what they're doing just by reach not necessarily my clicks are downloads so it's a little bit different that way whereas you know when you hear a lot of radio spending and radio ads you're hearing the you know use promo code X and that's how they're measuring their success and I'm seeing a lot of that so I think things have changed a lot for sure okay what interesting things that came up with words or key presentation oh they were looking at timelines talking about how having said booking things like a month

in advance or more is that there's that typical with influencers I mean what sorely times we're looking at sure I mean I think just to get most of these contracts into a legal cycle depending on how that that's working I think giving it sort of that two to three week timeline works I mean unless you want to come in and do an it one Instagram story with someone we can probably find an easier way to get around the legal stuff that way but generally it's about a month in advance and things are booking out what happens if another thing was interesting I was kind of enjoyed that present interesting is like yeah the dog died or they you know I know he's a very precise doctor but like if you know something's happened oh he's just overslept or you know God for done something random in another country your problem is that where you come in that you have to kind of make up and sort it out because that's the central difficult to fill here well that is a human factor

isn't it unlike like you know you're buying ads on an Apple something they're just there it's all you know programmatic blah blah but here it depends on somebody getting up doing it also being engaged how'd you how'd you make sure that happens and how do you legislate the questions there's a very human element about what goes on and I think a lot of advertisers sometimes forget that they'll say you know we really want you know this video that we've approved to go up at noon Eastern Standard Time and I'll say okay we'll work on that window but things happen yeah upload speeds happen people forget to hit upload and go to a movie but I think things happen all the time and that there is a very human element of this type of advertising and luckily most of the advertisers we work with are relatively flexible in their windows so I try not to pin a day in a time on what

kind of activities are gonna happen because I find that can either lead to letdown on our end the creators end I mean ever know or you know they'll do exactly what they said they did and the timeframe the publisher will come back and say oh sorry there's something wrong can you hold off so I tried and create Windows for people you talked early about you know being clear in your email and saying this is a paid campaign this is the game advice you can offer for developers either in terms of their approach all their expectations or you know what makes it easier for you to work with people how can they make life easy for you and make their campaign most successful I guess sure I think really understanding the content of the influencer that you're going after is such a critical part of this industry so when I have people and advertisers come to me and they'll say you know we really want to do this and we'll get to sort of the last stages of negotiations and then they'll say okay but there can't be any

swearing in a campaign for two weeks and you think oh dear the two weeks sure has he gone two weeks that's why because he got like 24 hours so you know I think really having a true understanding of the type of content that you're sort of getting in bed with is super important because it will help dictate so many elements of the campaign and you know I think it's just a big part but watch watch the influencers watch the channels get a sense of you know we'll have I'll have people reach out to me and they'll say we'd really love to see him play this style of the mobile game I was like whoa okay I'll run it by him I've never seen him play a mobile game like that before and that's not to say he wouldn't try it he wouldn't test it he wouldn't get paid to do it yeah but it doesn't mean that it'll be the highest performing okay no that's that's fair enough have you got any questions I've got plenty more buzz any other questions for for cat this is this is the person that

deals were the most powerful youtuber in the world here it's the end of day it's the end of day kind of question okay you you obviously you came from I'll keep an eye on fans but you came from their fashion cycling's is a question of it okay sorry I don't care how much it would be really interested over working with every yeah do you always have to actually having to before like right as reach out to you and say like I don't know what won't you do that I do if you have W Acer connection but yes so we often have brands come out and reach out and they'll say here's our budget here's exactly what we're looking for and I'll sort of start plugging it in and I'm pretty honest in people I'll say like you're talking to the wrong person I have know the people I work with don't reach that demographic they don't and they'll say well could you put me in touch with sew ins or do you have a connection to so-and-so so that's where

I think our network has sort of opened up a little bit and you know I've become fast friends with lots of people that are working with streamers or other youtubers and I'll connect them with those people and try and sync them up that way in advance but then when it got to kind of payment in success I could tell if you're saying yes you do do downloads or you tell can you talk about this sort of back-end you might get sure generally speaking it's a flat fee but like I said and the sort of you know piggybacks on on other things I talked about I'll often put a brand a game or something in front of one of the influencers I work with and they'll want to do it so badly that they'll say yeah ok let's try that or let's test this out so nothing is out of the question ok ok see more I'm in charge I came home questions this is the job come up it's

next door it's good can you reach audience that will bring them either Chane campaigns yeah you will don't worry he's coming it sounds like we will I mean we're sort of seeing that we're seeing more of that come in and and we're really figuring out how to navigate the space what does that look like what does it look like in terms of payment payment because remember exactly I think that's just it is that anybody who's working in that space also wants to pay out non-space it's you know it's four dollars it's complicated complicated okay you came from the space or you've got obviously you tubes in different spaces very different to gaming are there any trends or tips or techniques that you're

seeing in the kind of fashion or elsewhere that you think the gaming people haven't yet Condon to or could be using so I mean I don't watch a lot of fashion as' and some watches a lot of unboxing kind of stuff and it's an interesting kind of things there that I think maybe gaming could ease game-related but new sure I think one of the biggest successes I'm seeing on the lifestyle and fashion side is that big brands are doing something that's really awesome and they're taking influencers out on these amazing trips so taking ten women to Fiji to play with their products for a week well they're getting a ton of free content out of that and by free I mean the trip is obviously not free but to have all of those people engaging with their products you know they get a week with influencers to get them in their clothing test their sunscreens and everything else I mean the amount of content that comes out of that is amazing but not really cash upfront that kind of bribes and trips

yeah okay you know but I think the gaming community could stand to learn something I think super saucy does that kind of stuff they flied lays people out so Helsinki rather than necessarily paying them up front and kind of take them out and do big competitions and stuff so things of Libya but yeah that sounds like a great a little bit but why not put on a full battle royale with paintball in the middle of the desert he sounds good see there's an opportunity peuta PI's indefinitely that's cast I'll guarantee you'll do it free or free covered so I'm certainly sure we could talk pages and we put will later on but some pause please for the Capuchin thank you [Applause] [Music] [Music]