Latest / The Ecommerce Revolution Podcast / How to Scale an Ecommerce Brand with Micro-Influencers

Transcript

How to Scale an Ecommerce Brand with Micro-Influencers · The Ecommerce Revolution Podcast

0:00
But in order to create a successful e-commerce brand,
0:04
you also want to build your brand,
0:06
right?
0:07
And the beautiful thing about influencer marketing is that
0:09
you're not just – you're
0:10
SPEAKER_02: getting similar value to those online ads.
0:12
SPEAKER_02: You're getting your product –
0:15
out there you're getting sales awareness etc but with
0:19
influencer marketing you're
0:20
also developing a lot of content you're developing a lot of
0:23
social proof trust and
0:25
so it becomes this amazing way to not only generate sales but
0:30
then also create
0:31
SPEAKER_02: these long-lasting relationships
0:34
Welcome to today's episode of the e-commerce revolution podcast
0:37
where we dive into
0:37
the dynamic world of e-commerce and uncover the tools and
0:41
tactics that empower
0:42
SPEAKER_00: today's emerging entrepreneurs.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Our podcast is part of our community with the same name.
0:48
The community is geared to providing emerging e-commerce
0:50
entrepreneurs with
0:51
SPEAKER_00: courses,
0:52
content and coaching to help you all launch and grow successful
0:56
businesses.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Check us out at ecomrevolution.co.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Let's get things started.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of the eCommerce Revolution Podcast.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Ramin.
1:11
Today's guest is someone who has been building and scaling
1:15
businesses for over two decades.
1:17
William Gassner is a 6X founder who's co-created everything
1:22
from a successful web
1:23
development agency to a seven-figure eCommerce brand and even a
1:29
YC-backed tech
1:30
SPEAKER_00: startup.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: And anybody who doesn't know who YC is, that's Y Combinator.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: He's currently the co-founder and CMO of Stack Influence,
1:38
a platform that helps e-commerce brands scale micro-influencer
1:42
marketing through
1:43
SPEAKER_00: automation and product seeding.
1:45
His insights on the influencer and e-commerce space have been
1:49
featured in Forbes,
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Business Insider,
1:52
SPEAKER_00: and Wired,
1:53
SPEAKER_00: and today he's here to share them all with us.
1:56
If you've ever wondered how to get real people talking about
2:00
your products or how
2:01
SPEAKER_00: to make influencer marketing work,
2:04
SPEAKER_00: even on a small budget,
2:06
SPEAKER_00: this conversation is for you.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: So without any further ado,
2:12
SPEAKER_00: please welcome William Gassner to the e-commerce revolution podcast.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: William, it is great to have you here.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me on, Ramin.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: I love this topic.
2:21
As I mentioned to you in the top when we were having a little
2:23
quick little brief
2:24
SPEAKER_00: before this,
2:25
SPEAKER_00: this is where I think emerging e-commerce entrepreneurs can really make a
2:30
SPEAKER_00: difference in the world and actually
2:33
SPEAKER_00: utilize influencer marketing.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about the mega influencer marketers out there,
2:39
SPEAKER_00: but we're talking about the ones that can actually,
2:41
SPEAKER_00: they're real people that can help you.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Not to say that the megas are not real people.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: We get that they are.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Where are you connecting with us from today?
2:49
SPEAKER_02: I am based in Providence, Rhode Island, actually.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: Very nice.
2:53
SPEAKER_02: Smaller state.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Yes, but a beautiful part of the country.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: It's getting nice here.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: Weather's shifting.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: Shifting.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Sun's out.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: The summer is starting.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: People are probably out on the water.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Enjoying life.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Very nice.
3:10
Let's get started and let's dive into the questions if you're
3:13
good with that.
3:13
And tell me a little bit about Stack Influence and what is it
3:17
about and how does it
3:19
go after the world of micro influencers and help other
3:22
e-commerce entrepreneurs out
3:24
SPEAKER_00: there?
3:25
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: So very high level.
3:27
Stack Influence is,
3:29
as you mentioned,
3:30
a micro influencer marketing platform.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: What is unique about it is that it helps brands automate the process of
3:37
SPEAKER_02: collaborations with micro influencers and does it at scale.
3:42
SPEAKER_02: And going into for those of you who do not.
3:45
SPEAKER_02: totally know what micro influencers are.
3:48
SPEAKER_02: Um,
3:49
they're basically influencers or social media users with
3:53
usually a less than a
3:54
SPEAKER_02: hundred thousand followers.
3:55
SPEAKER_02: So not the celebrities of the world,
3:58
SPEAKER_02: not the Kardashians,
4:00
SPEAKER_02: smaller follower range,
4:01
SPEAKER_02: but higher engagement,
4:02
SPEAKER_02: more trust.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: And so the name of the game there,
4:06
SPEAKER_02: because you have less reach to an audience,
4:08
SPEAKER_02: you want to scale them up,
4:10
SPEAKER_02: right?
4:10
SPEAKER_02: Work with a lot of different people and that becomes very difficult.
4:13
SPEAKER_02: And so what,
4:14
the stack influence platform does is it helps brands automate
4:19
that collaboration process.
4:20
SPEAKER_02: We can go into a bit more detail later in this podcast.
4:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, but it helps them automate this and then does that at scale.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: We have a community of about 600,000 people.
4:31
SPEAKER_02: Um, so we can really get lots of collaborations for you.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: And, uh,
4:36
SPEAKER_02: really help you scale your e-commerce brand.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: And we'll dive into the specifics in just a moment.
4:42
But I always love to take a little step back here because your
4:45
journey is going to
4:46
SPEAKER_00: be interesting.
4:46
You know,
4:46
you're a 6X founder with over 20 years of experience,
4:51
which is a long time.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, I can say that, too.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: I've been out there for about 20, 25 years.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so much has changed in this world.
4:59
Just what drew you to launch Stack Influence after everything
5:02
else you'd already done?
5:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so
5:06
SPEAKER_02: Long journey,
5:08
but the biggest thing that really made us develop and launch
5:13
Stack Influence was
5:15
SPEAKER_02: solving our own issues for our own e-commerce brands.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: So we utilize a lot of different influencer platforms,
5:21
SPEAKER_02: a lot of different influencer tactics to not only launch but also scale.
5:26
brands we were working on my my co-founder and i and along that
5:30
journey we started
5:31
to develop our own internal kind of automation and
5:35
functionality to help us with
5:37
that process help us find influencers help us analyze profiles
5:42
automate kind of
5:43
SPEAKER_02: collaborations um track results etc and
5:49
What we found was that the tools we were building in-house
5:52
really were better than
5:54
SPEAKER_02: a lot of the other solutions out there.
5:56
SPEAKER_02: And it kind of really just evolved of us not only building our own tools,
6:00
but then also sharing them with our friends and other
6:03
colleagues in the e-commerce
6:04
SPEAKER_02: world.
6:06
SPEAKER_02: And that was really the birth of Stack Influence,
6:08
SPEAKER_02: was finding that not only did we value the tools we built,
6:11
SPEAKER_02: but others in the e-commerce space actually also valued them.
6:16
SPEAKER_02: and building up kind of an internal community ourself.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: And so that was the birth of Stack Influence,
6:20
SPEAKER_02: was really just solving our own issues with the influencer world.
6:24
So many stories have come out,
6:25
Hootsuite as an example,
6:28
solving a problem.
6:29
So you identified a problem that was out there that it wasn't
6:32
really any technology
6:35
SPEAKER_00: to support it.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's amazing.
6:37
So were you guys primarily using influencer marketing as your
6:41
main marketing
6:43
strategy or was it just one of many different channels you were
6:46
tapping into?
6:48
SPEAKER_02: It was one of many, but it,
6:50
was influencer marketing is amazing because it gives you this
6:53
wide range of
6:54
benefits especially when you're first kind of launching a
6:57
product even if you're
6:58
established brand um what i mean by that is that you can invest
7:03
in online ads meta
7:04
ads tick tock ads google etc um pure performance marketing
7:09
right but the output
7:11
there is sales obviously sales are very key and important and
7:15
um the goal of any
7:16
SPEAKER_02: e-commerce brand
7:18
Um,
7:18
but in order to create a successful e-commerce brand,
7:23
you also want to build your brand.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: Right.
7:25
And the beautiful thing about influencer marketing is that
7:28
you're not just,
7:28
SPEAKER_02: you're getting similar value to those online ads.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: You're getting, um, your product out there.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: You're getting sales awareness, et cetera.
7:37
Um,
7:37
but with influencer marketing,
7:38
you're also developing a lot of content.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: You're developing a lot of social proof trust, um,
7:43
SPEAKER_02: And so it becomes this amazing way to not only generate sales,
7:49
SPEAKER_02: but then also create these long lasting relationships,
7:52
create this kind of we call a war chest of content that you can
7:55
now utilize on your
7:57
SPEAKER_02: online ads,
7:58
SPEAKER_02: fill out your website,
8:00
SPEAKER_02: create more.
8:01
When I say social proof,
8:02
real customer is actually utilizing your product,
8:04
showing how it works.
8:07
SPEAKER_02: And that just helps your websites convert better.
8:11
SPEAKER_02: If you're selling on online marketplaces like Amazon or Walmart,
8:14
SPEAKER_02: those listings actually perform better.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: Your ads perform better.
8:19
And so it becomes a strategy where you can really not only
8:24
scale up your sales,
8:25
SPEAKER_02: but also build your brand.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it sounds amazing.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, let's go back in time a little bit.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: How long has it, you know, really been around?
8:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
8:34
SPEAKER_00: I feel like,
8:34
SPEAKER_00: you know,
8:34
SPEAKER_00: there's different levels of influencers,
8:36
SPEAKER_00: you know,
8:36
SPEAKER_00: throughout our history.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
8:38
SPEAKER_00: sure,
8:38
SPEAKER_00: there were people in magazines who were,
8:39
SPEAKER_00: you know,
8:39
SPEAKER_00: technically you could call them influencers.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: But in this current form, how long has it been like this?
8:47
SPEAKER_02: It's now – so let's take a step back of –
8:51
SPEAKER_02: Evolution of influencer marketing, right?
8:52
SPEAKER_02: And to your exact point, influencering has been around forever, right?
8:56
SPEAKER_02: It's someone promoting a product to a mass audience in some capacity.
9:01
SPEAKER_02: Maybe not mass, but to any audience, right?
9:03
SPEAKER_02: You could even consider word-of-mouth marketing to be influencing.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: But it really started to blow up as publications,
9:14
SPEAKER_02: news became a mass kind of thing in our society,
9:18
SPEAKER_02: right?
9:19
SPEAKER_02: So anyone who actually promotes a product is an influencer.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: And the beginning of this journey was really with celebrities.
9:29
SPEAKER_02: People realizing,
9:29
SPEAKER_02: okay,
9:30
SPEAKER_02: you have someone with,
9:32
and in the social realm is really where the influencer term
9:36
kind of took off.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: Someone with millions of followers,
9:40
SPEAKER_02: hundreds of thousands of followers,
9:42
SPEAKER_02: gets a product,
9:43
SPEAKER_02: promotes that product to their audience,
9:44
SPEAKER_02: right?
9:46
SPEAKER_02: What has happened over the years,
9:47
SPEAKER_02: and really micro and nano influencers,
9:50
these smaller types of influencers have really come into play
9:53
in the last,
9:53
SPEAKER_02: I would say,
9:54
SPEAKER_02: 15,
9:54
SPEAKER_02: 20 years,
9:54
SPEAKER_02: right?
9:57
Those are the early days blogging kind of that was kind of the
10:00
initial micro
10:01
SPEAKER_02: influencer marketing even before social media really took hold.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: But the reason why micro and what they call nano influencers,
10:11
these smaller creators really became popular is that the
10:16
celebrities of the world
10:16
SPEAKER_02: people started to realize.
10:19
SPEAKER_02: They weren't as trustworthy, right?
10:21
SPEAKER_02: You started to realize that, hey, this person's promoting a product.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: Kim Kardashian's promoting a product.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: She's probably getting paid hundreds of thousands,
10:28
SPEAKER_02: sometimes millions of dollars to do this,
10:30
SPEAKER_02: right?
10:31
SPEAKER_02: And so does she actually really like this product?
10:33
SPEAKER_02: Is she actually behind it?
10:35
SPEAKER_02: Or is this person actually behind it?
10:37
And the reason why these smaller creators had started to become
10:41
much more effective
10:42
SPEAKER_02: is they're more trustworthy,
10:43
SPEAKER_02: right?
10:44
SPEAKER_02: They're not getting paid as much money.
10:46
SPEAKER_02: Some of them are just getting paid in simply product itself,
10:49
SPEAKER_02: and we can dive deeper into why that's a very effective strategy.
10:53
And so – and then the secondary factor is that besides the fact
10:58
that they're not
10:59
getting paid a huge amount of money and they're not so much
11:01
influenced or biased in
11:03
SPEAKER_02: their promotion,
11:04
SPEAKER_02: but also their audience is very trustworthy,
11:06
SPEAKER_02: right?
11:06
SPEAKER_02: When you have a very small, tight-knit investor.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: It's a lot of your friends,
11:10
SPEAKER_02: your family,
11:11
SPEAKER_02: your close acquaintances,
11:12
SPEAKER_02: people who actually trust you.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: First off,
11:14
you're not going to promote just anything to them because you
11:17
don't want to kind of
11:17
SPEAKER_02: be,
11:18
SPEAKER_02: you could say,
11:18
SPEAKER_02: a sellout.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: But second, they trust what you're saying, right?
11:23
SPEAKER_02: And so across the board,
11:26
what you see is that when these smaller creators create content
11:30
and promote
11:30
SPEAKER_02: products,
11:31
SPEAKER_02: their engagement levels on social media,
11:33
SPEAKER_02: and when I say engagement,
11:35
SPEAKER_02: people who like,
11:35
SPEAKER_02: people who comment,
11:36
SPEAKER_02: people who share those posts,
11:38
SPEAKER_02: are much higher in a percentage basis than those larger influencers.
11:44
And engagement is important because it correlates to sales or
11:48
conversions,
11:48
right?
11:49
SPEAKER_02: Someone's engaged with your post,
11:50
they're not just scrolling past it or just simply looking at it
11:55
for two seconds.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: They are more likely to actually take an action on it.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the day, that's what you want.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: You want influence.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: You want those sales.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: And so...
12:06
this is where this evolution of these smaller creators came
12:09
into play as well as
12:11
SPEAKER_02: the advent of social platforms,
12:13
really evolving and catering features to allow kind of anyone
12:17
to have a much larger
12:19
SPEAKER_02: influence.
12:19
Now with Tik TOK and Instagram reels and YouTube shorts,
12:23
you can have a hundred followers.
12:25
And if you're,
12:25
you produce really good content,
12:27
that piece of content can actually go viral.
12:29
SPEAKER_02: You can get millions of views on that.
12:31
SPEAKER_02: So the playing field is kind of leveled out.
12:34
SPEAKER_02: Um,
12:34
And it's really opened this gateway to making these smaller
12:38
creators as valuable,
12:40
SPEAKER_02: if not sometimes more valuable than their larger influencer counterparts.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: So do they go,
12:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
12:46
SPEAKER_00: I know there's the nano,
12:47
SPEAKER_00: micro,
12:48
SPEAKER_00: there's kind of like the ladder essentially.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: They start out as a nano and maybe,
12:54
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:54
SPEAKER_00: this is where,
12:54
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:55
SPEAKER_00: obviously where,
12:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Stack Influence is,
12:56
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:57
SPEAKER_00: working a lot,
12:57
SPEAKER_00: probably with a lot of nanos.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: What happens when they reach,
13:02
SPEAKER_00: you know,
13:03
SPEAKER_00: the next tier or a tier,
13:05
SPEAKER_00: you know,
13:05
do you stop working with them at some point because they've
13:08
gotten too big,
13:09
SPEAKER_00: they're not that real person anymore?
13:12
We actually have no cap to the amount of followers that can
13:16
participate in our campaigns.
13:19
SPEAKER_02: The unique thing about our system is it's pure product seeding, actually.
13:23
So that's another unique proposition that we have on the
13:26
platform is that if you're
13:28
willing to do a promotion in exchange for a product while
13:31
getting monetary benefits
13:33
SPEAKER_02: for,
13:33
SPEAKER_02: like,
13:33
SPEAKER_02: gamification –
13:35
SPEAKER_02: what type of results you drive,
13:37
SPEAKER_02: what type of content you produce,
13:38
SPEAKER_02: et cetera,
13:40
SPEAKER_02: you can participate in a stack influence campaign.
13:42
So there is a level to where people leave our platform and they
13:46
go to more kind of
13:48
SPEAKER_02: just pure pay for promotion systems.
13:52
But we still have people with hundreds of thousands of
13:54
followers who actually
13:55
participate in our campaigns because what we really wanted to
13:59
create a community
14:00
SPEAKER_02: and ethos around is the,
14:02
SPEAKER_02: um, almost passion promoters, right?
14:04
SPEAKER_02: People who actually care about the products that they're promoting.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: So if,
14:07
SPEAKER_02: if you actually care and like the product you're promoting,
14:10
SPEAKER_02: you will promote something just for a free product.
14:12
SPEAKER_02: You care about the brand.
14:14
Um,
14:14
and people do this without getting paid at all or without
14:16
getting free products,
14:17
right?
14:18
SPEAKER_02: Um,
14:18
SPEAKER_02: people on social media all the time,
14:20
SPEAKER_02: you're promoting your favorite brands,
14:21
SPEAKER_02: you're wearing them.
14:23
Um,
14:24
and so that enables these larger,
14:28
you could say follower based influencers to,
14:30
um,
14:32
SPEAKER_02: Stick with our platform in a long run fashion.
14:35
Most people do – the only last caveat is I will say the
14:41
majority of people have
14:42
SPEAKER_02: less than 20,000 followers on the system.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: Once you get over that, a lot of people do want to get paid.
14:48
But again,
14:48
there are some outliers who have 200,000,
14:50
300,000 followers who still collaborate.
14:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, again, I go back to this.
14:55
I love,
14:55
you know,
14:56
this,
14:56
and I'll put air quotes around it,
14:58
you know,
14:58
real people,
14:59
right?
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, as a consumer, I start to worry at some point.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
15:04
You know,
15:05
this person,
15:06
do they really like this product that they're raving about?
15:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, are they on the take?
15:12
SPEAKER_00: But if they're,
15:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:13
SPEAKER_00: utilizing,
15:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:15
SPEAKER_00: product seeding,
15:15
SPEAKER_00: which we'll get into in just one moment.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, I feel more comfortable listening to the pitch.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: Um,
15:22
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:22
I feel it's more authentic and I think that's what we're all
15:25
going after because
15:26
SPEAKER_00: this is,
15:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:27
SPEAKER_00: we're,
15:27
SPEAKER_00: we're,
15:27
SPEAKER_00: we're on a verge of a world that's becoming a bit,
15:30
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:30
SPEAKER_00: uh,
15:31
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:31
SPEAKER_00: rapid fire,
15:32
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:32
SPEAKER_00: a lot of AI,
15:33
SPEAKER_00: you start to wonder like who's pitching you on what?
15:36
SPEAKER_00: And is this totally personally, is this person even real?
15:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, the,
15:39
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: I saw somebody the other day pitching on, for sure.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, to the untrained eye, this was a human being.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: To the trained eye, this was all AI.
15:50
And they were influencing a product,
15:52
which I assume you have to be careful of out there.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: So real people, I think, is a phenomenal thing.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Let's dive into this product seeding.
15:59
Explain to the listeners this concept of product seeding and
16:04
what it is and how you
16:05
SPEAKER_00: guys utilize it at Stack Influence.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: So for those of you who do not know what product seeding is,
16:12
SPEAKER_02: it's exchanging a free product for some sort of collaboration,
16:17
SPEAKER_02: right?
16:18
SPEAKER_02: At a fundamental basis.
16:20
In the social world,
16:21
you're trading a product for a social promotion,
16:24
right?
16:25
And the benefit to this is that when you don't incorporate and
16:30
not to say people
16:31
SPEAKER_02: should not get paid for their work,
16:32
SPEAKER_02: right?
16:32
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
16:33
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
16:35
you're spending a lot of time creating content,
16:37
promoting that content,
16:38
et cetera.
16:40
But when you are willing to do a promotion or collaboration in
16:44
exchange for simply
16:45
SPEAKER_02: a product,
16:46
SPEAKER_02: it means that you actually really care about that product,
16:48
SPEAKER_02: right?
16:50
SPEAKER_02: It wouldn't be worth your time.
16:51
And so and that's where it comes back to when I mentioned like
16:54
passion promoters.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: It's like if you're interested in,
16:57
SPEAKER_02: let's say,
16:57
SPEAKER_02: rock climbing and I give you free rock climbing shoes,
17:00
SPEAKER_02: of course,
17:01
you're going to want to promote those rock climbing shoes
17:04
because it's something
17:04
SPEAKER_02: that you would spend your own money on normally.
17:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
17:07
So you're actually saving money for something you care about
17:10
and you actually know
17:10
SPEAKER_02: a lot about it.
17:11
So you're not going to necessarily promote any sort or brand of
17:15
rock climbing shoes.
17:18
SPEAKER_02: And so that becomes really powerful because first off,
17:22
SPEAKER_02: your friends,
17:22
SPEAKER_02: your family,
17:23
people who know you or even just simply your followers who
17:27
might not know you
17:29
SPEAKER_02: actually trust you because they see maybe the content you're producing.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: You're taking photos.
17:33
SPEAKER_02: You're taking videos of different rock climbs you're doing, et cetera.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: And so they know that you are a trusted kind of voice in that space.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: Now.
17:42
That's the first level of value from that is it's just more
17:45
authentic,
17:46
right?
17:46
You're not biased by doing something for money and maybe you
17:49
get that product and
17:50
SPEAKER_02: throw it away after you did the promotion.
17:53
And that trust is really key in this new social world that's
17:57
mixed with AI,
17:59
SPEAKER_02: massive paid promotions,
18:01
SPEAKER_02: et cetera.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: It's what people also want.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: And consumers,
18:04
SPEAKER_02: I think,
18:05
are becoming much more savvy to understand when something is
18:09
inauthentic or
18:10
SPEAKER_02: authentic,
18:10
SPEAKER_02: right?
18:11
SPEAKER_02: There's a fine line between them.
18:13
The second value to product seeding is that you're doing it in
18:18
a much more
18:19
SPEAKER_02: cost-effective manner,
18:20
SPEAKER_02: right?
18:20
SPEAKER_02: Influencer promotions can get quite pricey.
18:23
And so by seeding out products or doing things just in exchange
18:26
for free products,
18:27
you can spread – you can almost basically diversify your risk
18:31
across more people as
18:32
SPEAKER_02: opposed to maybe spending –
18:35
SPEAKER_02: $5,000,
18:35
SPEAKER_02: $10,000 on one celebrity promotion,
18:39
SPEAKER_02: you can spread that out through hundreds or thousands of product seeding
18:43
SPEAKER_02: collaborations,
18:43
SPEAKER_02: right?
18:44
SPEAKER_02: And now you're getting a lot more content,
18:46
SPEAKER_02: you're getting a lot more promotions,
18:47
SPEAKER_02: you're not putting all your eggs in one basket.
18:51
SPEAKER_02: And so getting a better bang for your buck, for your marketing spend.
18:55
SPEAKER_02: So product seeding overall,
18:57
SPEAKER_02: again,
18:58
SPEAKER_02: you're diversifying your risk,
19:00
SPEAKER_02: you're getting more authentic content
19:04
SPEAKER_02: and you're really spreading out those promotions across a lot more,
19:09
SPEAKER_02: not only social profiles,
19:11
but you're also the last really kind of big value to this is
19:15
you're getting your
19:15
SPEAKER_02: product in the hands of real consumers.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: So that is valuable on really two levels.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: One is word of mouth, right?
19:23
Is that if you find someone who's willing to promote a product
19:27
just for the
19:28
SPEAKER_02: product,
19:28
SPEAKER_02: it means they actually want the product.
19:30
SPEAKER_02: And so...
19:32
that's valuable because they're going to be utilizing in their
19:34
real day life,
19:35
right?
19:35
SPEAKER_02: They're going to be talking about it.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: Like they might be wearing it.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: They might be consuming it.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: And so word about marketing,
19:43
one of the most effective marketing strategies in the history
19:46
of the world.
19:48
And so that also becomes a really valuable aspect as well as
19:53
that actually
19:54
SPEAKER_02: influencer might become a lifelong consumer of your brand as well.
19:57
So they might keep buying it if it's a consumable product that
20:00
they would want to
20:01
SPEAKER_02: re-buy,
20:02
SPEAKER_02: you could say.
20:05
SPEAKER_02: So in total,
20:07
that's really the big value of product seeding and just
20:12
exchanging a free product
20:13
SPEAKER_02: in exchange for some sort of collaboration in what we're talking about,
20:16
SPEAKER_02: a social promotion.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and obviously very cost-effective to the brand as well.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Getting that out there.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: A lot of value.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: One thing I had asked you earlier offline, we talked about age.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned to me that you guys don't take anybody under 18.
20:35
But we're seeing this whole world where there are these kids
20:37
out there who are
20:39
SPEAKER_00: becoming,
20:40
SPEAKER_00: I guess,
20:40
SPEAKER_00: the next wave of influencers.
20:42
I've got a good friend,
20:45
a family friend,
20:46
that one of the other kid is pitching cologne.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: He's very into cologne.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: And he is not...
20:50
SPEAKER_00: He's not 18 yet,
20:50
SPEAKER_00: but I assume at some point,
20:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
20:52
SPEAKER_00: maybe when he turns 18,
20:53
he becomes a perfect candidate for this because there are
20:56
brands out there that may
20:58
SPEAKER_00: be watching and saying,
20:59
SPEAKER_00: God,
20:59
SPEAKER_00: he's really talking amazing.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: He's saying amazing things about our cologne.
21:02
Let's go ahead and send him the next,
21:05
you know,
21:05
batch that comes out in there.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: Are you seeing a big influx of young,
21:09
SPEAKER_00: you know,
21:10
SPEAKER_00: 18 to 21 year olds that are in stack influence now?
21:15
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: So the younger generation lives on social media and,
21:19
SPEAKER_02: Gen Z. So it's becoming more of a normal aspect of their life.
21:25
And a lot of people realize that they can potentially create a
21:28
living actually
21:30
SPEAKER_02: influencing in some capacity.
21:31
SPEAKER_02: Right.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: And because they grew up with these social platforms,
21:36
SPEAKER_02: they're very attuned to the different things that convert.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: to how to create really high engaging content.
21:43
And so yes,
21:44
we are,
21:44
the average actually age on our platform is 30,
21:49
surprisingly.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: You'd think it'd be actually even younger in people in their 20s,
21:53
SPEAKER_02: but not to say that there's,
21:55
what we're seeing is a lot more younger people joining the
21:58
platform just because of
21:59
SPEAKER_02: that aspect of social media being such an integral part of their lives.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: What kind of brands are you seeing,
22:06
SPEAKER_00: you know,
22:06
SPEAKER_00: or maybe what kind of products are at the top of the list in terms of,
22:10
SPEAKER_00: you know,
22:11
brands want to promote or that maybe even influencers are
22:15
interested in promoting
22:16
SPEAKER_00: right now?
22:17
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: So the top brands that we see,
22:21
SPEAKER_02: so first off,
22:22
SPEAKER_02: actually,
22:22
SPEAKER_02: the influencer world is more skewed female,
22:26
SPEAKER_02: somewhat surprisingly.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: We see about 65% to 70% of influencers being actually female.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: But as far as products which correlate with more female influencers,
22:42
SPEAKER_02: Catering is fashion, beauty, fitness, food.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: Those are kind of the top categories.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: A lot of consumables are really,
22:52
really – or products that you reutilize or might subscribe to
22:56
are some of the most
22:57
SPEAKER_02: popular influencer products because going back,
23:00
SPEAKER_02: especially for product seeding,
23:02
SPEAKER_02: just getting your product in the hands of someone could be valuable,
23:04
SPEAKER_02: right?
23:05
SPEAKER_02: You might get market research from that.
23:08
You can get basically them – if they like the product,
23:11
they might rebuy it.
23:12
And then it's also just the value of like every single person
23:17
who you get onto the
23:18
SPEAKER_02: platform might become a recurring subscriber.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: You have an LTV to your product.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: It's not just a one-off buy.
23:25
So we see a lot of those types of products really scaling up
23:30
influencer marketing
23:31
SPEAKER_02: on our platform as opposed to sometimes the one-off products that
23:37
May only do a smaller campaign just to generate some initial
23:40
awareness,
23:40
et cetera.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: If that makes sense.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that does.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: Um,
23:43
SPEAKER_00: and what platforms,
23:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
23:44
SPEAKER_00: obviously stack influence is the platform we're talking about,
23:47
SPEAKER_00: but in terms of the social platforms,
23:49
SPEAKER_00: which ones are leading the way right now,
23:50
SPEAKER_00: just in terms of influencers,
23:52
SPEAKER_00: tick tock at the top of the list,
23:53
SPEAKER_00: uh,
23:53
SPEAKER_00: or is Instagram still ruling,
23:55
SPEAKER_00: uh,
23:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
23:56
SPEAKER_00: the,
23:56
SPEAKER_00: the ruler out there.
23:58
SPEAKER_02: It's going back and forth.
23:59
SPEAKER_02: Instagram still holds rain, um, across a lot of different industries.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: But the top three by far are TikTok,
24:09
SPEAKER_02: Instagram,
24:10
SPEAKER_02: and then YouTube Shorts is kind of an up and coming.
24:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: At least in the B2C world, right?
24:18
SPEAKER_02: And then if you're going into the B2B,
24:20
SPEAKER_02: you kind of are looking at the LinkedIns,
24:22
SPEAKER_02: the Reddits of the world,
24:25
SPEAKER_02: kind of some of the more Twitter or X.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:30
But yeah,
24:31
for our platform,
24:33
we're B2C focused and also e-commerce focused.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: And those, the top three are Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
24:39
okay so somebody wants to get started uh you know young young
24:43
brand maybe they're
24:44
selling their own products uh they're manufacturing everything
24:47
they come to stack
24:47
influence how does it how does it happen how do they get
24:50
started how do they put
24:51
their information in and i guess most importantly then how do
24:53
they measure that's
24:55
what i would really love to how do they measure that this is
24:57
actually working other
24:58
SPEAKER_00: than seeing their influencer doing the thing out there
25:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:04
SPEAKER_02: So very simply, you sign up on our website.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: You're going to set specific goals for a campaign.
25:11
SPEAKER_02: So our our system is very unique comparatively reason why we built it.
25:17
SPEAKER_02: as opposed to using a lot of other softwares out there.
25:20
SPEAKER_02: Most of the other influencer tools that exist,
25:23
SPEAKER_02: just to give you also everyone a background on this,
25:27
SPEAKER_02: are pretty much like a CRM.
25:29
SPEAKER_02: And for those of you who don't know what a CRM is,
25:31
SPEAKER_02: it's a customer relationship management platform,
25:33
meaning that like a lot of other platforms will give you a
25:36
database of influencers
25:38
SPEAKER_02: and then some software tools to reach out to them,
25:42
SPEAKER_02: to negotiate kind of some collaborations,
25:46
SPEAKER_02: to manage payments and kind of like help you with the collaboration.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: But there's still a huge amount of manual effort that is entailed.
25:56
SPEAKER_02: Now,
25:57
SPEAKER_02: for smaller product seeding or micro and nano influencer promotions,
26:02
SPEAKER_02: those platforms become very difficult because the name of the game,
26:05
SPEAKER_02: as we've been discussing,
26:07
SPEAKER_02: is scale.
26:07
SPEAKER_02: You want to work with a lot of these people.
26:10
And so what we developed is a system,
26:13
as I mentioned earlier in this,
26:15
is for pure automation.
26:17
SPEAKER_02: And so when a brand comes to our system and signs up,
26:20
SPEAKER_02: you're going to set a specific goal,
26:22
SPEAKER_02: whether it's a hundred influencers,
26:23
SPEAKER_02: whether it's 5,000 influencers and you're going to set still,
26:28
we want you to have a lot of control over how your product and
26:32
your brand is
26:33
SPEAKER_02: displayed,
26:34
SPEAKER_02: what type of posting guidelines you'd like to direct people to kind of,
26:38
SPEAKER_02: um,
26:38
SPEAKER_02: follow.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: But then from there,
26:41
we wanted to make a system that just handled all of the
26:44
logistics that as a brand,
26:46
SPEAKER_02: um,
26:47
SPEAKER_02: you don't have time to do.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: And that entails shipping products out to people,
26:52
SPEAKER_02: making sure they post on time,
26:54
SPEAKER_02: making sure they follow guidelines,
26:56
SPEAKER_02: analyzing results.
26:57
And so once you sign up and you set these goals in your
27:00
timeframe and your posting
27:01
SPEAKER_02: guidelines,
27:02
SPEAKER_02: you sit back and relax.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: The platform sets out to achieve the goals,
27:06
SPEAKER_02: while providing you with a full-fledged tracking dashboard.
27:09
So you still have insight into monitoring how the funnel of
27:13
these influencers are
27:14
SPEAKER_02: flowing through,
27:15
SPEAKER_02: who's received your product,
27:17
SPEAKER_02: who's in their posting stage,
27:19
SPEAKER_02: who's actually completed posts.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: How can you analyze kind of the social results of those promotions?
27:27
SPEAKER_02: Can you download content?
27:29
SPEAKER_02: Can you create longer term relationships with these influencers?
27:32
And so the platform is going to help you monitor everything and
27:35
then leverage
27:36
SPEAKER_02: things for the long term,
27:38
SPEAKER_02: but handle all of the heavy lifting for you,
27:40
SPEAKER_02: if that makes sense.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's great.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, I hear this a lot.
27:44
Oh,
27:45
I'm just going to,
27:46
you know,
27:46
an entrepreneur,
27:47
e-commerce entrepreneur.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to go and reach out on Instagram myself.
27:51
Yeah.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: and start doing this process.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: And my attitude is always like,
27:55
SPEAKER_00: sure,
27:55
SPEAKER_00: I guess you could go do that,
27:56
SPEAKER_00: but where's the trackability?
27:57
SPEAKER_00: How are you gonna measure what's happening?
28:00
SPEAKER_00: And as this thing scales,
28:01
SPEAKER_00: you've already explained,
28:02
SPEAKER_00: it's a lot of work to get product in hand,
28:06
SPEAKER_00: manage who has the product,
28:08
SPEAKER_00: what are they gonna be doing with it,
28:09
SPEAKER_00: and when are they gonna be doing it,
28:11
SPEAKER_00: and what are my results?
28:12
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of work.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: And going back to your question on results, so a few different layers
28:21
to results from influencer marketing right first layer is your
28:25
social metrics you
28:26
want to understand what your total reach or impressions are
28:30
from those social
28:31
promotions you want to understand what your engagement levels
28:34
are so which types of
28:37
audiences of the influencers are actually engaging or taking
28:42
action on the social
28:43
SPEAKER_02: promotions so
28:45
what's your product resonating with or which audiences are they
28:48
resonating with?
28:49
And then also you wanna understand how many sales you're
28:52
generating from each
28:53
SPEAKER_02: promotion,
28:55
SPEAKER_02: who your best kind of promotions are,
28:58
SPEAKER_02: what the best content you're producing,
28:59
and then who could be potential candidates for longer term
29:03
collaborations.
29:04
And that's a big thing that is an evolution of the influencer
29:10
strategy that a lot
29:10
SPEAKER_02: of brands who are really good at influencing
29:15
SPEAKER_02: are taking advantage of is not just doing a one off promotion,
29:19
SPEAKER_02: but doing something in the long term.
29:21
SPEAKER_02: Consumers naturally
29:24
SPEAKER_02: have a higher affinity to products they see more than once, right?
29:29
And so if you can create this longer-term relationship with an
29:32
influencer,
29:33
SPEAKER_02: they're not just promoting your product once,
29:34
SPEAKER_02: but they're promoting it multiple times across multiple social channels.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: It becomes a much more effective type of collaboration.
29:43
And you can incentivize influencers in a variety of ways to do
29:47
these longer-term,
29:48
SPEAKER_02: whether it's more product seeding,
29:50
SPEAKER_02: shipping them,
29:51
SPEAKER_02: other products maybe from your catalog.
29:52
SPEAKER_02: whether it's affiliate type of relationship,
29:54
SPEAKER_02: so giving them a commission of sales over a longer-term time period.
29:59
So there's a variety of ways to create these kind of
30:02
longer-term relationships with
30:04
SPEAKER_02: these people,
30:04
SPEAKER_02: which we see a huge amount of value in.
30:06
And then the last aspect is actually integrating kind of these
30:09
longer-term
30:09
SPEAKER_02: relationships into online ads.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: And this is – we can talk about this later, but –
30:15
There's all these new features for what the advertising world
30:19
calls whitelisting,
30:20
SPEAKER_02: kind of running an ad through an influencer's profile,
30:23
SPEAKER_02: right?
30:23
SPEAKER_02: Or getting the influencer to actually run an ad on your product.
30:28
So putting ad dollars behind something that's more authentic
30:31
than something coming
30:32
SPEAKER_02: from your brand,
30:33
SPEAKER_02: and then maybe doing commission shares of sales,
30:36
SPEAKER_02: et cetera.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: Those are big things that we see where the influencer marketing
30:43
world is going to be evolving into much more rapidly and what
30:45
we're investing in a lot as well.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: Just maybe two or three metrics that are essential.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: I assume sales, top of the list.
30:56
But what else would I be looking at in terms of evaluating if
31:00
my influencer campaign worked?
31:03
Sales,
31:03
engagement level,
31:04
and then I would say also a big thing is content value,
31:10
honestly.
31:12
SPEAKER_02: Because again,
31:15
SPEAKER_02: as I briefly brought up previously,
31:17
SPEAKER_02: influencer marketing is not just pure performance marketing.
31:21
SPEAKER_02: It's not just on the ads.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: It's also brand building.
31:24
SPEAKER_02: And you might get one piece of content that you start running an ad with
31:28
SPEAKER_02: Decreases your ad costs, increases your conversion rates.
31:30
SPEAKER_02: You might get an ROI just off one single piece of UGC.
31:34
SPEAKER_02: Right.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: And for those of you who don't know what UGC is, user generated content.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: And so don't underestimate that value as well.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: Right.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: So obviously look at those main metrics for.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: the actual influencing social promotion itself,
31:51
SPEAKER_02: but then also look at the metrics of what was the content you produced?
31:55
SPEAKER_02: What was the relationship also you produced?
31:57
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you found one person who's really good at longer term promotions.
32:02
Maybe that one promotion did okay,
32:04
but over a year timeframe,
32:06
they kept promoting your product.
32:08
SPEAKER_02: A few of their posts went viral, et cetera.
32:11
SPEAKER_02: And you also got a massive ROI just from that longer term relationship,
32:16
SPEAKER_02: giving them an affiliate commission.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: Right.
32:19
So those are the things that we prompt brands to really dig
32:23
into is look at those
32:24
SPEAKER_02: first metrics from that first collaboration,
32:27
SPEAKER_02: but then also take the content,
32:29
take those longer term relationships and analyze those metrics
32:32
in a longer term
32:32
SPEAKER_02: fashion.
32:33
And you're going to see a much higher ROI by seeing that kind
32:37
of full picture value.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's great.
32:41
And I assume as an e-commerce entrepreneur,
32:45
it isn't just about me having my own site.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I could do this if I was selling on marketplaces too, right?
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, places like that.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: No restrictions around that.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Works just fine.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
32:56
I guess you just have to pick where you want to promote and
32:59
where you want your
33:00
SPEAKER_00: influencer to send.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: And also maybe a follow-up to that is...
33:03
Are there influencers who are more influential in the Etsy
33:08
world or in the Amazon world?
33:11
SPEAKER_00: Can I find those profiles on your platform?
33:15
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
33:16
We actually have a big focus on e-commerce marketplaces where a
33:21
lot of the sellers
33:22
utilize our system to actually help their e-commerce
33:26
marketplace platform or
33:28
SPEAKER_02: listings grow.
33:30
SPEAKER_02: A big reason behind that
33:32
And I'll follow up with the specifics of the influencers
33:35
catered to those platforms
33:36
SPEAKER_02: in a minute.
33:37
But a big reason why brands love influencer marketing for
33:43
e-commerce marketplace
33:44
growth is that e-commerce marketplaces are search engines at
33:48
the end of the day,
33:49
SPEAKER_02: right?
33:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
33:51
SPEAKER_02: Let's just take Amazon, the largest one, for example.
33:55
SPEAKER_02: There's about 3,000 new sellers that join Amazon every single day.
34:01
And I think the stat is about 75% of people don't go past the
34:06
first page when they
34:07
SPEAKER_02: search for something on Amazon,
34:08
SPEAKER_02: right?
34:09
SPEAKER_02: I assume everyone listening has bought something on Amazon.
34:12
Maybe you'll go to the second page if you really,
34:13
really can't find what you're looking for.
34:16
But take into account how many new sellers are joining the
34:19
platform every day.
34:20
SPEAKER_02: And how many people are already on there?
34:23
SPEAKER_02: For any given search term,
34:24
SPEAKER_02: there might be tens of thousands,
34:27
SPEAKER_02: sometimes hundreds of thousands of pages,
34:29
SPEAKER_02: right?
34:30
SPEAKER_02: Or of listings and search results.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: So going back to a search engine, how do you rank?
34:35
SPEAKER_02: The same thing on Google.
34:36
SPEAKER_02: How do you actually show up and have visibility?
34:39
SPEAKER_02: Because that's the way you make actually money on those marketplaces.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: If you're not shown anywhere, it's like you just have a website, right?
34:45
SPEAKER_02: You have to drive the sales yourself.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: And so...
34:49
How those marketplaces determine how you actually show up is by
34:54
collecting data on
34:55
SPEAKER_02: how your product performs,
34:57
SPEAKER_02: right?
34:58
So when someone goes to your listing,
35:00
do they add your product to the cart?
35:02
SPEAKER_02: Do they buy your product?
35:05
SPEAKER_02: What actions do they take?
35:06
SPEAKER_02: Is it high converting or not converting, right?
35:09
SPEAKER_02: And Amazon's not going to show you or Walmart's not going to show you
35:12
on that first page if they don't think that you're going to be
35:15
a valuable product
35:16
SPEAKER_02: because they're making commission off your sales.
35:19
So if they put you there and you don't do very well,
35:23
they just lost a whole bunch of money.
35:25
SPEAKER_02: Like there could have been someone better, right?
35:27
But the thing is,
35:28
is maybe the top,
35:31
I think there's 43 listings on the first page of Amazon.
35:35
SPEAKER_02: If there's a new product that just launched, right?
35:38
SPEAKER_02: And it's like 10 times better than,
35:40
SPEAKER_02: one of the products that's on that first page,
35:42
SPEAKER_02: it's in Amazon's best interest to figure out a way to determine,
35:46
SPEAKER_02: should they be shown?
35:47
SPEAKER_02: Because if they are really,
35:48
SPEAKER_02: really good and they do show them,
35:51
SPEAKER_02: now Amazon's making more money,
35:52
SPEAKER_02: right?
35:53
SPEAKER_02: And so why influencer marketing becomes so valuable is,
35:57
SPEAKER_02: If you can provide external traffic signals to Amazon,
36:00
SPEAKER_02: buy an external traffic signal,
36:02
SPEAKER_02: an influencer promotion driving sales to an Amazon listing,
36:06
SPEAKER_02: for example.
36:07
SPEAKER_02: You're giving Amazon the metrics it needs to understand,
36:10
SPEAKER_02: hey,
36:11
is this product valuable enough to get shown on this higher
36:14
page positioning?
36:15
SPEAKER_02: Um, and if you get shown your sales could 10 X 30 X overnight, right?
36:22
Cause you get now access to these millions of people who are
36:25
actually visiting
36:26
SPEAKER_02: Amazon every single day.
36:28
SPEAKER_02: Um,
36:28
SPEAKER_02: so it becomes a really,
36:29
really effective strategy for scaling up e-commerce marketplace
36:33
platforms.
36:33
SPEAKER_02: In addition to all the brand building aspects,
36:36
you have to have a good brand and have to differentiate
36:38
yourself to even compete
36:40
SPEAKER_02: and get people to convert.
36:42
SPEAKER_02: Um,
36:43
SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of the value of the e-commerce side with the influencers.
36:46
And then quick follow-up to influencers being catered to
36:50
certain platforms.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
36:54
Now,
36:54
for example,
36:55
Amazon and both Walmart have their own kind of influencer
36:58
affiliate platforms.
37:01
SPEAKER_02: aspects to their platforms,
37:03
where they're actually out of their pocket paying commissions
37:05
to these influencers
37:06
SPEAKER_02: to drive sales to products.
37:08
So you can create and there's absolutely these people on our
37:10
platform who already
37:11
SPEAKER_02: are part of these programs.
37:13
And so they'll promote your product through our system,
37:16
let's say on Instagram.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: promote it to drive some sales to Amazon,
37:21
SPEAKER_02: but then they have their own Amazon,
37:23
SPEAKER_02: what they call a storefront,
37:24
SPEAKER_02: kind of a list of products that they recommend.
37:26
SPEAKER_02: They'll then take that social promotion,
37:28
SPEAKER_02: post that to their Amazon kind of storefront page,
37:33
and keep kind of driving traffic there to get affiliate
37:36
commissions in the long
37:37
SPEAKER_02: term.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: And so now you're kind of going into that longer term value world.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: And just some people are
37:46
SPEAKER_02: more attuned to promoting these kind of online marketplaces than others.
37:49
SPEAKER_02: So absolutely,
37:51
SPEAKER_02: it's a big evolution we're seeing in the space,
37:53
SPEAKER_02: but influential marketing works regardless of where you sell,
37:57
SPEAKER_02: Shopify,
37:58
SPEAKER_02: WordPress,
37:59
SPEAKER_02: you name it.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: Just curious,
38:01
SPEAKER_00: those videos that I see down at the bottom of,
38:03
SPEAKER_00: let's say,
38:03
an Amazon listing where they're unboxing it and they're talking
38:07
about it short.
38:08
Are those influencers or are those just people who have
38:11
something wonderful to say
38:12
SPEAKER_00: or not so wonderful?
38:13
SPEAKER_00: I guess I don't know how that's being curated,
38:16
SPEAKER_00: by the way,
38:16
SPEAKER_00: if Amazon allows the not so wonderful commentary to go up,
38:19
SPEAKER_00: too.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: No, it does.
38:22
Um,
38:22
that is actually a new program,
38:25
um,
38:25
that Amazon has pushed out called Amazon posts.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: Um,
38:29
it's something that we were actually working on in automation
38:31
development into
38:32
SPEAKER_02: actually right now.
38:33
Um,
38:34
speaking about syndicating kind of,
38:36
uh,
38:37
content across a lot of different platforms.
38:39
SPEAKER_02: Um,
38:40
SPEAKER_02: but to answer your question,
38:42
SPEAKER_02: yes,
38:43
SPEAKER_02: a lot of those are,
38:44
some of those are just consumers who have created some content
38:48
and posted that
38:48
SPEAKER_02: content.
38:50
But a lot of that is actually a lot of influencer content that
38:53
not only – there's
38:54
SPEAKER_02: two ways that that can get fed in.
38:56
One is an influencer that exists on Amazon's ecosystem,
39:00
posting content,
39:01
tagging that brand.
39:02
The second is actually the brand repurposing that content and
39:04
promoting it.
39:05
SPEAKER_02: But the advent of Amazon actually –
39:08
SPEAKER_02: Creating that feature,
39:09
SPEAKER_02: it's kind of their way to integrate into this social shopping world,
39:14
SPEAKER_02: right?
39:14
SPEAKER_02: Right.
39:15
Create almost an Instagram feed on your listing to show that
39:19
social proof,
39:21
SPEAKER_02: to show real consumers actually utilizing the product.
39:24
SPEAKER_02: And so we highly recommend it's a free system for Amazon,
39:26
anyone who is running influencer campaigns to absolutely
39:29
reutilize content into
39:31
SPEAKER_02: their post system,
39:32
because it absolutely a lot of proven data that it will
39:35
increase your conversions
39:37
SPEAKER_02: of consumers visiting your pages.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: Well,
39:39
SPEAKER_00: I'll say,
39:39
SPEAKER_00: William,
39:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you have this kind of time in your day,
39:42
SPEAKER_00: but I have never looked at that situation and said,
39:45
SPEAKER_00: you know what,
39:45
I really should make a video about that thing that I just
39:50
bought out there.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: But I think that there is obviously a whole world that loves to do that.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: You know,
39:56
SPEAKER_00: I look at my,
39:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:57
SPEAKER_00: more of a time situation,
39:59
SPEAKER_00: but there are people who are very passionate,
40:01
SPEAKER_00: right?
40:01
They just bought something and they want to be the first to
40:03
tell you about it.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what we're talking about here.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: All of this,
40:07
SPEAKER_00: all the whole,
40:08
the whole influencer ecosystem is these people who just want to
40:12
get the message
40:13
SPEAKER_00: out.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: They're excited about the product.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: I think that's amazing.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: I think it's amazing.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, one thing that does concern me is the world of AI.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: And we just touched on it just a little bit, you know, earlier.
40:24
what are you seeing happening in the world of ai you know it's
40:27
obviously playing a
40:28
huge part in all areas of e-commerce what's happening what kind
40:32
of impact is it
40:33
having on the influencer marketing world how are you guys you
40:36
know uh you know do
40:37
you have problems with people making i mean what if people are
40:40
starting to make you
40:41
SPEAKER_00: know their ai they're you know using uh hey jen and
40:45
and 11 labs and you know it's not it's not the real ramin it's
40:49
the ai version of
40:50
ramin doing it how are you guys you know are you starting to
40:53
see some of that
40:54
happen and and what what's what's going on with ai and in the
40:57
influencer world lots
40:59
of different things um we're utilizing a lot of ai in our own
41:03
platform ourselves so
41:05
um ai is helping a lot just let's just take not the ai
41:10
generated content we can
41:11
SPEAKER_02: talk about that in a second but um
41:14
SPEAKER_02: Just utilizing AI to analyze profiles,
41:16
SPEAKER_02: analyze metrics about promotions,
41:19
SPEAKER_02: analyze content,
41:20
SPEAKER_02: right?
41:21
SPEAKER_02: So utilizing to find better promoters for you and analyze results in more
41:28
SPEAKER_02: qualitative and quantitative fashion.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: Second thing is helping with automation, right?
41:35
So caption automation,
41:38
kind of like helping you curate things in a better way
41:42
SPEAKER_02: way, right?
41:44
SPEAKER_02: Creating better descriptions and product guidelines for your brand.
41:51
So things along those lines are really positive in the
41:54
influencer world because
41:55
SPEAKER_02: they're just making people more efficient with the types of content.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: Now,
41:59
SPEAKER_02: as far as content generation,
42:03
SPEAKER_02: we haven't seen,
42:03
SPEAKER_02: so we do not allow someone to have a pure AI content on
42:08
SPEAKER_02: for promotion through our platform, right?
42:11
And the reason behind that is going back to inauthenticity,
42:15
it's not as trustworthy,
42:16
right?
42:17
SPEAKER_02: And there is a big debate around this,
42:20
SPEAKER_02: of is AI generated content,
42:21
SPEAKER_02: is AI influencer is going to take over real influencer.
42:25
And my thoughts on it are,
42:27
it's actually,
42:28
it is going to be an aspect of influencer marketing.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: It's getting really good and there's going to be no question
42:34
SPEAKER_02: types of AI generated content that convert really well.
42:37
SPEAKER_02: But it also comes back to, again, authenticity and trustworthiness.
42:42
SPEAKER_02: And the reason why,
42:43
especially micro and nano influencers have blown up in the past
42:47
few years and
42:47
become this such an effective form of promotion is because of
42:51
that trustworthiness
42:53
SPEAKER_02: and why people have gone away from just generating their own ads or using
42:56
SPEAKER_02: celebrities is because of that inauthenticity in some capacity or less
42:59
SPEAKER_02: trustworthiness.
43:01
SPEAKER_02: And people are getting really good at
43:03
even though AI is also simultaneously getting insanely good at
43:06
tricking you.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: that you can tell when something is fake or not real, right?
43:13
SPEAKER_02: And so that is less trustworthy innately, right?
43:17
If you have a good product and it's sending a good message,
43:20
you may still buy it.
43:22
SPEAKER_02: But that trust is still going to exist forever, right?
43:27
SPEAKER_02: That's what we want as you trust your friends,
43:30
SPEAKER_02: your family,
43:31
SPEAKER_02: when you,
43:32
SPEAKER_02: a lot of times,
43:33
or you go to the people in your life that have experience in
43:36
something when you're
43:36
SPEAKER_02: going to make a consumer decision.
43:38
SPEAKER_02: A lot of times, obviously, you're influenced by ads, etc.
43:41
SPEAKER_02: But overall, you convert on people who you care about and believe in.
43:48
SPEAKER_02: So all that said,
43:50
I do think there's going to be a lot of synergy with AI and
43:54
influencer marketing,
43:55
SPEAKER_02: not just in total fake profiles,
43:58
SPEAKER_02: but in curating content in a better fashion,
44:01
SPEAKER_02: right?
44:01
SPEAKER_02: Like, there are ways to create a video or an image and then
44:07
SPEAKER_02: increase the resolution using AI, right?
44:10
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you didn't have the best iPhone photo,
44:12
but you can use actually AI tools to maybe enhance it and make
44:16
it still authentic,
44:17
SPEAKER_02: still you,
44:18
SPEAKER_02: but just a little bit more quality,
44:24
SPEAKER_02: you could say.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: Second thing is also utilizing AI to edit videos.
44:30
SPEAKER_02: This is a big thing that we're pretty bullish on.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: with online ads.
44:34
SPEAKER_02: So incorporating a video into an AI generator that might cut it up,
44:39
SPEAKER_02: add captions,
44:41
make it a better type of maybe promotion for you that could
44:45
possibly be used
44:46
SPEAKER_02: further for ads,
44:47
SPEAKER_02: but maybe just for that influence promotion.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: So
44:51
We're believing or I personally see that there's going to be a
44:55
lot of synergy with
44:56
the AI generated content and the authentic kind of UGC world in
45:03
combination with
45:04
SPEAKER_02: things that are purely fake or purely AI generated.
45:08
But I think those are going to fall into kind of the more
45:11
celebrity promotion
45:13
SPEAKER_02: bucket,
45:14
SPEAKER_02: the less authentic.
45:15
SPEAKER_02: And it's just going to become another form of kind of just generating and
45:21
SPEAKER_02: a graphic design ad, right?
45:24
SPEAKER_02: Like, but it's interactive, you know?
45:26
SPEAKER_02: Well,
45:27
SPEAKER_00: again,
45:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you guys are,
45:28
SPEAKER_00: you know,
45:28
SPEAKER_00: you have a line that can't be crossed because,
45:31
SPEAKER_00: you know,
45:31
SPEAKER_00: I'll say just in that example that I saw the other day,
45:35
SPEAKER_00: he was selling,
45:35
SPEAKER_00: a person was selling a course.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: And it was lacking authenticity.
45:41
And just because I'm so deeply involved in the world of AI as
45:45
well,
45:46
I mean,
45:46
you can see it.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: Again,
45:47
SPEAKER_00: I think there are probably a lot of people who don't capture,
45:50
SPEAKER_00: it doesn't trigger right away.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: But I looked at it and said, you know what?
45:54
SPEAKER_00: I liked the idea.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: I was interested in the content, but then I saw that.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: And so I think the same thing will ring true for brands and products.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad that you guys are...
46:04
SPEAKER_00: you know,
46:05
SPEAKER_00: trying to get ahead of this and make sure that,
46:06
SPEAKER_00: because otherwise we're flooded,
46:08
SPEAKER_00: we're flooding the market with,
46:10
SPEAKER_00: with,
46:10
SPEAKER_00: with,
46:11
SPEAKER_00: you know,
46:12
SPEAKER_00: because you could do this at scale all day long.
46:14
SPEAKER_02: That's the big thing.
46:15
We're going to,
46:16
we're already bombarded by so much content and it's just going
46:20
to get worse.
46:20
And so it's going to be creativity is we have a catchphrase of
46:26
like creativity is a
46:27
SPEAKER_02: new currency,
46:27
SPEAKER_02: but like creativity is really,
46:30
SPEAKER_02: going to be what differentiates brands in the future because,
46:33
SPEAKER_02: and even in the AI world,
46:34
SPEAKER_02: like if you're not creative,
46:36
SPEAKER_02: there's gonna be so much content that's generated,
46:39
SPEAKER_02: like it's just not gonna stick out.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: And so creativity and authenticity are what are going to thrive.
46:44
SPEAKER_02: Um,
46:45
SPEAKER_02: in my opinion, in this world that we're just bombarded by content.
46:49
Because as you said,
46:50
it's gonna be so,
46:51
and it already is getting very,
46:52
very easy to scale.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: So tell me about the next 12 to 24 months.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: Does Kim Kardashian still have a job as a mega influencer?
47:00
Or is this world gonna be dominated by the nanos and the micros
47:05
out there?
47:06
SPEAKER_00: which I like.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a great thing.
47:08
Again,
47:08
this is what you guys are all about,
47:10
the authentic,
47:10
the real person out there.
47:12
What does this world of influencer marketing look like in 12 to
47:15
24 months?
47:18
It absolutely is consistently – we call it the democratization
47:21
of the influencer world.
47:24
SPEAKER_02: It is – it's moving in that direction.
47:26
SPEAKER_02: I don't think Kim Kardashian is going to be out of a job,
47:28
SPEAKER_02: and if she was,
47:29
SPEAKER_02: she's going to be okay.
47:31
SPEAKER_02: But there's still a value of celebrities in influencing.
47:35
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, right?
47:36
SPEAKER_02: They still have an affinity towards them.
47:40
They have this kind of almost cult-like following,
47:43
and they have a massive reach.
47:45
SPEAKER_02: So –
47:46
SPEAKER_02: those promotions can still be effective.
47:48
The downside is social platforms now don't actually cater to
47:52
them like they used to.
47:53
SPEAKER_02: It used to be the fact that if you had a million followers,
47:55
SPEAKER_02: you posted,
47:56
all those million people were on social media that few days
48:00
after you posted,
48:01
SPEAKER_02: everyone would see your content.
48:02
SPEAKER_02: Now,
48:03
only the people who are actually really engaged with your
48:06
content that you produce
48:07
SPEAKER_02: in the past will actually see the content you produce in the future.
48:11
SPEAKER_02: And so, and
48:14
SPEAKER_02: as a small person,
48:15
SPEAKER_02: as I discussed before,
48:16
SPEAKER_02: you produce really good content,
48:17
Instagram's going to push that or TikTok's going to push that
48:20
beyond your follower
48:21
SPEAKER_02: base.
48:22
Because they want the best type of content,
48:24
they want everyone to see that.
48:27
And so that is really kind of spearheading this
48:29
democratization,
48:30
you could say.
48:32
SPEAKER_02: And so we're going to,
48:34
SPEAKER_02: in the next future of next year,
48:37
SPEAKER_02: two years,
48:37
SPEAKER_02: three years,
48:39
SPEAKER_02: micro nano influencers are just going to become
48:41
more effective,
48:42
more powerful,
48:42
we're going to see a lot more people utilizing them.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: So that's great.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: Well,
48:47
SPEAKER_00: tell me,
48:48
SPEAKER_00: I'll take a little step back here as we wrap things up,
48:51
SPEAKER_00: because I'm curious,
48:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
48:53
SPEAKER_00: you ran a seven figure e-commerce brand and,
48:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
48:56
SPEAKER_00: stack influence kind of came out of that that world that,
48:58
SPEAKER_00: you know,
48:59
SPEAKER_00: figuring out.
49:00
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember just,
49:01
SPEAKER_00: and I always like to do this to,
49:02
SPEAKER_00: especially those who've run e-commerce businesses.
49:05
Do you remember what it felt like maybe that day where you guys
49:09
first hit a thousand dollar day?
49:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, that big, like what, what did that feel like?
49:14
SPEAKER_00: And do you remember it?
49:15
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
49:17
SPEAKER_02: Um, it was wild.
49:18
SPEAKER_02: It's a crazy euphoria and like what is happening.
49:23
SPEAKER_02: And it's a mixture of euphoria and fear as well.
49:27
SPEAKER_02: Right.
49:27
SPEAKER_02: Cause you're like,
49:29
SPEAKER_02: instant scrambling of what do we do next?
49:32
SPEAKER_02: How do we keep this up?
49:34
SPEAKER_02: Um, how do we get more product?
49:36
SPEAKER_02: Cause that first day we ran out of stock.
49:39
SPEAKER_02: We were like totally ran out and,
49:41
SPEAKER_02: um,
49:42
SPEAKER_02: and then it was like,
49:42
SPEAKER_02: and we had bootstrapped that company.
49:47
Um,
49:47
so we were like,
49:47
we need to get money to our manufacturers really fast.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: How do we get product?
49:52
How do we change our website to get,
49:54
keep up those sales and the pre-orders,
49:57
um,
49:57
coming right.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: So it was a wild journey and a wild experience that first time.
50:04
SPEAKER_02: Not always after – become jaded to it over time.
50:09
But it's always amazing to see a product that you envisioned
50:13
come to life and then
50:14
SPEAKER_02: really take off and people love it.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:17
Can you attribute influencer marketing to that being part of
50:21
the reason why you
50:22
SPEAKER_00: guys exploded as quickly as you did?
50:25
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
50:25
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
50:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
50:26
SPEAKER_02: We used –
50:28
Product launches are one of the best use cases for influencers
50:32
because it's very
50:34
hard to get the word out about your product right away unless
50:37
you already have an
50:37
SPEAKER_02: existing brand and you have people coming to your site,
50:40
SPEAKER_02: et cetera.
50:42
SPEAKER_02: But again,
50:43
SPEAKER_02: when you first launch,
50:45
SPEAKER_02: just even – I kind of mentioned this previously,
50:47
SPEAKER_02: but in a market research standpoint,
50:50
SPEAKER_02: just getting your product in the hands of people –
50:52
SPEAKER_02: Those influencers are going to tell you if the product's bad or not.
50:57
SPEAKER_02: And that's a really important aspect to launching a product.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: You need a good product.
51:01
SPEAKER_02: That's how you create longevity.
51:05
SPEAKER_02: But then also,
51:06
SPEAKER_02: again,
51:06
SPEAKER_02: getting the word out initially,
51:08
SPEAKER_02: getting some social proof,
51:09
SPEAKER_02: getting some content that you can now utilize on ads,
51:11
SPEAKER_02: etc.,
51:12
SPEAKER_02: it's fundamental.
51:13
SPEAKER_02: Every single product we launched,
51:15
SPEAKER_02: we had a playbook to seed about 100 at least products to people,
51:19
SPEAKER_02: generate some initial content,
51:22
SPEAKER_02: get some initial awareness,
51:24
SPEAKER_02: get some initial people,
51:25
find maybe out of that batch 20 of those people who could be
51:28
candidates for longer
51:29
SPEAKER_02: term promotions,
51:31
SPEAKER_02: continue to seed them products or give them affiliate commissions,
51:34
SPEAKER_02: take that content,
51:35
SPEAKER_02: start implementing that into some online ad platforms.
51:38
SPEAKER_02: And that was the playbook to kind of really
51:40
SPEAKER_02: just start scaling something up.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's like I've got a mini masterclass here on how to launch it.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
51:47
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: Is that brand still around, by the way, that you guys started?
51:51
SPEAKER_00: Did you sell it off?
51:52
SPEAKER_02: We sold it off.
51:54
SPEAKER_02: Nice.
51:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:55
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
51:56
SPEAKER_00: I'd say that...
52:00
SPEAKER_00: You know,
52:00
SPEAKER_00: emerging e-commerce entrepreneurs always want to know,
52:03
SPEAKER_00: you know,
52:04
SPEAKER_00: what the what the end looks like.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: Right.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: Especially when somebody's, you know, done seven figures.
52:09
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, what does that world look like?
52:10
And,
52:11
you know,
52:11
I remember it's fast paced,
52:13
you know,
52:13
and you want more of it.
52:15
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we not.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: How do you not mess this up?
52:19
SPEAKER_00: And.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, the formula you just mentioned is fantastic.
52:24
SPEAKER_00: You know,
52:24
SPEAKER_00: I think the world of influencer marketing is just,
52:28
SPEAKER_00: you know,
52:28
SPEAKER_00: it's in its early days,
52:30
SPEAKER_00: even though it's been around for quite a while.
52:32
SPEAKER_00: And I love the democratization of influencer marketing.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: And that is where you guys are sitting in that world right now.
52:40
SPEAKER_00: You're helping facilitate that.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: So we don't have to think that, you know, and no offense to celebrities.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: And there's celebrities who are very...
52:49
SPEAKER_00: you know, they're very particular about brands they promote, right?
52:52
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
52:52
SPEAKER_00: And very niche.
52:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:55
SPEAKER_02: There's no question.
52:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
52:57
SPEAKER_02: celebrity,
52:59
different types of influencer marketing absolutely works in
53:02
different capacities,
53:03
SPEAKER_02: right?
53:05
SPEAKER_02: It's just when you're starting out as a brand and you don't,
53:09
SPEAKER_02: have enough money to shell out for a massive influence promotion.
53:14
SPEAKER_02: And you're also putting a lot of your eggs in one basket, right?
53:17
SPEAKER_02: And so that's where the product seeding model,
53:19
SPEAKER_02: the micro nano influencer collaborations,
53:21
SPEAKER_02: it's just much more effective.
53:24
SPEAKER_02: And then as you scale,
53:25
SPEAKER_02: I would say my recommendation is doing a mixture of multiple things,
53:29
SPEAKER_02: right?
53:30
Doing a few celebrity promotions because you're getting that
53:33
kind of name.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: The advantage to them is they have almost a brand behind their persona.
53:39
um but we still see the fortune 500 companies heavily investing
53:45
in this in the
53:45
smaller creators now and more so than they ever have been
53:48
before um because they
53:49
realize that they're getting taken out by these up-and-coming
53:52
brands that are only
53:53
doing micro nano inference promotions getting the word out to
53:56
all these different
53:57
SPEAKER_02: people um and it's much more effective so um
54:02
a mixture of strategies is always always good no i think it's i
54:05
think it's great i
54:06
mean there's so many people so many folks in our community and
54:08
you know that tune
54:09
into you know what we're doing that this is gonna you know hit
54:12
home these could be
54:13
the same people who are trying to do it on their own which i do
54:15
think that uh you
54:16
know you could try to do a lot of things on your own right you
54:18
could do paid ads on
54:19
your own absolutely doesn't mean that they're you know and i
54:22
think things have
54:23
gotten complex and if you want to try to do them at scale and
54:25
put a professional
54:26
element behind them utilizing platforms you know utilizing
54:29
existing technology
54:31
is a good thing it's you know it helps you move faster so i
54:35
appreciate you now i've
54:37
i do in in closing i do have i'm curious about uh you know we
54:41
brought up ai and i
54:42
always like to ask this one question because i think you know
54:44
we're at this stage
54:45
where people are getting uh you know blown away by what they
54:48
see i just i just
54:49
SPEAKER_00: experienced something the other day uh that blew me away too
54:54
SPEAKER_00: What is like one thing that you've maybe done just on,
54:56
SPEAKER_00: you know,
54:57
SPEAKER_00: whether it be Claude or ChatGPT or even Gemini or I guess Grok,
55:01
SPEAKER_00: any of these that made you stop in your tracks and say,
55:05
SPEAKER_00: wow,
55:06
SPEAKER_00: this is amazing.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to see this, what it looks like in a few years.
55:11
SPEAKER_02: So...
55:15
SPEAKER_02: I would say two things.
55:16
SPEAKER_02: First off,
55:17
SPEAKER_02: and everyone's talking about this right now in the online world,
55:19
SPEAKER_02: but ChatGPT just released their new kind of generative image.
55:24
SPEAKER_00: That was my wow moment.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: That was my wow moment.
55:27
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
55:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's out of control how amazing that is.
55:32
SPEAKER_02: We've been utilizing,
55:33
SPEAKER_02: just speaking about the world of AI-generated ads,
55:36
SPEAKER_02: a bunch of different platforms in the past year or two years.
55:40
have popped up to help you integrate some UGC or integrate some
55:44
product images and
55:45
SPEAKER_02: generate some ads out of it.
55:47
SPEAKER_02: Um,
55:47
it feels like with one update chat GPT just took all of those
55:51
out because of how
55:53
SPEAKER_02: quality,
55:53
SPEAKER_02: um,
55:55
their new generator is um but yeah like we ran some just a
56:01
simple thing of like
56:02
turn this ad into madman style and like amazing it was for
56:07
those of you who know
56:08
what madman is um the show but uh it was unbelievable like the
56:14
output that it came
56:16
SPEAKER_02: out with and just also
56:18
SPEAKER_02: incorporating some of our influencer content in there and being like,
56:21
SPEAKER_02: change it into this style with this ad,
56:23
SPEAKER_02: with this copy,
56:24
SPEAKER_02: et cetera.
56:25
SPEAKER_02: Um, it was fantastic.
56:27
SPEAKER_02: And it,
56:29
SPEAKER_02: it shocked me to be on belief of how quickly they,
56:33
SPEAKER_02: cause for the past few months,
56:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
56:35
SPEAKER_02: you like,
56:36
you put it in an image or you tell it to generate an image and
56:39
it was like seven
56:40
SPEAKER_02: fingers.
56:40
SPEAKER_02: Um, someone has deformed in the back.
56:44
um and now is like everything is almost perfect um especially
56:47
the text the text was
56:49
one of the most surprising things um was how accurate like
56:53
product text can be yeah
56:55
um because that was an issue just even generating graphic
56:59
design stuff like always
57:02
try to use ai tools to make things more efficient um but the
57:05
text always kind of
57:06
SPEAKER_02: sucked and uh
57:08
SPEAKER_02: Um,
57:08
SPEAKER_02: now they're,
57:09
they've nailed it down to like some of the like ingredients
57:13
text on something was
57:14
SPEAKER_02: like perfect.
57:15
SPEAKER_00: So it is amazing.
57:16
SPEAKER_00: And it's the, it's, it's, it's the second week, I think like that.
57:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what does that look like?
57:21
Uh,
57:21
I've read,
57:22
uh,
57:23
uh,
57:23
an agency owner just literally put,
57:26
um,
57:27
we're done.
57:27
SPEAKER_00: I think it was a LinkedIn comment.
57:31
SPEAKER_00: That's the end because I mean, I, I,
57:33
yes and we're just going to continue to learn so that's a wow
57:37
moment and i think
57:38
we're probably going to have thousands and thousands of wow
57:42
moments in figuring out
57:43
but at the end of the day i say you know that's a you know
57:45
let's remember it's a
57:46
tool absolutely and we don't get too carried away with you know
57:50
utilize tools to
57:51
your advantage and you know you mentioned so many that inside
57:54
of stack influence
57:54
SPEAKER_00: that you guys are you you know you
57:56
SPEAKER_00: using and thinking about, you know, how do you get this better?
57:59
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, human beings, right?
58:01
SPEAKER_00: And I think goes back to,
58:02
SPEAKER_00: you know,
58:03
SPEAKER_00: your world and what you guys are trying to manage,
58:05
SPEAKER_00: you know,
58:06
SPEAKER_00: real authentic human beings talking about real products.
58:09
SPEAKER_00: That's where we win,
58:11
SPEAKER_00: you know,
58:11
SPEAKER_00: and that's where you can grow an e-commerce brand successfully,
58:15
SPEAKER_00: in my opinion.
58:16
SPEAKER_02: Completely.
58:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the human nature will never die, right?
58:20
SPEAKER_02: At least I hope so.
58:21
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, we're in trouble.
58:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, William, this has been an amazing interview.
58:28
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
58:29
SPEAKER_00: You touched on a very important topic,
58:32
one that I think gives power to the emerging e-commerce
58:36
entrepreneurs out there
58:38
SPEAKER_00: that they know they may not have massive budgets,
58:42
but product seeding can get their product out there and start
58:46
giving them a taste
58:47
SPEAKER_00: of success so they can continue to reinvest and
58:50
and grow but uh i love this topic of influencer marketing i
58:53
love what you guys are
58:54
doing at stack influence i think it's really really a valuable
58:57
a valuable platform
58:59
SPEAKER_00: for entrepreneurs out there so thank you
59:02
SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it and appreciate having me on, Romain.
59:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
59:05
SPEAKER_00: Well,
59:05
SPEAKER_00: maybe just take a minute or two,
59:06
just tell everybody where they can find you personally as well
59:09
as the business.
59:11
SPEAKER_00: That would be great.
59:12
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
59:13
SPEAKER_02: So check out our website.
59:15
SPEAKER_02: It's stackinfluence.com.
59:17
SPEAKER_02: We are pretty much on every single social platform at Stack Influence.
59:21
SPEAKER_00: I would expect, yes.
59:22
SPEAKER_02: Naturally.
59:24
SPEAKER_02: And if anyone wants to shoot me actually a personal email,
59:26
SPEAKER_02: I'd always be happy to respond to them.
59:28
SPEAKER_02: My email is william at stackinfluence.com.
59:31
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
59:31
SPEAKER_00: We'll put all of that in the show notes.
59:33
SPEAKER_00: And we look forward to seeing where this goes and where the future.
59:37
And we'd love to have you on down the road and talk again and
59:40
see what maybe you're
59:41
SPEAKER_00: just telling me that AI is completely taken over.
59:43
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
59:45
SPEAKER_00: But let's not let that happen.
59:47
SPEAKER_00: Let's let human beings do their work,
59:49
SPEAKER_00: which I think is central to what you guys are trying to do.
59:52
SPEAKER_00: So appreciate your time today, William.
59:55
SPEAKER_00: I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
59:56
SPEAKER_00: And we look forward to watching you guys grow as well.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me on again.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_00: Take care.
1:00:06
All right,
1:00:06
that brings us to the end of another episode of the e-commerce
1:00:09
revolution podcast.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget to check out past episodes,
1:00:13
which are all available on demand on YouTube and wherever you
1:00:17
listen to your
1:00:18
SPEAKER_00: podcast.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_00: Ready to join the revolution?
1:00:20
SPEAKER_00: Become an exclusive part of our growing community of emerging e-commerce
1:00:24
SPEAKER_00: entrepreneurs at ecomrevolution.co.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, see ya.