Latest / Influencer Confidential / How Influencer Marketing Really Works in 2026 | Brand Insider Secrets with Megan Vasquez [Creator Currency Ep. 21]

Transcript

How Influencer Marketing Really Works in 2026 | Brand Insider Secrets with Megan Vasquez [Creator Currency Ep. 21] · Influencer Confidential

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome back to Influencer Confidential. I am pumped
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: about today's episode because, you guys know, I love bringing
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: people from the brand side to share the behind the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: scenes of what is happening in our industry with you
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: guys the creator. So when I heard from grinn and
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Influencer Marketing Software and learn more about their director of
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: creative Strategy, Megan Vasquez, I was like, let's get her
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: on and talk about things that you as a creator
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: need to know. Now, what makes Megan so interesting is
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: that she has brand side experience. She is now with
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: this influencer marketing platform. She has talent manager experience, so
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: she has been in this industry for a while. And
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I think what's going to be really good about this
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: episode as you as a creator, She's going to show
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: that brand perspective. This episode is going to take you
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes of how a brand actually finds you
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: as a creator, ways that you can stand out changes
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: that are happening in the influencer industry so you guys
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: can be aware of it. Megan is a wealth of knowledge,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: a true og in the space, and I'm excited to
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: have her here with us. We welcome Megan to Influencer Confidential.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: We're so excited to have you here and chat all
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: things Creator economy.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Excited. Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, let's do it. So Megan, I know that you're
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: going to talk to us a little bit about Grin
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and what you guys do over there, but even before
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: we introduce the company, I'd love like the sidewalker community
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: to just kind of meet you, Like you've been in
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: this space for so long, but you're probably in OG
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: like many of us, so like, tell us about your journey,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: like how did you find yourself here in the creator
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: world and kind of what got you to where you
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: are right now working out over at Grin.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: So, like many of the ogs, I think in the industry,
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: I started by way of a different marketing channel altogether.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: I actually started out in PR. I watched a lot
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: of the hills. I wanted to be in the clubs.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: I wanted to be in nightlife. I wanted to do PR.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: I wanted to be a bull house. That was like
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: my dream. And I got a job at a beauty
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: brand that was like my very first marketing job. And
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: so organic social didn't exist, influencer market did not exist,
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: so it was a lot more pr focused, but that
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: sort of moved as the channels kind of started popping
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: up and becoming something that brands were interested in doing.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: I just kind of naturally fell into those roles. And
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: because it was a prestige beauty brand and I was
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: like kind of the youngest person at the company, I
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: was really, you know, really pushing for these channels to
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: get adopted.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Hesitation, and then that gave way to like the rise
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: of the beauty creator. I really feel like the beauty
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: industry was at the forefront of really like making the influencer.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Marketing a thing.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we just kind of fell into that by that, right,
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: it just fell and it just all sort of fell
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: into the place. So I've had a very much front
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: row seat into social media and influencer becoming like these
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: major marketing channels and powerhouses like in the marketing mix.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: And through my career it's been like fifteen years now.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: I've worked in house at brands, I've done organic social,
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: I've done influencer, I've worked in talent, so I've managed talent,
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: I've worked at agencies, and then I got an incredible
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: opportunity to come to Grin, which is like my very
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: first job in tech. It was very very foreign to me,
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: but they were really looking to bring somebody in with
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: a lot of brand side experience who could give like
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: a deeper amount of knowledge and strategy to the customers
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: who use Grin. And it was an incredible opportunity because
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: I knew that it would give me the opportunity to
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: potentially drive strategy for Fentian skims in one day.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: And is that not like the dream?
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: So I jumped at the opportunity to come work at
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: Grin and it's been incredible.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. I feel like we're living a very similar
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: parallel story, except my same pr travel creators. So I
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: was working with like hotels and tours and boards and
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: like when the travel creator jump off for you, I'm
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: sure you remember like all the Revolved trips and like
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: all of this like ten years ago when things were
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: just especially heavy and creator having that brand side experience,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: but then also being able to use what we learn
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: not only help to help our brand clients, but helping creators.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: And that's who's listening in today, and that's the community
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: that we've been able to build at Sidewalker. So maybe
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: people are not fully familiar with GRINN, so maybe you
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: could introduce a little bit the company, like what they
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: do and your role specifically, and kind of like where
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: GRIN is going, because I know you mentioned some exciting
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: things off the record.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of exciting stuff going on at
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: GRINN in twenty twenty six. But GRIN is really like
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: the pioneering influencer marketing SaaS software as a service platform
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: for brand So it is very brand centric, but essentially
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: what it is is an end to end operating system
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  Speaker 3: for all things influencer if you're on the brand side.
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  Speaker 3: So inside of GRIN, you can take a lot of
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: workstreams that are typically very fragmented discovery, sourcing, outreach, pain management, payments,
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  Speaker 3: social listening, recording, and all of these things are essentially
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  Speaker 3: packaged very nicely into one platform, so you have it
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  Speaker 3: all wrapped up nice meat in the bow.
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  Speaker 2: You don't have to be in a million different.
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  Speaker 3: Platforms, and you can kind of run influencer campaigns from
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: start to finish with everything being all in one place,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: which is really nice. On the brand side, and I'd
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: say we typically serve two types of brands, So the
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: first would be like a really established creator program like
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  Speaker 3: skims like fenty, like Color Pop Uber, where the creators
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: are already this major growth channel for them and so
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: they're really just looking for a way to streamline a
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: lot of these fragmented work streams and GRINN puts everything
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: into one place so that they can scale without it
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: being complete chaos. And then the second would be brands
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  Speaker 3: who are building creator programs from the ground up. So
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: they might just be starting out, they're wanting to kind
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: of like dip their toe into influencer marketing. They've done
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: some gifting, maybe they've done a couple paid partnerships, but
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: they're really looking to grow and they choose to build
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: that up with GRIN.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: So now that we have a better understanding like the
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: types of brands that using that are using GRIN, maybe
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: one of the things I think is really interesting that
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: you guys do. And I think a lot of creators
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: are always wondering like how do I get discovered? How
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: do I get picked? Like how do we get really
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: you know in a brand's forefront? And I know that
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: GRIN has like this extension where when a brand is
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: like browsing social, they can kind of like creators to
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: maybe EI their database or something like that. Could you
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: like talk to us about that, because creators don't even
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: know that brands are doing this, Like they just are
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: like how do they find me? But like people are
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: actually like going in and like probably just like add
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to CRM or add to this. So like if you
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: could expand on that.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: Event, well yeah, So I think like one of the
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: most manual analog processes and maybe creators don't realize this
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: is how it is on the brand side, but it
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: is a very painstaking manual process.
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  Speaker 2: To source creators.
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  Speaker 3: You have to kind of be really immersed and a
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: meshed in the Internet and in the platforms to be
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: able to find and then you kind of go down
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  Speaker 3: these rabbit holes. You find one person and then you
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: like to see who they follow, and it's very very manual.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: So the Chrome extension works the brands end users can
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: essentially install that on their Chrome browser, and then when
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: they're looking at Instagram or YouTube or TikTok on a
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: desktop site, they can essentially click their grin extension and
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: it'll create a pop out that shows you their average engagement,
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: their followers they're posting cadence. It'll also pull up like
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: the three or four most recent pieces of content that
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: they've done and give you the metrics on those pieces
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  Speaker 3: of content. So what that allows the brands to do
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  Speaker 3: is essentially to supercharge a manual process because you're able
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: to very quickly see like is this person a fit,
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: like is the following engage? And then with one button,
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  Speaker 3: you can import them into your grin dashboard, which as
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: essentially as a prospect, which is what allows you to
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: then eventually send outreach, send gifts, pitch on a campaign.
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  Speaker 3: So it just makes it really easy for the brand,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: yeah on their side, to find talent and important.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Don't think creators know that, Like I don't think that
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: they're like manually going in. And it's funny like how
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: you mentioned desktop, Like I know, for me, when I
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: had to source any sort of creators for your campaign,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: like I was always on my desktop, you know, like
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I was always looking for creators in this way, and
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: like you said, like this sort of tedious way. But
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: what it seems that you guys are doing really well
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: for like making it really simple for brands to be like,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: you know, ad this person, have this person, have this person.
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  Speaker 1: So this is interesting when a brand is I guess
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: vetting or doing their research, and they're adding their creator.
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  Speaker 1: How do creators, would you say, be prepared for that opportunity.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Do you think that there's things that the creator could
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: actually do to like up their chances of being added
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: to the dashboard or getting kind of selected. I think
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: that would be really interesting because I know that's a
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: big question like how do brands or how do I
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: become a worthy candidate or how could I like stand out?
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think important thing as a creator to
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: understand is that brands have different objectives. So if you're
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: a creator who creates incredible visual content, amazing videos like
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: the in feed content is performing really well, you'd be
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: a great candidate for a brand to see in terms
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: of activating on UGC, activating on videos that they eventually
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: want to pass up to their paid team so that
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: they can run these videos as ads.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Something that's a little bit more broad.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: If you're somebody who loves to post products, you do
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: a lot of affiliate focused stuff.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Let's say you post a lot in your stories.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: You know, you talk to your audience, you share the
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: things that you love, you drop a link, you drop
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: a code. The brands that are really focused on bottom
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: funnel are going to want to find you because they
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: know that you have like a very intune audience that's
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: prime to buy and will have like a really strong
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: path to purchase. So I think it's important to understand
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: the objectives and know that you can be very visible
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: to a.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Brand based on those different things.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Right, So some people I think sometimes get discouraged that
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: they're just like I don't have a massive following. You know,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: I don't have five hundred thousand followers, And that's not
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: necessarily what brands are always looking for. If you are
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: creating beautiful content that they can use, you don't really
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: even necessarily need an audience, Like they just need the
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: content and you can license that to them and you
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: can monetize that that way. But I think for discovery,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: the main thing is consistency. Be consistent, because you can
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: see that cadence you're saying, right, Like, they can literally
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: see that.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because if.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: You're only posting once a month, like I have to
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: imagine the audience just knowing the way that the algorithms work,
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: like your audience is not going to be as in
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: tuned as if you're posting and showing up there on
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: your on your platforms every single day, so consistency. Obviously,
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: we want to see like good audience engagement. We want
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: to make sure that the audience trusts you and they
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: are are showing up to view what you're posting.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: My PSA to all creators, put your email in your bio.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: Please put your email in your bio because a lot
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: of these I mean, even with the grid tool, if
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: I quick import creator, I love you and I want
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: to put you in as a prospect. If your email's
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: not in your bio, it's going to pull you in,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: but without contact information, which is a friction point for
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: me as the end user because now I have to
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: kind of dig and find out how I can contact you.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: I can reach out in the dms, but I don't
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: love that for brands because how many dms are these
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: creators getting a day tell?
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Because what I think is so interesting is we hear
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: like a lot of urban legends. It's like Barry Jennifer
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: love you, like in the rain, like urban legend here,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and like is this something people are like put your
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: email on the bio. But what we're hearing is that
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: there's tools out there obviously like grin that when you
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: import said creator like you're literally hurting yourself by not
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: having your email in the bio, Like actually.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Here you are. It's just an extra layer.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: Well, think about brands that maybe don't have a platform.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: If they don't have a platform, they're doing everything manually.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: It's like the least amount of friction as possible is
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: what the brand. Those are the people that they're going
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: to reach out too far. So it's important. And you
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: know that when like you just said, we're on a
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: desktop all day. We're not really on our phone. We
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: do not our favorite but we're on our desktop. And
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I know that there's an email button on Instagram where
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: you can put your email in and you click the button,
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: but that button is not available to us on desktop.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: It's only available in the app.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: So we actually can't even use that to find your email.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: So put it in your bio. Put it, put your
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: managers someone's information while that we can reach out to
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: to contact you.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Because you're actually leaving money on the table. Like you're
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: leaving money on the table.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: It's it's a huge, huge blocker for brand teams on it.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: So what I think is thank you for that. So guys,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: like we all a lot of us have homework to do.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that I think makes grin
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: interesting is like this, there is a big focus on
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: creator discovery. That's what you're offering your brands. You're like, listen,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: we're going to help you find like all the types, right,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: And I know you guys have two really interesting features,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: which is like the filter and look like audiences. So again,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: like what are you seeing in the back end? Like
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: how are brands filtering? Like is it location? Is it interests?
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Are there follower counts? Is it engagement? We just want
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: to see people that have this like what are you
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: seeing in the ground, like the filter, how it's being used.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: So the filtering tool allows them to really kind of
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: narrow down. Like I said, if you're working really on
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: bottom funnel and you want to make conversions, you want
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: to make sure that the audience, the influencer's audience matches
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: your target customer. So people that are very bottom funnel
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: focused and affiliate focused will search a lot based on
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: what the audience demographics are. So let's make sure that
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: the audience matches the customer. And for more top funnel,
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: it may be very interest based.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: I want to.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: Find moms in this age range or I want to
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: find people who have dogs and you can get how
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: that's how like in yes you can fi Yeah it is.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: You can filter even by things like keyword, like keyword
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: in bio. So that's another thing is Insta and TikTok
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: have become so SEO driven that it's like your bio
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: is so important, it's literally a discovery tool for you
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: as a creator. Prior to working at Grant, I worked
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: at a startup called Thracio, which was an Amazon aggregator.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: At one point they had over two hundred Amazon brands,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Amazon Native brands that they owned, and so we always
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: wanted to work with Amazon focused creators, people who primarily
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: used like the Amazon Influencer program to post content and
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: link through. We would search Amazon affiliate and the first
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: people we would get are people who put Amazon affiliate
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: or some version of the word Amazon in their bio.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: That was the very first crop of people that we
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: would get.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: And those are the people that would get offers first,
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: they would get reached out to, they get product first.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: So use your bio as.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: An SEO tool because that's a lot how most of
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: these you know creator search features work is they're looking
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: at keywords in content, keywords in bio, but also just
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: like your general information like your demographics, your audience's demographics and.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Things like that.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: So outside of Grin, like going manually using an extension
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: and like clipping and finding creators are creators? Like how
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: do they get onboarded onto the platform? Like how do
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: you guys provide it? Is it just through search or
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: is it like there's some sort of like how do
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: you onboard the creators onto the platform?
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: So at grin we have a massive database. So to
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: be discovered in Grin, you do not need to be
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: authenticated or like a member of Grin, which is something
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: that brands really liked about Grin because for some platforms
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: you need to be authenticated with them in order to
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: be discoverable in their network, which significantly reduces the size
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: of a search pool. But at grin that's not the case.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: So anybody who is a creator is discoverable in grin
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: like a brand.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: And find you.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: It's amazing, Yeah, which is amazing. So yeah, that's basically
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: the way that they find Because I know people are like,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: oh do I have to sign up? People will automatically
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: be like do I need to sign up to be discovered.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: And what's interesting about how Grin is doing it is
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: that you don't need to be signed up because the
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: way your system works, your platform works, it's pulling through
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: all of these data points and it's not like in
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: order to get an opportunity for a brand to find you,
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: the creator doesn't need to be onboarded or sign up
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: through this process. It's mostly just yeah, they don't need
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: to be I will say that authenticating with a platform.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: So for example, a lot of our brands have what
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: we call live sites, which is essentially like landing pages,
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: where you can apply to be either in one of
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: their programs or a part of their campaigns, and then
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: you basically get imported in for the brand to vet you.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: If you do sign up with grin and authenticate with Grin,
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: obviously there's a richer and I think this is I'm
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: going to assume this is very consistent across most platforms.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: If you authenticate, you get more data, The platform gets
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: more data from you, and therefore the brands have access
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: to richer data from your profile.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: So it gives you a better chance.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: So you're improving your chances of being activated by being authenticated.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: But ingrant. It is not necessary for discovery. You can
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: do that later.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: It doesn't need to happen first so that you can
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: get an opportunity, Like it's a cool.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: What I like about what I like. What I'm excited
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: about this episode personally is like sharing creators, like all
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: the gadgets that you guys have, like how brands are
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: like finding and like kind of revealing a little bit
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: behind the curtain. And that's why I wanted to talk
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: about the lookalike audience just a little bit, because I
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: think again, in the traditional ads world, like people who
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: are running ads understand this phrase. An Instagram Mom influencer
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: who has like she'd like look alike like she may
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: not even have that understanding. So let's break it down,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: like what is this feature and how are brands using it?
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Because I want creators to understand, like this pee that
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: there are similar people to them that exists based on
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: these qualifiers.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: Yes, so a lookalike audience is essentially and I'll give
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: you an example. If I'm at a brand and I
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: know who my top performer is and I know that
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: they killed it. The engagement was amazing, the conversions were amazing.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: They did so good the you know, perfect alignment, I
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: can essentially input that person in their profile. And what
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: the lookalike audiences is that the tool can generate creators.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: That look like that creator.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: So whether it's the same a similar type of content,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: similar formats, similar keywords, the audiences are similar, the demographics
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: are similar. So it's going to kind of pull those
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: creators to the surface and generate a list of basically
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: people who are similar to this creator. Because the theory
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: is if you did well with this type of creator,
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: you would, you know, the assumption would be that you
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: could activate more creators like him or her and scale right,
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: which really is.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Really interesting too because I think do you find that
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: in at least and I don't know if you know
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: this information, but speaking about like scaling versus like acquisition
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: versus retention, right, like getting more creators to join versus
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: like fueling and putting more money behind a creator and
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: doing like the longer term partnership. Do you see, like,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know, how are your clients kind of balancing
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: long because I know the dream for all the creators
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: that I know is like long term partnerships, And do
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: you see that happening? Is there data that shows like
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: this works better, like what the show is behind the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: scenes there.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: So the behind the scenes And that's actually probably my
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: main trend forecast for influencer in twenty twenty six is
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: that we're kind of moving away from one offs and
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: we're this is really going to be the year of
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: the long term partnership. I do yeah, I do think
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: that people are going to want to do like we
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: are going to want to test, but when you find
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: creators that work and check all the boxes on the objective,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: you're definitely gonna want to lock them in. I feel
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: like there was this period where people were very big
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: on like, oh, audience fatigue.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: You know, the audience is going to get sick of
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: seeing it like.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: How many And then what we realized over time is
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: like that's really not so much a thing. Also, not
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: everybody is seeing the content the first time sometimes, and
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: then we know the path to purchase requires so many touches,
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: so why would we make it a different person at
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: each touch point and instead make it the same person
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: and develop, you know, a line of trust with the audience.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: So I really do feel that this is the year
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: of the long term partnership. I think brands want to
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: On the brand side, it is a simplified operation for
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: us because now instead of booking out one campaign for
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: quarter individually with four different agents and four different contracts,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: I can book one top performer every quarter for the
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: rest of the year on one contract and really simplify
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: things for myself on my end, and then you can
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: kind of run the storytelling as it comes. So we
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: book the long term contract, but then as the post
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: date comes up, can brainstorm new angles, new messaging. If
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: it's you know, if it's more of a brand partnership
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: and it's not so product focused, you can try different products.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: So I definitely see that the one off is kind
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: of going to be We're not going to see that
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: as much anymore. Brands are very much focused on the
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: bottom line. It is less kind of like throw it
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: at the wall and see what sticks, and CFOs really
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: want to know how you're impacting their bottom line.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Now we can't just say like it.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Got five hundred thousand impressions and they're like that's great,
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: Like you spent twenty K. How much money did you
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: make in return? So as we are becoming more accountable, yeah,
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: this is really a sign of maturity. Honestly, it's a
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: great thing because it's a sign of maturity for the channel.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: But as we are becoming more accountable, we are learning
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: that we can't just throw things at the wall to
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: see what sticks. We can't just book one hundred different people.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: We want to show that that revenue that comes in
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: and impact is incremental, and we want to be able
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: to tie it to our top performers.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: This is music to everyone's ears. I'm sure listening because
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: all creators are like, oh my god, I don't want
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: we call it the one night stand approach At Sidewalker,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: We're all like, you know, just this one night, just
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: these one offs, Like it doesn't work for anyone. The
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: creator has a hard time storytelling and like really standing
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: behind it, like it makes sense, Like who's gonna buy
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: after seeing a post once? Even with any code that
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: you're using, you know what I mean? Like it takes
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: a second even for me, like as a consumer, like
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: this one influencer I love has been like posting this
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and I'm like this close, but I still haven't and
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I'm aware of my own purchase behavior, so I just
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: feel like I almost think I'm like, don't I hope
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: you have more posts coming and that, yeah, right, because
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: it's just natural like for all of us, you.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Know, yeah, in the audience.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Like that's the thing too, is audiences are smart, they
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: are savvy. They know what's going on, they know what's
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: an ad, they understand. Okay, we're not getting one over
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: on the audience anymore. So the least that we can
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: do is try to establish trust and rapport with the audience.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: And we're not going to do that by just posting
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: something as a sponsored post one time.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Right, Well, it's great to hear you guys are at
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: least your your perspective on this, and it's refreshing. I'm
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: sure there's so many reports too, now, you know in
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the creator economy talking about surveys that are being done.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: I've been reading a bunch of them, just sharing a
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: lot of the sentiment around long term partnerships, long term
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: partnerships and brands focusing on our ROI And I love
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: how you mentioned this is a sign of maturity in
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: our industry. This is just like this is it. It's
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: not going anywhere, and now we really have to figure
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: out that ROI piece, both for brand and creator. One
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: of the things we talk about a lot at our
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: community is like presenting brands case studies or like sharing
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: you know, in the in their pitching efforts when they
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: are negotiating with a partner, Hey this you know this
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: was my affiliate push for another client, or showing them
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: data especially to help with those decisions directly when grand
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: to post like a campaign per se and they are
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: getting creators to activate for a certain campaign, how flexible
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: is that negotiation do you find between client and creator
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: or is it oftentimes like hey, here's like a casting
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: this is what we're looking for, Like apply if you want,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: or do you feel that negotiations is still something that
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: you're seeing or do you find that maybe in the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: future we're going to get a bit more transparent around
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: like this is the pricing, Like this is it? Like
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: these are the goals? What are you seeing on your end?
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: So I think that I mean at grin this is
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: ultimately very much up to the brand and how they
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: choose to execute it and what works for their program.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: I think for me, what I'm seeing is that we're
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: kind of coming to an impasse where brands have very
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: specific things that they're looking for, and as a creator,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: I just feel like this is going to be the
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: time to truly put your self in the brand seat,
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: because I really feel like the people who are going
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: to get activated the most are the people who know
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: how to sell themselves the best and speak the language
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: of the person on the other side that's normally. It's
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: been such a disconnect for so long that I think
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: about things like the idea of the media kit, right,
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: and I worked in talent, so I sent out many
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: a media kit on brand. We get a media kit
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: and we're like, this is amazing, but I need you
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: to send me like actual screenshots of yours for the
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: past thirty days, preferably linkis lin quicks story reach all
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: those things, because I actually really want to know, Like
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: I don't want to see a highlight reel of what
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: you've done. I really want to understand your what your
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: audience is like today, and what your content is like today.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: And the creators who are winning are the creators that
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: like really understand this song.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: And dance like they totally get it. They're like Google.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Drive with all of my screenshots dumped in I updated
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: every thirty days, Like you said, here's what I've done
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: on a pass affiliate partnership, Like here's my average GMV
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: and I think as we're seeing things like TikTok Shop
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: like really revolutionize the way that people work with creators
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: because as a brand, if you're on TikTok shop, all
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: that information is visible to you right as a TikTok
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Shop affiliate, your thirty day GMB, your views, your engagement,
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: that is all very visible to the brand. So there's
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: a lot of transparency there, and I really think that's
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: part of the reason why people were able to grow
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: low up on TikTok Shop so quickly and start from
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: zero and go to a million because the transparency was there.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: So we've kind of touched a little bit on something
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I wanted to go into, and I just wanted to
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: make sure we didn't leave anything out. You talked when
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: we talked about like the influencer industry, where it's going,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: You mentioned these long the year, the partnership, the long term,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Like that's something you think twenty twenty six is going
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: to really bring in. You talked about transparens truly, just
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: with the TikTok Creator Shop and seeing like brands are
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: you know, they're getting crystal clear. There's no more like
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: hide in behind the smoke.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: And mirrors.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Is there anything else that you think is going to
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: becoming like Crystal Ball energy, just in terms of our
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: industry of how you see it changing going forward for
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: creators to kind of be aware of.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: So I definitely think brands are going to really jump
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: into more hybrid type like compensation based deals.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: I think they're going to do a lot of affiliate
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: led testing.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Like I said, there's a lot of pressure for us
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: on the brand side to be accountable in terms of
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: money spent versus money that comes back in and an
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: impression is not a dollar.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: So we're kind of coming to that place.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: But at the same time, we know, like not all
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: partnerships are I pay you, you deliver content. We report
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: Like there's a lot of different types. So there's you know,
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: there's UGC, there's whitelisted UGC. There's straight affiliate, which has
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: become such a major revenue stream for so many creators.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: When I first started out, it was very.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: Like I was never gonna not doing an affiliate like
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: that's not you know, work for commission, Why would I?
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And now having the same month.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're having like making you know, they're making tons
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: of money.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I know I'm having the same. Yeah, I'm having the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: same reckoning, Like literally happened like a week ago. It
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: feels like a reckoning because I always felt a certain
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: way about affiliate because I'm just like, at the end
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: of the day, like I'm you know, the creators I
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: speak to, they're like producing, they're like scripting, they're editing.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Like there's so much time that I'm always like, this
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: needs to be accounted for, right, like the time of
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: like production, like just production. However, However, the data coming
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: in and what I am seeing, especially with my YouTubers,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm so sorry, what like this is like
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: like the affiliate feels like it's going off the rails,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: like it's going off the handle because the numbers are wild,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: like wild Town beyond. So it used to be this
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: thing that creators would get really frustrated. And I know
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: my creators get so frustrated when they're pitching and their
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: brand is like, let's do an affiliate.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: You know, Yes, I guess, and I get that. I
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: totally get it.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: But I do feel like, if you're a creator and
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: you're starting out, I think affiliate is incredible because it
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: has really kind of lowered the bar to entry what
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: do you need on TikTok five thousand followers to be
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: become a TikTok shop affiliate? LTK shot my all of them? Amazon, Yeah,
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: live onto all the platforms. Right, it's not you don't
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: need to have a million followers to get started.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: You don't need to be gifted product. It could be
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: you know how many Amazon affiliates.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: I know that just started out by picking up stuff
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: in their house, like, oh, I've had this batchela for
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: six months, but I'm being serious.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Bachelor and they knew how to sell it. And affiliate
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: is so low list.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: So when we say like if you're making in feed
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: content and you're right, you're scripting, you're coming up with
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: the storyline, you're filming it, it's stunning.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: It's aesthetic. Affiliate is very low lift.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: The best performing affiliate content is normally in the stories,
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: and it's filmed like a vlog.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: It's filmed like a FaceTime.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: It's your girlfriend on FaceTime and she's telling you about
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: this window cleaner that changed her life, or this baby
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: stain remover that's the best thing ever. And you're like
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: link by ad de car it's mine, right, And it's.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Like I know I get it. I see it.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: It's amazing you just starting out, Yeah, don't don't sleep
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: on it. Obviously, if you're a bigger creator and you
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: have a great audience and you make stunning content, do
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: not let somebody offer.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: You affiliate only know your.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Words have that as a passive revenue stream, And for
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: some people it's not for them. Some people are like,
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: I just want to make beautiful content for people to
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: tune into. I want to make something aspirational. I don't
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: want to shill products on my stories or to be well,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: it's not me.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: That's okay.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: There's still a brand partner out there for that type
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: of creator. But if you're just starting out and you're thinking,
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: how can I make content that people are interested in.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Talk about products?
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Can we not all bond over things that we like
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: to use, things that solve problems. I'm tuned in, I'm
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: locked in, I'm watching, I'm adding to Kart. I think
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: maybe that's why I've had such a great time in
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: this industry is because I am like the target consumer
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: for all those everything I'm like.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Killing me, I'm the audience.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know exactly what's going to do well because
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: I would absolutely buy that it's.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Interesting with the affiliate just in general, is like nothing
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: can be so black and white, right Like, we can't
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: be like we hate it, we love it, right Like,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: there are really great affiliate programs out there where there's
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: higher commissions, you know, and it feels worth it, or
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's a SaaS tool or some sort
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: of program you use and they do really bigger payouts,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: like that is a pretty penny, right like, if there's
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: something really valuable in that affiliate as well. I do
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: think that there's a hesitancy, like you said, around creators,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: like being like but wait, like I've spent so much
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: time building my platform and my audience, but for others,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: like I am watching some girls' vlogs on YouTube recently,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: and the way she talks about product is so beyond.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: And then I'm like, oh my god, I know she
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: is cacking because she's just so like effortlessly just being like,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: oh it's like vloggie, it's wild town. And I know
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: because like, you know, I know these creators personally, a
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: lot of them are my friends. When I hear this
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: affiliate boost, like I literally have had a reckoning on it,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: so I feel very aligned there's something happening to the
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: hybrid performance based stuff, like what are your thoughts on, Like, Okay,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: you hit this, you get this, you hit this, you
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: did this, Like I've seen some deals like that. It's annoying.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: I don't love that for the I don't think that
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: I am very much because I've worked in talent and
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: worked in brandside. I'm very much at the intersection of
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: I want things to be fair, both providing something to
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: each other. So I want things to be fair and
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: I don't necessarily think that that's fair, And I always
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: go back to my pr DA's and I'm like, back
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: in the day, you know, Vogue would just give you
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: their circulation right or in style and you just had
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: to fingers crossed that that print ad that you put
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: in did well. You couldn't go back to Vogue and
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: be like, hey, I only saw a one percent lift
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: refund me or I'm not going to tell you like
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: that was ridiculous, right, So we have to kind of
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: give creators the same grace.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Everything is a test. I am the most data driven
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: marketer in existence.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: I'm all about algorithms and calculations and projections. I want
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: to know upfront what the chances are of you doing
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: well to the best of my ability, and I have
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: done all that and still see something completely flawed. It
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: could just be an audience mismatch. It could just be
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: a product mismatch. It can be the Instagram. You know,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: God's were not in our favor that day. The TikTok
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: algorithm was not in our favor that day. And I
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: don't really.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Believe in dangling things.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: Like like a like a carrot. I just don't like it.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: You're at this is somebody's livelihood and this is somebody's time.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: So I don't love that. But I do love hybrid
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: comp which is I'm going to pay you the flat
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: fee that's guaranteed, but we're also going to put on
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: a commission upside of whatever, and you're gonna get your
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: flat fee and then you're gonna get commissioned because I
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: do feel like it gives an extra boost of motivation.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: If they are affiliate centric, I would never offer that
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: to somebody who makes like highly visual content, like beautiful photography,
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: like that's not their thing, right, But if you do
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: post products, I'm always going to try to put you
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: on a hybrid And I actually just did an interview
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: not too long ago where I told where I told
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: them that I think almost every time, I'd say like
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: over ninety five percent of the time, the creator would
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: have made less money just taking my flat fee versus
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: taking the flat fee plus commission.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Like sometimes they.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Would be figuring it yeah, because it's like yeah, yeah,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: why would you cap your earnings? I'm trying to give
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: you money.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: No.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: It's definitely an interesting like space, and it's it's eye
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: opening too. One thing that I wanted to touch base
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: is this concept of brand safety and creators really kind
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: of focusing in being a little bit more safe, especially
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: you know with what they post and how they navigate
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: to not kind of get like black balls or you know,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of that, especially a lot of reports
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: we're seeing brands are really focused around like make sure
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: they're vetted right, Like we don't want to work with
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: some gal that has like some deep history or whatever.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Is that something that Grint is also able to kind
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: of flag, like in terms of the vetting piece, or
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: like from a brand safety perspective, or like see if
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: someone curses, or see if someone you know has like
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: post alcohol content or posts c cannabis content, like, is
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: the tool able to see that or how.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Do you know?
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: From our perspective, the vetting is still very much like
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: on the burden of the brand to be able to
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: individually that creators that are a good fit for them.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: So that part still is and I think for a
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: lot of people on the brand side is still a
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: very manual process.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: We go to Reddit. First place we go is to
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Reddit to a little Reddit.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Search, which is wild because if you put the name like,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: there's stories that I've heard of that are like, well,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: they're stark ages.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: I mean that's why I think like working in house,
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: I think sometimes you feel like you're almost like a
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: mini agency and you're kind of working with the brand
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: team and they're very much like, no, we don't want.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Anybody that's like this. We don't want anybody that's like this.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: And they have this stark page on Reddit, and I'm like,
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: everybody has a start page. You can't fault the influencer
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: because there's a subset of people that just don't care
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: for them. Anybody in the public eye is going to
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: have a subset of people that just simply do not
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: care for them. And unfortunately Reddit has given them a
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: forum anonymously to go in and say some crazy things.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: But as long as there's they're not actually doing anything
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: wrong or saying things that are horrific or being off brand, like,
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: we don't want to judge them for that. Ultimately, your
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: success and your potential as an influencer will supersede the
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: fact that some people just simply do not like you.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: They have people like you on the brand side, educating clients,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: like helping them understand this piece that they're like afraid,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: like oh my gosh, she's has this you know, sub
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: threat or whatever.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: They'll get a rogue DM.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: From someone that's like, oh you work for so and so,
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: I'm done with you, and they're all they're so stressed
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: about it, and I'm like, don't be stressed about that.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: Do not be stressed about one person. Okay, there's hundreds
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: of thousands of people.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Who liked it totally. I love that it hung up.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: No one is ever going to be one hundred percent
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: satisfied with what we're doing.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Exactly, But I mean it's influencer marketing.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: Guys like come up with influencer marketing.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: The end of the day. No, I just think it's
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: interesting because it is important for at least people like
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: you to be able to like educate your brands or
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: when you're onboarding them, setting those expectations like hey, Reddit
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: threat you know these exists, like this is part of it,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: like relax, you know, just setting those expectations. I think
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: it's okay. And having your side being talent side, being
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: brand side, and now you know where you're at. It's
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: like this nice comboo because you're able to kind of
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: manage expectations for everyone. So I think that's awesome.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a group.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: It's an amazing three sixty to be able to know
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: how things look like from their side and translate that
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: to our side and vice versa. Like there is nothing
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: more that I love than sitting down with creators or
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: people that are trying to, you know, make this their
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: full time thing and spill all the tea about how
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: they can get in good favor with the brands that
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: they want to work with.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, totally. Well, as we wrap up here, I
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: know we've got to cover some really good stuff today.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to talk about AI and just maybe
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: closing thoughts there around because I know you did write
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: an article all about just like AI in general more
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: for brands, but in terms of like creator side, I
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: think AI can feel sometimes intimidating. Do you have any
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: thoughts or insights you want to share with the creators
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: that maybe are worried is our AI influencers can take us?
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not just the creators, it's also like me
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: and everybody that works in marketing.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: We're like, is AI coming for us? Is AI coming
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: for our job?
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: No?
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Grin is becoming.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: Very AI first, Like we are very pro AI and
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: we are very much about kind of pushing forward the
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: narrative that this is not to replace marketers. Influencer is
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: such a high touch in relationship focused industry, Our relationships
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: are everything and I do not feel that you can
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: replicate that with AI. But another really scary reality about
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: working in this industry is that it is very very manual,
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: cumbersome and fragmented. Everybody is in silos. There's a million
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: Google sheets, We're at a million. Even if you have
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: a platform, there's still manual pieces to that. Marketing teams
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: are historically underfunded and we don't have massive teams to
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: work with. And even if you do have a big team,
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: maybe you're a global brand, it's never enough. So from
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: that perspective, I think AI can definitely help you by
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: taking a lot of those very manual and repetitive work
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: streams and automating them. If AI can automate that for you,
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: If AI or like OURI, which is GIA, can build
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: a profile of my brand that I approve, build an
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: ideal customer profile, build an ideal creator profile for me,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: and then go out into the database and source me
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: one hundred creators who fit my profile, bring them back
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: to me with emails with contact information. That has saved
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: me a week's worth of work, right.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: And who doesn't want to save work?
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we want to save work.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: It's not replacing the fact that we do have to
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: nurture them and build rapport with them and see their
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: campaigns start to finish, and also idate create campaigns.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: What's the messaging going to be? Like? What should our angles?
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: How do we brief them?
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: That is all things that as a marketer we don't
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: get to do as much of because we're so in
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: the minutia and in the weeds of this manual work.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: So if AI can simplify that for us, I mean
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: I can only see it kind of like helping us
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: really do what we do best, which is strategize. And
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: on the creator side, it's the same thing. If you
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: don't have a lot of inbound interest, if you're just
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: starting out, you're doing tons of outbound. When I worked
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: in talent management, I had to send like one hundred
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: pitches a day. Like I had to pitch my talent
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: like one hundred pitches a day, five days a week.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: That was my quota. And that is a lot of work.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: If you don't have talent representation, you're doing that on
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: your own. And you probably don't do this full time.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: So you have kids, you have a job, you're in school.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: How can you do it all? So if you can
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: offload manual stuff to AI, do it, do it?
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: You know great?
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we definitely are focused on twenty twenty six. I'm
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: bringing products to market that really help brands and creators
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: do that.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Which is so cool because I actually just filmed a
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: video for our YouTube channel about brand deal contracts, like
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: contracts I'm seeing and all the AI clauses in it.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like you don't know what you don't
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: know right now. All the contracts that I'm seeing is
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: like brands are being like any AI editing or whatever
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: must be disclosed, or like creators telling brands in their
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: contracts you know, brands can't use AI models to you know, yeah,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: like all of this contract stuff that just did not exist, Like, yeah,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: it's crazy.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: They're really scared that creators are going to start to
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: offload a lot of the creative piece because we already
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: know the audiences can sniff that out and it.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: Just but I don't know, maybe that's the skeptic in me.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: I feel like people who want to be creators genuinely
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: like love to create totally, and I don't think they're
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: I don't think that's the part that they're looking to offload.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: I think they're definitely their CRM and.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: Their inbox and their like payment balance Ledger and their
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: outbound pitches like those are things that we want to automate.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: We don't want to automate the actual creation part.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: We want to offload everything else so we have time
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: to create better content for brands.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah A than to that, Well, thank you so much, Megan.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: This has been beyond helpful. I know that all the
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: creators are going to at least here in our community
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: who are so in you know, looking to see behind
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: the scenes. You really took us in, you really gave
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: us some good use cases and just shared that behind
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: the curtain. And that's what Influencer Confidential is all about. Besides,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: obviously Grinn will include all links in the show notes below,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: But if people want to connect with you or connect
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: with like, what's the best way let us know how
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: we can find you or find more resources.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, if you want to connect with me, please feel
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: free to connect with me on LinkedIn. It's LinkedIn dot com,
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: slash meg meg vas and.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's perfect to include that below and I will,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: I'll do that.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, thank you, thank you so much
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: for having me