Holly has been managing and running influencer marketing campaigns before they were even a thing. With over 12 years of experience working with creators, agencies and brands, Holly has gained a wealth of knowledge and gathered some great stories along the way. We wanted to know more so sat down for a chat over a cuppa, to find out how influencer marketing has grown from trading lipsticks for likes to the billion-pound industry it is today.

How did you start your career in influencer marketing?

When I was studying at University, I had a job in the marketing department at Red Bull. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, but through that role I discovered an interest in working in communications, so I decided to move over to the digital agency that looked after Red Bull. I was creating campaigns for Red Bull and pushing them out to specific audiences. I was frequently working on campaigns that were for niche audiences, one of them for example was targeted towards cliff diving.  

I’d use the main social platforms at the time like Twitter and Facebook (Instagram had only just launched) and work with creators who had large audiences to attract views for Red Bull. This was the beginning of my influencer marketing career.

I quickly developed in my role at the agency and applied the same style of working to other global clients including Revlon, Mercedes-Benz and Sky. Each client had their own strategy and creative, so I was able to quickly gain a broad knowledge of influencers from driving enthusiasts and athletes to lifestyle influencers and foodies.

What is one of the first influencer marketing campaigns you worked on?

The one that comes to mind as it was one of the biggest, is the Red Bull cliff diving campaign. We worked with photographers to create a stop-motion film of the Red Bull Cliff Diving event in Wales. Each of them had around a million Instagram followers each, which was very rare at the time, we picked these photographers as they had been selected as beta testers for the platform. They had accounts before anyone else, so they were always showing up on the discover page and were the first profiles to follow when everyone else started to join. They created the main film that was then seeded out and posted all the behind-the-scenes footage which was completely revolutionary and not a big trend like it is now.

Since then, I’ve worked on all sorts of different marketing campaigns. I wanted to gain a broader understanding of advertising and marketing within different agencies to see how I could establish influencer marketing in the wider marketing mix.

Tell us more about how influencer marketing used to work  

Back in the early days, influencer marketing wasn’t a term. We just referred to creators or influencers as people who had a lot of followers. When I say a lot, I'm talking around 40k followers which compared to standards nowadays would be considered a micro-influencer! Back in those days, Zoella was swapping gifted lipsticks for a Revlon branded tweet which could now cost somewhere in the region of £20k, so to say it has grown is a total understatement.

Before we had proper reporting software or access to analysis programs, influencer marketing was like the wild west of marketing. There was no proper reporting or audience data – this has now changed completely. We used to presume that 50% of the following would’ve seen the post. Now, we can measure the performance of influencer marketing campaigns accurately and measure the success of each campaign.

The concept of working with influencers and content creators was still new, because of this there was no real process or official transaction behind what we were doing. We were gifting a lot. Gifting worked well back then, I don’t think marketers or creators knew that influencing was going to develop the way it has so brands and influencers were delighted to engage in a simple swap.

When YouTube makeup tutorials were generating lots of views and engagement with the likes of Tanya Burr at the helm, we would send beauty influencers products we knew they liked and would use in their videos. We would offer creators free tickets to festivals and events to work with us, I remember once gifting a box of tea bags and getting a whole blog post in return!

However, sending gifts to creators gave us no real control. We'd just hope in some cases that they’d post the product on their social media, and even then, we couldn’t ensure that they would tag the right social handles or use the right hashtags. What started out as a hobby and pastime for most has turned into a fully-fledged career with influencers becoming brand ambassadors and many people at school aspiring to be a YouTuber, gamers or influencers.

There’s a misconception that being an influencer is easy work. The fact is that to be a successful influencer or public figure, you need to know your audience. It’s a real skill set to be able to generate engaging content that suits your brand. It can often be time-consuming and take years of experience to see profitable results.

How do influencer marketing collaborations work?

The industry has grown up now, influencer campaigns and partnerships are managed just like other marketing campaigns. At BIG little LDN, we have a refined process in place to ensure that influencer collaborations run smoothly.  

• We have software available to assess the influencers we think could work well with brands
• We have airtight contracts to ensure deliverables are understood and met

• We arrange brand immersion sessions to allow the brand and creators to meet, bond and understand the requirements of their collaboration
• We own the influencer management aspect of the collaboration
• We always report accurately on the success of the collaboration using agreed KPIs because we have the data to back it up

What are the influencer marketing best practices?  

Even after the massive growth seen in influencer marketing over the last 10 years, it can still take a lot of convincing for brands to invest or see the value. Marketers and strategists know that it is an essential part of their marketing strategy to incorporate influencer campaigns, but don’t know where to start so I’ve put together this ‘Best practice guide to influencer marketing’ with everything I’ve learned along the way in influencer marketing to ensure a successful campaign.

Want to find out more? Message Holly.