Weekend Edition: Influencer Marketing with Popular Pays

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, if there is a hidden gem among marketers these days, it's got to be the role of influencer

[00:00:06] [SPEAKER_01]: marketing. These creators are in thousands of followers who will take their advice. That's

[00:00:12] [SPEAKER_01]: gold for a marketer looking to introduce their brand to a new group. But finding those creators

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_01]: negotiating with them getting approvals, tracking the results, until now that's all been

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_01]: massive spreadsheets and to-do lists, and let's face it, dropped balls. There is a better

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_01]: way of course, and some services are starting to emerge to make that process easier.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Today in this paid partnership we are exploring the influencer marketing space with

[00:00:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Popular Pays, a full service influencer marketing platform that takes brands from finding

[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_01]: the right creators right through to seeing how your campaigns performed. If you want to

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_01]: check it out while listening, just go to popularpays.com, flash podcast, Corbett

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Drummy is a co-founder of Popular Pays and he joins me now from his office in Chicago.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, Doug. So your parent company I noticed has some good pedigree. It is the company

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_01]: behind the face tune app which is incredibly popular?

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yeah. So popular Pays actually started over 10 years ago in Chicago as a small, you

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_00]: see a sweet of content creation, services and apps. But the most popular one that people

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: know of under that umbrella is FaceTune. It's been great being a small start up joining

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_00]: this large larger organization with all this product, engineering and marketing resources,

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: but yeah we're hoping to become another really valued app and platform underneath the

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_01]: light tricks wing. After we started talking about this deal and then I noticed that Face2

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_01]: was in your family. I kicked myself because as a mid-50s guy with a TikTok account, I'm like

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_01]: why did I just negotiate like a lifetime account for Face2? So I'm still interested if we can

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_00]: put that together. But yeah, your videos and maybe we'll get you one after. Fair enough. So I want

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_01]: to talk about the influencer marketing space for marketers just generally speaking. You're

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_01]: so deep into it. There's a ton of advice out there. Some good some brands but can we talk

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_01]: about the format first of all? Like why the interests from so many brands in short form video?

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah short form videos really wild in the fact that it seems like in our space every couple of

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_00]: years a new format takes over and each one is more engaging than the last. And the most recent

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_00]: of which is short form video in our space which you know really took off with TikTok especially

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_00]: during the pandemic. We saw it as early as vine but I think the big differences with AI and

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_00]: algorithms that surface the very best content. It has just become like the most addicting content

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_00]: format. So it's been a learning curve for folks and but now it's been dominating most of the

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_00]: platform and a lot of the work we do, but yeah it is just a new beast in a sense that it's not

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_00]: an interest base. So it's been different for brands to adopt and but when they do they see a lot of

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_01]: good results from it. And is it just Jen Zed or Jen Zee as Americans would say that is sort of picking it up?

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean definitely it starts there. It's just like a long time ago with Facebook it started with

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_00]: college students and these networks go through these cycles of the early adopters usually younger

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_00]: folks that have some more time on their hands things like that and then eventually trickles up all

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_00]: ways to you know folks in the middle and then the parents of the generation but what's been

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_00]: really interesting is TikTok with its algorithm content finds the right audience and even like

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_00]: anyone who joins who looks at reals or TikTok they tend to find content they like and it has

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_00]: been really fast growing with for example even the baby room regeneration. There's think there's like 50

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_00]: percent more folks in that demographic on the platform than there was like two two years ago

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: so it's like really rapidly growing amongst that demographics. It's not just Jen Zee as it's kind of

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_01]: everyone now you know we cover on the show a lot of stuff around the creator economy and

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_01]: flew into marketing and sometimes it feels that like every other marketing all like all of your

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_01]: competitors are are diving deep into influence from marketing give me a fact check on this like how

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_01]: widespread really is the use of influence from marketing it ad campaigns. It is almost I feel like

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: almost universal especially with B2C companies it's funny because when we started this a decade ago

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_00]: we had to convince people on why they should try it and influence from marketing was this weird

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_00]: you know experimental one item I think at the time the industry was $1 billion and we thought that

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_00]: was big but today it's about like 24 billion so it's just grown to this point where almost every

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_00]: B2C company uses it as a very primary channel almost as if like 10 years ago you'd have you know TV

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and digital etc and then now it's you know you have your paid social but an organic social

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_00]: but influence of marketing is just as big of a focus for for most B2C companies I'd say

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Corbyn without using the phrase it depends tell me how much it costs the higher and

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_00]: influence their on average. I would don't do it don't do it. Let's try I think of some synonyms for

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_00]: it varies. The most specific I can do is to kind of go through the typical things you see in

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_00]: the platform so let's just say you're producing whether it's static assets like a photo or

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_00]: videos static photos static assets can cost like a couple hundred bucks per piece and videos

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_00]: a couple thousand but some of the major differentiators that would drive the cost up or down

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_00]: would be you know driving it up would be if you're working with a creator who's also posting

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and not just giving you the content and if they're big influencer that starts to drive the cost up a lot

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_00]: but if it's just content it can be really really efficient and one of the things that you could do

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_00]: to lower the cost of that average price would be if you have a product to give

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_00]: gifting the products can be a really great way to make them even more efficient. I would say even

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_00]: if you have like this cool product that's about you know a hundred dollars like some normal

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_00]: consumer product I would still offer a small payment just because you know even even if you're

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_00]: just bootstrapping it and started just because that additional incentive at the end of a gig can

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_00]: be a good forcing function for someone to actually you know prioritize that task completed

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: and then get that payment at the end but if you just you know some brands get by which is product

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_00]: gifting only it's possible too but yeah I'd say typically a couple thousand for a video

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_01]: and a couple hundred for photos. You know hadn't considered the distinction until you mentioned

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_01]: of a creator or an influencer posting it on their on their own page versus them just

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_01]: creating the asset for you and sending you the asset and then not actually posting it on their

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: page. Is there a name for that does that happen a lot? We I mean we just on our platform

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: they're classified as content only gigs and honestly I think it's about like 40% of our work

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_00]: so it's a surprise and yeah it's and it's grown over the years I would say brands use it

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_00]: typically for two major purposes. One is for populating their own feeds so for example I got

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00]: a feed my feed on Instagram or my website and then another one is these assets can be really good

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_00]: the kernels to build ad units off of so I think my like my favorite content strategy for any brand

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_00]: is to hire a couple dozen you know creators and influencers for producing kind of regular social media

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_00]: you can repurpose that in your own feed their posts act as influencer marketing but then you can take

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_00]: the ones that do pretty well and kind of cut them up into different ad variations and that way

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_00]: you kind of in one process you're fulfilling your organic content requirements you're getting some

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_00]: influencer marketing and then you're cutting down some good assets for boosting as paid ad units so

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_00]: it's a really like full cycle it can be a full cycle process to like solve content for you.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess I shouldn't be surprised because you know I remember like 15 years ago when

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_01]: user generated content became kind of a thing and they were entire SaaS platforms that erupted

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_01]: from marketers that were I mean they were more contest based you know it was sort of like

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_01]: you know post something to Instagram with this hashtag and then by doing so you have given us

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_01]: permission to use those assets in our so I guess it's just sort of evolved so I want to talk about

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_01]: the platform that you folks have in just a second but just I just want to get to the nitty gritty

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: of from a marketer's point of view from a brand manager's point of view so I hire someone

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I get the assets from them what do I get in terms of rights to use those assets?

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_00]: It's an important thing to talk about to on our platform when you are working with creators

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_00]: you can specify that and there's like a default setting but you can specify rights language

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_00]: in the brief when creators were are applying to it and I'd say typically the average thing we see

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_00]: as brands are giving are getting you know let's call it like 12 months of rights to use it in

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_00]: social and digital formats so I could use it on my Instagram feed on my website as a paid ad unit

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_00]: some brands ask for rights in perpetuity or even rights to like we've had brands use content

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_00]: some major brands use content on everywhere from you know super role commercials to Amazon store

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_00]: fronts like everywhere billboards and time squares and so you can use these assets anywhere but the

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_00]: more rights you ask for the more creators will charge and I would still one thing I would really

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_00]: encourage brands to think about is the half life on social is so short like we're talking minutes

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_00]: on TikTok and hours on Instagram YouTube and Pinterest and things are longer but it's so short that

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_00]: you don't really need rights forever it's not like you have to take these assets down on

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_00]: they're posted but in terms of you're not going to take something that's five years old and repost it

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_00]: both because your brand has moved on the environment and the like the content landscape has moved on

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_00]: but some brands still want the rights to be able to to chop up that asset and use it in various ways

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_00]: in the future and you can do that if you want you can say look I need the rights and perpetuity just

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_01]: to make my life easier what do you mean by the half life is minutes on TikTok?

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I think well this is one of the things that surprised people the most but the average video is like

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_01]: zero to two minutes it's like like that's where they get the most views zero to two minutes

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_00]: well it's also like one of so this is going back to that topic of short-fone video being really

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_00]: different the two mindset shifts I think for most brands that's hard to adopt is with short-fone

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_00]: video like TikTok and reels you need a treat content like a portfolio in the sense that most things

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_00]: won't work and we're used to marketers of like saying look I don't want to post something

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_00]: you know 10 times a day on my feed because I'm going to just like annoying my followers but these are

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_00]: interest-based you know algorithm-driven things where you post 10 things a day they're going to be

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_00]: seen by different people for the first time all over the world and it's really rare that you know

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_00]: you get eads spam followers with that it's like the algorithm kind of takes care of the reach

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_00]: and so brands both need to post more to get more chances to be lucky and but also

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_00]: most things won't work and then there's a small not that do it's kind of like in in life you

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_00]: have all these power lock curves where 20% of the inputs drive 80% of the outputs and similar to that

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_00]: if you post 50 times on TikTok like two videos will make up almost all of your views in most of them

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_00]: will fail and so that's just something it's just a mindset shift you have to get used to but that way

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_00]: you know let's say you have a video you really believe in you can kind of like reuse and recycle it

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and cut it up in different ways or if something did work you can keep like serializing that

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_00]: and doing it in different ways but yeah the wild thing is the average video just won't work

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_00]: and it will last like zero to two minutes and flop you know compared to what it might normally

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_00]: where compared to what it could do but then once a while it takes off so just you want to maximize

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_01]: the chance that you can get lucky basically you know our own TikTok account which is I think

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_01]: at today and digital marketing or today and digital one of the two we built it to 60,000 followers

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_01]: within a week on the strength of one kind of shitty skit and I haven't done a skit since

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_01]: and every day we lose followers it's just been going down and down and down so

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_00]: awesome well at least a thousand in a week is like very impressive yeah yeah and I would say like

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_00]: that's another lesson though is a lot of brands and I still am victim to this but

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_00]: you know coming up in the add-in-series world like my before popular pays awards in the

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_00]: add-in-series world and you do all this work to make it an ad you think is good and then you finally

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_00]: put it to market and it doesn't work and really got a shift your mindset to testing and learning

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and just getting stuff out there and a lot of times things that you like you never know it's

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_00]: gonna be successful it's just really hardest spot winners and so it's most important to develop

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_00]: like processes to you know develop content at a great cadence and consistently versus like

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_00]: bet the farm on a p-single post but it's kind of like you you might have thought oh this

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_00]: piece of content is not really great but it does numbers well then just take that concept whatever

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_00]: it was and try to make like a part two part three part four and serialize it because it's once you

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_00]: the best tactic is like test and learn till you get some glimmer of traction and then turn that

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_00]: hit into some kind of series like just do you know part two then part three and keep it going yeah

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_01]: all right so I know that you folks are a TikTok content partner um i also want to talk about

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_01]: the popular pays platform itself though from a marketers perspective um so when a brand

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_01]: logs in when someone who is listening to this podcast logs in for the first time and they go to

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean what is the first step is it to find a creator and how does what does it look like what

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_00]: how does it work well looks great for a little while i'm biased well when you log in

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_00]: that so it's a really powerful platform i mean we've been developing it for a decade

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_00]: but overall there's a couple main buckets one of them is searching and betting creators that's

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_00]: a main function of like searching for a community of people out of opted in and another is we've

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_00]: it's probably where we spent the most effort is in all the collaboration tools so you can do things

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_00]: like not only craft a brief you know an AI assisted brief in minutes to put it up to the

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_00]: creative community but you can you know request revisions to content track revision history

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_00]: you can ship products through the platform there's payment and legal built-in and there's

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_00]: some cool tools like you know negotiation tools and stuff like that that are so there's some

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_00]: really deep workflows in there also ways to share stuff with a team like you can share

[00:14:22] [SPEAKER_00]: lists of creators or content to be approved with different permissions with teams so it's a really

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_00]: like heavy duty enterprise software but really easy for small brands to do self-sales well

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and then i'd say beyond like searching through a community and vet in creators with analytics on

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_00]: like who you should work with the second like collaboration part the third main bucket is like

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_00]: tracking your work so just seeing how it performed and trying to spot like what's a winner so you

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_01]: can double down on that like we talked about okay i want to briefly kind of go through each of

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_01]: is really important for things so you said you can find creators does that mean like do you have

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_01]: a marketplace of them where they have already come on and they've indicated you know i'm interested

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_01]: in and then can you just like i don't know like search for makeup and an age range and a country

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_00]: and it'll give you a list exactly there's over a hundred thousand and like in network opted

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_00]: in and you know this partly because we're a partner with you know meta so it's Facebook Instagram

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_00]: TikTok you know Pinterest i think we're one of the first or the only Amazon partner for example

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_00]: for content creation but so there's all these creators with different specialties you can both search

[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_00]: for things they post about you can search based on the demographics of their account or the

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_00]: demographics of their followers and then you can vet the account so you can kind of see like there's

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_00]: some brand safety tools around their their followers and that they're like the health of their

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_00]: account and that's a place where it continues to develop and with some really cool stuff coming

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_00]: later this year because AI has made that whole process even easier but i think the power there is

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_00]: you can find to you want and we both offer the platform as a self serve like SaaS platform

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_00]: but for our larger clients they often opt for this managed service experience where if you're

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_00]: not finding something or you don't have the time you can just tap our team to recruit for you

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_00]: mostly that's from our network but oftentimes we get like the most strange request for an edge

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_00]: creator and we can go find them so we've seen the craziest things i mean three or four really

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_00]: random filters and usually by the way our our feedback would be hey maybe just create some content

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and boost it towards that really niche audience but sometimes you really just need that niche

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_00]: creator so you can even find them with our platform or we have this wonderful service layer where

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_00]: we can help you you know find creators manage a campaign and guarantee those results

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to give away the secret here that you and I both know but uh we are using that

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_01]: service we are a client as kind of a test case we'll talk about that a bit later so you know i mean

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_01]: obviously I assume that you can see their follower count what I care more about as a marketer

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_01]: is our things like the engagement rate like how easy is it for me to see or or search by people

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_01]: that have got you know like more than x percent engagement is that trivial is it hard to do

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_00]: where does that data come from is itself reported yeah no it's it's so one one thing to see

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_00]: as a api partner from these networks so you just a lot of things out there are scraped

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_00]: and a lot of it's wrong and so i wouldn't trust platforms where it's it's great because

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_00]: we've audited those in the past when we before we built all the stuff we did we looked at the

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_00]: market to see if we should integrate other things that are out there but they're not accurate

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_00]: we compared them with the data we're getting back from the networks themselves and they were

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_00]: totally wrong in a lot of cases so i think the first party data is a really important part

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_00]: but you can search by these things and i agree like followers isn't as big of a deal as like

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_00]: how many people are actually seeing the post how many people are engaging with it and in general

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_00]: even deeper than that I would encourage marketers to like work try working with a roster of people

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_00]: see how it does and then kind of double down on the work with the people that are performing well

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_00]: and ultimately like the pop-based platform is tools to streamline and scale your work

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_00]: but it's really it's really like the real value ad you'll get from this and it's part of what

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_00]: our service can teach is making this thing a process and being agile as a marketer and it's

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_00]: something that's a combination of like success doesn't mean it's this single creator that you find

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_00]: with this tool or you know this like you know specific stat you can get after they post success

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_00]: is developing that agile process of like being able to see a trend on TikTok and activate

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_00]: creators quickly to capitalize on it like that's what's going to bring you success it's not

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_00]: necessarily any single feature but certainly everything we've built is to enable marketers to be

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_01]: agile so there's a brief process you write a brief you've got some generative AI in there with that

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_01]: actually worked really well I just typed in like for our campaign I typed in marketing podcast

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01]: that wants more subscribers and it wrote like two thirds of the brief for me and you know

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_00]: with only minor edits required I think like years ago people were over using the AI word and

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_00]: you know last couple years like post chat chat to be tea it's now the case where it is honestly

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_00]: helpful and one of the cases where AI is most helpful is I'd say two things like one is kind

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_00]: of scaffolding your work so people are better at editing than generating and so oftentimes if

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm building something like whether it's a marketing plan or a brief I'll ask AI to make like

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_00]: this scaffold of it and then it might jump with some things that I didn't think of but you know

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_00]: it's not going to be like as creative or as like precise or interesting as a human

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_00]: but it can give me that first start which is huge the first draft and the coolest

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I've seen is before we included this AI brief builder the average brief took people hours to complete

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and after the AI brief builder the average took minutes to complete so it's drunk from hours to

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_00]: minutes and then also 40% more brands were launching the briefs because it shrunk that like

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_00]: first step to the point where they can launch it so that was a really cool wonder rollout

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_01]: so you search for your influencers you I guess invite a bunch or they and or they can apply to

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_01]: you as well you get the brief you hire them you need to go shade on the platform

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_01]: you can do you know they'll submit versions you can ask for changes and so on then it goes live

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_01]: then what happens how do I track or how do you track or do you

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_00]: the actual results that I got yeah and a lot of the what you mentioned is is automated so for

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_00]: like you said you can search and invite creators they can apply to the campaign you launched

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_00]: you can collaborate with them ranging from shipping products to you know requesting edits in the

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_00]: content they submitted stuff like that changing their due date you can do all these cool things

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and you this direct access to message them but once they post the content the platform

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_00]: knows the deliverables that they're responsible for and you can change those deliverables and

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_00]: negotiate with them even mid campaign but once they complete those the platform knows and it will pay

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_00]: them out I think it's after you know two weeks to 30 days depending on the campaign so there's

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_00]: like automatic payment triggers and things like that and but once the so once everything's posted

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_00]: most of the requirements are automatically tracked as well through these network APIs so

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_00]: where it's there's kind of like a background process constantly checking when an influencer

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_00]: supposed to post if they did and if it matches those requirements like there might be a required

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_00]: hashtag for example so it's looking for that or the brands tag but yeah the cool thing is you know

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_00]: we also have this really strong support layer so influencer marketing is messy it's it's people

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_00]: it's not like ad tech or it's just you know numbers on a sheet or you know impressions to

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_00]: fulfill so anything that touches creative can inherently get messy and I think the self-service tools

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_00]: are super helpful especially for small growing brands but the ironic part is despite like

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_00]: co-founding a tech company I think what all our clients love most is the service which is just

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_00]: funny and so human but it's what people stay for I think how much does it cost to use the platform

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_00]: other than the creators fee and I won't say it depends so although it does we try to make this

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_00]: really accessible like I want popular pays to be something that small startups can use as well

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_00]: as the biggest brands and we've got some really cool public work we've done with people ranging

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_00]: from like you know free delays in the huge clients on the like lots of Fortune 500's

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_00]: all the way down to small startups I went through a combination with but I'd say on this

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_00]: on the early stage it is free to try there's a self-serve trial you can do and then in that

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_00]: case the only payment would be you know what you're really budgeting for creators and they kind of

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_00]: middle tier where we have all these big like growing startups and like mid-market companies things

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_00]: like that there's a SaaS platform where you have like every feature at your fingertips and support

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_00]: person available and that's about a thousand dollars a month and then then plus your budget for

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_00]: creators where it's you know a transparent marketplace so you can pick who you want it's see their prices

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_00]: et cetera and at the highest end a lot of these brands really lean on us for executing and

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_00]: you know so we we give them guaranteed deliverables it might look like hey you know we're going to

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_00]: give you 25 videos for 50k on TikTok or some some guaranteed deliverable whether it's impressions or

[00:23:09] [SPEAKER_00]: or content and that way it's agreed up upfront and we just execute and those campaigns I

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_00]: they always result in like much happier clients it's faster and because we know we're off-rising

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_00]: forward and we hit it and we you know we will keep doing it until the goals hit so clients have a lot

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_00]: of security which is really important for big brands who are you know executing and need that

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_01]: that guaranteed result well as I mentioned we are currently using the popular pays platform

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_01]: for an influencer marketing campaign of our own on TikTok and Instagram in the coming weeks

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_01]: we will be back with another special weekend edition to pick apart that campaign in detail

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_01]: walk you through how it worked from a brand's point of view tell you about the horrible decisions

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I made along the way and most importantly tell you how the numbers did. Corvette Drummy is a co-founder

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_01]: of popular pays he will be back with me for that in the weeks ahead. Corvette thank you so much

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_01]: thanks to you can try popular pays now by going to popularpays.com slash podcast and take advantage

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_01]: of their 20% discount just for listeners of this show. I'm Todd Maffin thanks for listening

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_01]: back Monday with our regular episodes.