Cody is a former college hoop star turned influencer marketing pro. His resume of influencers he’s partnered with is pretty impressive. He’s worked with the likes of Lebron James, Mike Trout, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and more. His passion is helping great eCommerce brands scale with simple, effective influencer marketing. And he believes that most brands approach influencer marketing all wrong.
Here’s a look at what we cover in this episode.
- What’s changed in the last year in influencer marketing?
- What mistakes are ecomm brands still making?
- How do you work with people like Lebron and Mike Trout?
- What’s the solution to tracking in a post iOS 14.5 world.
- Tips for getting started and executing an effective influencer marketing program.
- Plus more
Mentioned in this Episode:
Cody Wittick
Kynship Shopify App: Influencer Seeding
Qalo
Facebook Brand Collabs Manager
Transcript:
Brett:
Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the eCommerce Evolution Podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce, and today we're diving deep into influencer marketing, something that you can't ignore and something that, if you're not using now, what are you waiting for? You got to start using influencer marketing. And my guest today, Cody Wittick, is going to show you the way. He's the co-CEO and co-founder of Kynship, an influencer marketing agency, and he has worked with some influencers of influencers. He's worked with LeBron James, and he's worked with Mike Trout, and he's worked with Dale Earnhardt Jr. And so we're going to be able to tap into the brain of Cody Wittick and find out what should we be thinking about right now as we look at influencer marketing, what's changing in the months ahead, how does this impact things with iOS 14, and 15, and 16, and all the iOS updates where Tim cook is trying to kill marketers and all things good.
Brett:
Sorry, still a little bitterness in there, but we're going to dive into influencer marketing. It's going to be a lot of fun. And so with that, Cody, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for coming on and how's it going?
Cody:
Yeah, it's going good, Brett. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
Brett:
Yeah, absolutely. And you, Cody, you're coming to us live, or it's live for me, anywho, from one of my favorite parts of the country. You're in the OC, Orange County. How's the weather? How are things there right now?
Cody:
Yeah, I won't talk about the weather too much because I don't want to ...
Brett:
... it's a silly question, really. The weather's always great in Orange County.
Cody:
Yeah, I don't want to rub it in your face, but it's currently cloudy, which it usually never is. So, we're all a little down here in Southern California.
Brett:
I'm really sorry for you. That's really, really rough.
Cody:
...
Brett:
It feels like it's cloudy and 75. It's terrible.
Cody:
Yeah, exactly. It's hard.
Brett:
That's awesome. And also, we discovered this as we were chatting, you ran the influencer marketing program for which QALO, which was the original silicone wedding ring. My team and I used to run the YouTube and Google Ads for Groove Life, my buddy Peter Goodwin. And so we were head-to-head, duking it out on the internet and we didn't even know it, which ...
Cody:
You were enemies.
Brett:
What's that?
Cody:
We're enemies now.
Brett:
Exactly. We're burying the hatchet, though, for the sake of this podcast and for the good of the audience, but you were doing that from, what, 2014 to 2018 you said?
Cody:
Correct. Yeah.
Brett:
Yeah, so it was right in there that we were doing stuff for Groove, which was really fun. Yeah, so give your background. How did you get into influencer marketing? And then any interesting things along the way of ... Let's do the 60 second story of Cody Wittick's background.
Cody:
Yeah. I mean, I played college hoops, so I just always been in athletics.
Brett:
Where'd you play college hoops?
Cody:
At a school called Biola, D2 school here in SoCal.
Brett:
It's hilarious. Shout out to Jared Mitchell, my buddy who I just mentioned, St. Clemente, he went there as well.
Cody:
No way.
Brett:
Yeah, so we'll catch up on that later, but that's hilarious. So I wished I played college hoops and so you actually did, which is awesome.
Cody:
Yeah, so I got to play. So I only bring that up, it was just like I'm a big sports guy, love sports. As QALO was growing, I knew the co-founder. He grandfathered me in, let me come into the company. And so I got to grind my teeth on influencer marketing through working with athletes. And I was really interested in it. And I think just because maybe I was a former athlete or maybe it's just my personality, but I was never like, "Oh, my God, it's Steph Curry," go fanboy over it. I think it's ...
Brett:
... cousin. I mean, I don't know for sure, but ...
Cody:
There you go.
Brett:
My jump shot looks so similar. If you saw it, you'd be like, "Whoa, they're related."
Cody:
Totally, yeah. Yeah, that lent itself into just establishing great relationships with these guys. And it wasn't just athletes, but long story short I was able to run the influence program at QALO for four or five years and learned a lot, worked with some big time athletes, like some of the people that you mentioned in the beginning, but also all the way down to your micro influencers. You understand the use case of a wedding ring is everybody, so there's so many categories. I got to just cut my teeth with so many different categories. Pet influencers, to military, to firefighters, it was just all over the place. So it allowed me to get a lot of experience in a lot of different industries, meet a lot of different cool people, how they function, how they work, what ticks them. Exactly.
Brett:
That's so cool. And one of the questions that people always ask, and it's still a question that I'm fascinated with as well, is obviously the celebrity or the influencer matters. The actual influence they have over their audience really matters. That's going to impact the effectiveness of what they do for you, but is it necessary to get someone like a LeBron James or a Mike Trout or are you better off to get multiple really good micro influencers? Any general thoughts on that? I say the age old debate, it's been raging for three years or whatever, but what are your thoughts around huge influencer versus micro influencer?
Cody:
I love this question because I actually made a ton of mistakes at QALO just because my eyes were just so drawn to the macros. And it was in a time, too, where Facebook 2015, 2016, where we just threw up a Tesla ...
Brett:
Those were the golden years ...
Cody:
Yeah, a testimonial from Andy Dalton talking about QALO and it would get a seven, eight ROAS. Okay, let's just repeat this. Well, we got caught up in that drug, so we're constantly chasing after macros. Some really nailed it, but an example would be Bryce Harper. Thought it was going to crush, totally flopped.
Brett:
Interesting.
Cody:
Stuff like that.
Brett:
I'm just curious on this more, just my own interest. Did he not do a good job with it or do you think Bryce Harper ... Obviously I know who he is, he's a great baseball player, but people don't love him like people love other athletes or what's ...
Cody:
Yeah, and we'll get into this later, but the content was poor. I think he did a poor job on the content itself, but, however, a lot of times a name like that can make up for poor content. Yeah, the content was poor, but everything on audience insights, when that used to be a thing within Facebook, that now disappeared this year, everything told me Major League Baseball. Bryce Harper, he's MVP at the time. This is going to crush. He's going to talk about he's a solid family man, all this stuff, and it just didn't work. So to answer your question originally, I think there's a proper way to get there before you spend a ton of money. To use that Bryce Harper example, to back out from that, we should have tested other testimonials.
Cody:
In this case, it would've been maybe minor leaguers or C list type of players that maybe are more known. And then as that gains traction, you're like, "Okay, wow, Major League Baseball is really achieving a ton," then maybe we go into the macros of the world. So I just think there's steps to take. To address your other part of the question, you don't have to start with macros. Which, unfortunately, a lot of brands think that they have to do and then they spend all of their budget that they might have even just created for this category and spend it on one post from one big time influencer. All your eggs and one basket ...
Brett:
It's dangerous no matter what you're doing. You need time to experiment, and to test, and not everything is going to work perfectly.
Cody:
Right.
Brett:
Yeah, don't put all your eggs in one basket, for sure. And we don't do influencer marketing at OMG, but I'm around it a lot because we're running YouTube ads and running Google campaigns and Amazon campaigns. So I see influencer content and we have some clients that are doing things with MMA, up and coming MMA athletes and fighters. And some not really famous NFL people, but like NFL linemen for the New England Patriots and stuff. And so it's like they have an audience. It's limited, but you can zero in on that audience. And it can be very effective and it's very affordable and it's fun and it's content. It's content then you can also mash up and do some fun stuff with later as well. I think it'd be interesting. What are some tips to get ready for influencer marketing? I want to talk, I've got all kinds of thoughts on here, what's changed recently, and mistakes, and things like that, but what do people need to do to get ready for influencer marketing if they're not already doing it?
Cody:
Yeah, I quote this all the time. It's my own quote.
Brett:
A brilliant man once said, his name is Cody.
Cody:
I say this all the time. That's what I meant to say.
Brett:
Yeah.
Cody:
The more that you can align your influence marketing with your customer experience, the better your influencer marketing will be. And what I mean by that is just in the same way that you think about all the impressions and all the touch points that you have with your customers the better that your customer's experience will be. You put yourself in the shoes of the customer, same thing with the influencer. So to get ready for things an unboxing experience, your branding just as a brand, making sure that your website is reasonable when an influencer goes to your website or on Instagram when they go check you out when you outreach them. So those are sorts of things that somehow people forget because they're not paying for my products or they just forget the human side of it. And so you should treat influencers like your customers because unboxing experience is doubling down on your great first impression of them.
Brett:
Right. And what do you want them to say? You're selling the influencer on becoming excited about your product. If the online experience is bad or you send them something hokey in the mail, that's going to really impact what they say. And no amount of star power, even ... MVP didn't deliver because the content wasn't good.
Cody:
Right. Exactly. So I just think you got to have those things aligned before you start or how to get ready for influence marketing is just going through the same customer journey that you would with your customers before you launch your brand. It's like, "Hey, do we have these things checked off?" Now, all that to say doesn't mean you have to have 12 steps checked off before you start influencer marketing. I definitely think there's a lot of people that might misinterpret that and say, "Okay, I need to have all these things ready before I start outreaching influencers." No, not necessarily. I'm just saying there's basic things, like branding and having a product dialed in and you're unboxing experience, that you should take care of. And it contributes to more success. Not to say that you can't have some success, but it contributes to more success just in the same way that you have a brand in front of your customers.
Brett:
Got it. So what has changed over the last year, two years in terms of influencer marketing? It's still an emerging, relatively new space, but I know things have changed pretty rapidly recently. What are some of the notable changes?
Cody:
Yeah. I mean, you can start talking about Instagram testing hiding likes in things on the platform or certainly the rise of TikTok is a ginormous change that has gone on the map. And I think it's a good thing, but short form content. Create more creative content. Definitely the emphasis on video content has been clearly seen. I don't know if this has necessarily changed in influencer marketing, but brands more and more are starting to value video content more and more. And so I think influencers, because of that affect, have been privy to that and started to create more video content. And certainly TikTok contributed to that as well.
Brett:
Yeah, and I'm also curious, and I think this has always been true, but curious if it's more true now or just the same, that creating content for the platform is super important. I know I've got a friend that runs TikTok ads and he says you don't create ads on TikTok, you create TikToks. Right. And so creating for the platform is really important. How important is that now? Are you doing something unique for Instagram versus Facebook versus Instagram Reels versus Facebook Stories? Are you really tweaking content for the platform?
Cody:
Well, for us, I think it's just reformatting the content so that it can go in all placements, but we let the influencers do their thing on how they actually post the content to those platforms. And they're much more knowledgeable about ...
Brett:
It's true. There are influencers on that platform, so it's a native thing for them.
Cody:
Right. Exactly.
Brett:
Got it. Cool, totally makes sense. What are some of the mistakes that you still see brands making when it comes to influencer marketing?
Cody:
The transactional nature of it. And I can geek out on this topic, but I smile when you say what has changed over influence marketing. Actually, my first thought is, man, there's so much that hasn't changed over the years that is still ... They're still in the old ages of pay for post. Hey, Brett, first touchpoint I ever talk to you, I asked for three posts just because I'm awesome and I'm a new brand. It boggles my mind. Now, with that said, do I believe in pay for posts? Yes, eventually. And you have multiple people, omnichannel, consistently posting to their audiences over and over and over again. I just think from a first touch point, when they post that one time, man, it's just you're settling when you can have so much more.
Cody:
And I think the value is the relationship at the end of the day. All these brand owners that I talk to all the time, they all talk about I want a long term community, I want influencers posting about me consistently. I'm like, "Great, you got to start the right way." A lot of time your belief system is not matching up to your behavior. And so their belief system is that, but their behavior is I'm just going to pay for posts, a million different influencers, and that's it. And that's my influencer strategy. And it's like no. There is a way to get to where you want to go, we just got to change your behavior.
Brett:
So what should that look like then? So what needs to shift both in mindset and in action to really long term community building influencer market?
Cody:
Yeah. Well, I'd say the mindset, the philosophy is build the relationship I'm giving instead of asking. So what that looks like is for most of the time D2C eCommerce brands, you have a physical product that you can send out and you can gift them for free. And when I say don't ask, I actually mean don't ask for anything in return. So I'll tie it back to your customer experience. The customers that end up in advocacy are the genuine ones that go down your customer journey on their own because they love the brand and product. And we wonder why influencer marketing is not is inauthentic. It's because what's driving them down into advocacy is money and a contract. And it's like we got to start the right way and get them the product, get them the brand. Now some influencers will never post and they might not even like the product.
Cody:
Great. It's the same thing with your customers. Some customers will return it, but the influencers that do rise to the top, those are the ones that you want to work with anyways. And they do end up posting for free just because they're so overwhelmed with ... Most of these influencers are just so used to getting exploited or I use that example being asked for things right off the jump. Never heard of your brand before, never even seen your website, but yet you're here asking me for three things right off the bat. It just doesn't make sense.
Brett:
So you're recommending sending and going all out on packaging and design, making it a cool experience for them to open your product, but you're saying just send that maybe with a simple note? Not asking them for anything, just sending them product?
Cody:
Yeah. I mean, my DM or email to you would just be like, "Hey, Brett, I'd love to send you to our product, no strings attached." There's obviously more into our message a little bit, but it's short and sweet. And it's basically that's what we mean by it. And you have the option to say yes or no. And at that point we're just getting your address and we're sending you the product. And that's what we're really doing at kinship, is basically what's called influencer seeding and we're just doing that at scale for brands.
Brett:
Got it. So let's talk about that a little bit. So influencer seeding, so what does that look like? I'm assuming that's identifying the right influencer, reaching out in a systematic way, tracking it, things like that.
Cody:
Yeah, you nailed it. I mean, identification or identifying 500 influencers on a month to month basis, we handle the whole communication flow. We have a Shopify app, Kynship does, that we download onto their store. It just helps seed them the product in a really streamlined way. We track the organic posting. Once we see posts go live, we reach out for content rights. Once we have content rights, we download the content, reformat it for ad placements.
Brett:
Nice.
Cody:
Ideally, we're able to repurpose that content right away. We're sending out an NPS survey to all the influencers that do receive products. So it's a A to Z service, but a lot of it really is labor. These brands just don't have time to do this, let alone 500 influencers in a month.
Brett:
That's awesome. And I think that's one thing that's potentially overlooked, too. I'd be curious your perspective on this. Obviously we want those organic posts to be effective when an influencer talks about a product to their followers, but if you're getting rights to the content as well, there's a lot of leverage you can get from that content down the road. We had a big automotive brand and we did influencer mashups. And we turned them into an ad, where maybe even if I'm watching some influencers and I don't know all of the influencers, if I'm seeing this mashup of soundbites of all these people that are pretty well spoken because they're influencers telling me how great the product is, that's really powerful.
Cody:
Right.
Brett:
So you can leverage it way beyond just that organic piece.
Cody:
Exactly. It's the FOMO effect, right?
Brett:
Yeah.
Cody:
It's like I don't even know any of these influencers, but there's a lot of people that seem to be loving their product.
Brett:
They seem like they genuinely like it. Yeah.
Cody:
Yeah. And I think just a quick note on that is I think that's what seeding lends itself to, is authentic content, which is what is such a buzzword in influencer marketing, authenticity. It is because we're not asking for it and yet they're posting on their own free will and their genuine interaction to voice your product and brand. So it leads to that.
Brett:
So are you guys doing any pay for posting or are you doing all just organic, send the product, just the seeding approach?
Cody:
Yeah. I mean, we do sometimes on a very ... Probably 10%. We have a package that does that, where we're actually contracting these influencers and there's a creative brief and there's rounds of approval on their content and stuff like that, but most of the time we're doing these influencer seeding packages. And I think there's a way. Just to be clear, I'm not anti pay influencers or anti contract influencers. Again, it's just I think there's a proper way of getting to that step. If I really value the relationship, then I want my brand and product to be the focus, not money. So I want to get it into their hands.
Brett:
Yeah, I love it. And I think especially for people that are listening, that you're holding out on influencer marketing. You just haven't tried it. This approach might be a great approach to just do the organic thing and see who all posts. Are you doing anything interesting to track or anything you'd recommend on track? I know you guys have developed an app, which is awesome, but what else would you recommend in terms of tracking?
Cody:
Yeah, tracking, organic posting, we have a preferred partner named MightyScout, so they track Instagram and TikTok organic posting, even stories. A lot of people have questions on stories after 24 hours. Does it still pull it? Yes. Yeah, they're great. They're part of our flow that we take on ...
Brett:
On MightyScout?
Cody:
MightyScout, yeah.
Brett:
Basically they're just scouring the web looking for mentions on social ...
Cody:
Yeah, we're able to upload their profile and it starts tracking if they mention certain handles or certain hashtags. And then we're able to see that content and the performance of it.
Brett:
Nice. What, if any, kind of changes have you seen with influencer marketing with the different privacy updates and different iOS releases that are making tracking harder for advertisers?
Cody:
Yeah. I mean, in terms of that affects us the most when we're actually repurposing the content. You obviously understand this, but just within iOS 14 and the tracking on the dashboard within that account the reporting is incredibly down. Almost, I think, 50% of what we've seen, but actually when we look at the data and what I've seen just around the market, ROAS is actually not down. It's just the reporting when we actually take in blended and GA and all these different things, but I would say creative is just ... I don't know what number to put this, but it was important before iOS 14. Now, it's important on steroids. So the brands that we talk to time and time again, they're constantly in dire need of new content, more content at a cost effective way.
Brett:
Yeah, fully agree. And it's one of those things where a friend of mine said pre-iOS 14, 15, 16, all that, the Facebook and Google were wrong then. They over attributed. Now, they're wrong. They're just under attributing. Right. And so it's like, it was never accurate to begin with. So you have to find what metrics in the platform makes sense for you, but then look at your total, whether you want to call it MER, media efficiency ratio, or ad spend to revenue ratio. What are my total money out and total money in and making sure you're efficient there, but I 100% agree with you. And I'm a YouTube guy, so I reference YouTube a lot, but Google said when you're running YouTube campaigns 85% of your success is with the creative. I think that's even more true now and I think there was a time when some of us advertisers got a little bit lazy because we knew the algorithm would do the work for us and find people to convert it, now tracking not quite working the way that it used to. We can't be algorithm cripples anymore and so creative just has to be ...
Cody:
And not overly dependent on one platform.
Brett:
Yeah, that, too.
Cody:
It's made brands omnichannel and diversified and it's making everybody better marketers, really.
Brett:
It is. It's weeding out the people that really don't have deep marketing knowledge. They didn't learn how to use Facebook during the golden years when it was pretty easy. And so now you've really got to work and you've got to do organic stuff, and you've got to work with influencers, and then repurpose that into ads. Yeah, it just takes more work now than before.
Cody:
Sure.
Brett:
What are some of your favorite case studies or favorite examples of clients you worked with or could be QALO or whatever of what you've done to really make influencer marketing work and work well?
Cody:
Yeah, there's a couple that come to mind. One of which was a brand that we actually had the pleasure of just through a personal relationship we were able to launch with them. And they just completely relied on the two things that we do, which is Facebook ad account management and influencer seeding. And so that was a brand called MonkeyFeet. It attaches a dumbbell to your foot, very unique product. It launched in October 2020, so ...
Brett:
A dumbbell to your foot. So this is for working out?
Cody:
Exactly. So do leg stuff with dumbbell and at home. People were working out at home more than ever and when they launched. Yeah, we just seeded a ton of different fitness trainers, the products, and uniqueness of the product once you brand. Time of the year obviously all contributed, but we're able to grow their brand to four million in four short months. So incredible rise and now I think they're at six over the course of the year. And so that was one case study. Second case study that we worked with M&Ms. And we did a lot of stuff on TikTok sending personalized M&Ms for Mother's Day and Father's Day where they could put their mom or dad's face on the MM&M. And we're able use our strategies, see the influencers. They posted for free, had several videos organically go viral. And then they repurposed that content and they saw 457% increase in sales compared to 2020, 67% increase in sales compared to 2020 on each of those days.
Cody:
So obviously these are case studies, but incredible success. And with a brand like that with M&Ms and then MonkeyFeet, those are two ways that we've seen seeding lead to a ton of content right away that gets repurposed.
Brett:
Cool, love it. So let's create just an imaginary eCommerce brand for a second. Let's go for a sneaker company, so we're both talking basketball. Let's talk about this is highly unlikely to succeed, but this is an upstart shoe company taking on Nike and Adidas and all that. So where would you start and what would an influencer program look for them? And then what should people expect along the way?
Cody:
Yeah, I would start with seeding. I mean, I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but it's got to start that way every time. No matter what your COGs are, what all these different price points are, you just ... If you can just send out one, that would make that person that you send it out to very important, but in this case example, man, I would try to start with low level high schoolers, college people. I would get it on D3, D2 schools. I'd just be getting this product everywhere because that's where word of mouth actually happens. That's where it's like where are the issues. I would definitely start young because you're not going to go out and get the NBA guys to wear ...
Brett:
Yeah, no way. They're not moving away from Nike ...
Cody:
Yeah, so you just got to start and hope that some of these people do turn into stars and we were the first to get on their feet. And obviously the product's got to be great at that point. It can't just look good.
Brett:
Totally. So then you're going through the seeding process, so you're sending out ... Obviously you want to try to send out more than one, if you can, I know there are a lot of variables here, but what kind of response are you typically expecting? And this is with the assumption that, A, the product is good and what you sent them was good, and compelling, and interesting. How many people typically ... How many influencers typically respond and actually create organic content once you give them a free product?
Cody:
Yeah, great question. So in terms of a benchmark, and this is the bench, we obviously want to go higher than this, but we want at least 20% responding and saying, yes, send me the product. And then out of those people that do receive product, we want to see 30% of those actually post for free. So if you send to 30 individual influencers, that's six opting in and two posting for free. And obviously those numbers sound a lot better as the more that you do it and the more influencers that you reach out to, but still that's two relationships at the very least that you didn't have yesterday.
Brett:
Yeah, and really just cost you a little bit of time and some product. And, again, you get someone who really does a nice job with organic content and that can pay off big time. And then you repurpose it for ads and stuff and then you can leverage that content for months and months to come.
Cody:
Right. It just comes down to all marketing has inherent risk, right?
Brett:
Sure.
Cody:
You don't just turn on Facebook ads and then all these conversions just start happening. There's a risk of spend that you might not get any conversions. So when people are like, "Well, that's such a low number of people opting in or a low number of people that are actually posting for free, why isn't it a guarantee? Why can't you just ask for a post?" You're just settling and there's always the risk. There's always going to be people that say no or don't post for free, but how valuable and what are the goals that you actually want to go? What's the best method to produce the outcome that I desire?
Brett:
Yeah, that's awesome. So other just tips, suggestions? How do we make influencer marketing work for an eCommerce store? Any other tips or suggestions that you haven't already mentioned?
Cody:
What you do with influencer content once you actually have it, maybe you get rights to it. I would definitely recommend being able to leverage that within Facebook and Instagram ads. I mean, we've definitely touched on that, but there's also different methodologies within Facebook where you can run dynamic creative tests. And that's basically you being able to run a bunch of creatives all at once, really being able to test. You're letting Facebook determine what the winners are going to be, so without getting too nerdy into ad account world that's some of the other things that I would just throw out to the listeners. It's something to try and test as you start getting influencer content. I mean, you mentioned one, Mashables, where you can do with more than one asset.
Brett:
I'm looking at your story. Did you guys run stuff for NATIVE?
Cody:
We did.
Brett:
That's awesome. A long time client. We worked with NATIVE for forever, so that's awesome.
Cody:
Amazing.
Brett:
We've put some of your content on YouTube.
Cody:
We're going to be best of friends by the end of this episode.
Brett:
So we started as enemies, now we're best bros.
Cody:
Exactly.
Brett:
So that's awesome. Cool. So obviously I love influencer marketing. I love the power of good influencer content. Any suggestions you have for people? So obviously if they're wanting to run this and they like the sound of what you offer, Cody, and what you guys have done, they can reach out to you at Kynship. K-Y-N-S-H-I-P.co. Any other suggestions, resources, other things they should check out that you guys have done?
Cody:
That we've personally done or just tips and tricks of the trade?
Brett:
Either. Well, either one. Both. Let's talk both real quick.
Cody:
Yeah, so the couple of things that would come to mind is just there's some free tools out there that people just don't even really know about. One of which is owned by Facebook and one of which is owned by TikTok. TikTok Creator Marketplace, it's free. You can apply as an advertiser, that's where you can go and find and work with influencers. It's their own basically influencer marketing platform.
Brett:
I did not know that existed. That's fantastic.
Cody:
Yeah, creatormarketplace.tiktok.com. And you can apply as a brand. If you already have a TikTok ad account, you should be able to get in really quick. And then Facebook Brands Collabs Manager, that's a also free influencer discovery tool that pulls in Facebook and Instagram. So for some of these people that maybe are just starting out with influencer marketing and just don't know ...
Brett:
What was the Facebook tool again?
Cody:
Facebook Brands Collabs Manager. It's funny, they don't even talk about it. I feel like Kynship we talk about it more than Facebook. So I'll be requesting a referral fee.
Brett:
Brands Collabs Manager. Interesting. Okay, yeah, we'll link to that. I did not know that existed either, so we'll link to both of those in the show notes.
Cody:
I think the reason why I bring those two up is just because a lot of times finding influencer ...
Brett:
Now the page says Meta for Creators. We can't forget Facebook, the platform, the artist formally known as Facebook ...
Cody:
Rest in peace.
Brett:
Of course. Yeah, exactly. So Meta for Creators, that'll probably get you there, too. Yeah, super interesting resources. So go ahead, I think you were about to explain ...
Cody:
Well, I was just going to say a lot of times the biggest hangup in people starting is more on the labor and the time. And a lot of those two things come around just finding influencers. They may be convinced by this episode to I'll seed product, but who do I do it with? Yeah, even Instagram itself you can do the drop down arrow and algorithm picked influencers that are all related to that influencer. I used to do that before all these tools came around. That was my discovery tool.
Brett:
So what does that look like? So you're on Instagram, you've got an influencer where you're like this influencer would be perfect for my brand. What do you do from there?
Cody:
Yeah, there's a dropdown arrow on the top third of the profile. You can hit that dropdown arrow and then it just feeds you similar people all pretty much around the same follower account. Some will just be various, but they're posting similar things, using similar hashtags, they might have the same bio. So if you have at least one influencer that you know I would love to get my product to this person, hitting that drop down arrow will show you a bunch of different people.
Brett:
Super interesting. Well, those three tips were worth the price of admission. That was worth you listening to the end of this podcast. So if you did, kudos to you. You got three amazing tips. It was all good, but those are three amazing free tools to get started with. So check those out, Meta for Creators, AKA Brand Collabs Manager, the TikTok Creator Marketplace, and then just looking on Instagram and clicking that dropdown arrow. That's awesome. Fantastic. And then other suggestions? So if someone says, "Hey, I want to talk to Cody, I want to talk to Kynship," what should they do?
Cody:
They can just reach out to me. I'm very active on Twitter and Instagram. So just @codywittick on both and then we can get on a call and schedule something. So that's probably the easiest way to connect with me and the agency.
Brett:
Nice, that's awesome. This is just always a fun way to wrap up as we're wrapping up our session here, any predictions? Where is influencer marketing headed? What things could you see changing? And then what else might be also be interesting, because you alluded this a few minutes ago, what do you expect to remain the same? We always want to prepare for what's shifting and what's changing and certainly be aware, but also you double down on the things that won't change typically. So any thoughts there on what's going to change and what's not?
Cody:
What's going to change? Here's a hot take, follower count goes away. That's a hot take.
Brett:
So platforms are going to hide that?
Cody:
Yeah, maybe even Instagram just solely. I don't know about TikTok. They're obviously a different leadership group.
Brett:
Different beast there, yeah.
Cody:
Yeah. I mean, personally, I would love to see it just because I think the more focus would go on the content itself, but ...
Brett:
It's a vanity metric, too. It's all about engagement so you have 500,000 followers, but what if you paid for them or what if they're not engaged?
Cody:
Exactly, so maybe hiding it. And then what remains the same? What I'm passionate about is just the relationship side of things. These influencers, from Michael Jordan to LeBron James is the only thing that changed. They're both the same influence, but what changed is the platform. It used to be a TV commercial, now it's Instagram stories.
Brett:
Yeah. And I don't want to get into the Jordan versus LeBron debate because that's not appropriate for this podcast. Jordan's better, but if we look at it, and this is what we talk about as a team a lot, things are shifting rapidly in our industry. What will always be the same is that you have to have the right message, a compelling message that just hooks the right person and makes them want to take action. You have to have the right message to the right person. You have to identify who's going to fall in love with my product and who's going to be really interested in what I have to sell and who are the influencers that speak to them, so the right market and then at the right time. So with the right medium, with the right channel to reach. Those things are never going to change. If you're able to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time to the right medium, you win.
Brett:
And then just understanding that it's going to shift and stuff, but get drilled down to the basics and the things that are timeless and that's how you succeed in marketing. So awesome. Well, Cody, this has been a lot of fun, man. Really enjoyed it and good luck to you. We'll be keeping an eye out. Do follower counts go away? So I'll give you credit there.
Cody:
That's the one takeaway that everybody will remember. No one else will remember anything, just a hot take.
Brett:
Awesome. Any final words of wisdom, Cody?
Cody:
No, just build relationships on giving, not asking. That'll be the final one liner.
Brett:
I love it, yeah. On giving, not asking. I absolutely love that, really good stuff. So, Cody, thanks, man. This has been a lot of fun.
Cody:
Thanks, Brett.
Brett:
Absolutely. And as always, thank you for tuning in. Really appreciate you taking the time, taking a half hour, 45 minutes out of your day to hang out with me and really smart guests. And so as always, we'd love to hear from you. What topics would you like us to explore on the podcast? Hey, if you haven't done it already, we'd love that review on iTunes. It helps other people discover the show and it makes me feel warm inside and I would appreciate that. So with that, until next time, thank you for listening.
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