When I say that the internet is a multi-billion dollar industry, it is because of the plethora of opportunities that is characterized by the gig economy where freelancers, affiliates, and tech-savvy individuals have earned good money. Freelancers, bloggers, programmers, video editors, and influencer marketing among others have made doing business online and offline much easier.
However, we are going to be focusing on influencer marketing, which is gradually evolving into a megabuck industry of its own.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Also known as influence marketing, influencer marketing is the use of social media by niche experts with a good number of followers and goodwill to endorse brands and products of organizations. Influencers swindle sales in favour of organizations using social media platforms like Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, and so on.
Meanwhile, an Influencer Marketing Platform is a software tool designed to aid brands with their social marketing campaigns. The purpose of platforms for influencer marketing is to analyze databases, discover influence and rate them, and use algorithms as well.
There are instances where some brands prefer the opt-in method for influencers, – in this method, the staff of the marketing platform checks the prospective marketers to see if they are genuine to work with or together.
Top Influencer Marketing Platforms for 2021:
1. Grin
Grin is one of the most notable influencer marketing platforms. They stand out because of their philosophy which says that the influencer benefits more in influencer marketing.
They work with e-commerce stores, carry out email marketing and go as far as doing influencer talent management.
Although the Grin software is quite sophisticated, it is one of the easiest to use and it has all the features needed to make marketing easy. Workflow is organized for users – and top-tier organizations have been found to easily integrate Grin into their own systems.
For E-commerce sites, Grin brings out a list of all the users of the platform to enable you to find their profiles – this way, you can see those that are potential influencers given their statistics, from what they have purchased, to the number of what they have purchased.
Grin has utilized TikTok, Instagram, and Youtube to pull out data that they need. Most profiles have email addresses, so it is easy to get through to influencers.
2. Upfluence – Influencer Marketing Platform
With Upfluence, you can serve yourself and the platform set its price for both small and big businesses. Notable firms like Microsoft and Paypal have used the services of this platform, making it very reliable and acceptable.
Just recently, they expanded by two products. Publisher, an influencer relationship management system and then Facade – a search engine for social media.
Upfluence has a massive database of over 5 million content across blogs and all social media platforms. The onus lies on business owners to search through their huge database for influencers that match the criteria they want. There’s adequate information to help brands know influencers that are suitable for their cause.
Also, influencers have a relationship with brands as provided for by the Influencer management system. This system also monitors and evaluates the performance of influencers based on the campaign assigned to them.
3. Creator.co
Creator.co is one of the earlier influencer marketing platforms. They were floated in 2018 and set out to help small businesses and micro-influencers.
Creator sees influencers create powerful and quality content and disseminate the same.
Their database also holds more than 500 million influencers all over the world. If you are able to find someone that fits your brand, then you can work with them. They also provide insights and data as to the performance of influencers, this is in a bid to help you make a decision.
Thankfully, Creator has two plans – a hands-free and a self-serve plan. For the hands-free plan, all you need to do as a brand is to create your ideal influencer for a defined campaign. The system would have vetted a crop of some influencers and then pitch the ones that suit the campaign of brands. You can choose to activate influencers that are willing to participate.
4. AspireIQ (formerly Revfluence)
AspireIQ is also a self-service platform but they pulled their database from only YouTube and Instagram, that’s why they have about 150,000 influencers only. Anybody can sign up on AspireIQ but to be able to view campaigns or brands, you must have satisfied certain criteria. For instance, you would have had 2500 YouTube views or 500 Instagram likes to be considered an Influencer.
If a potential influencer meets all of their criteria, they are registered on their database and are able to see the proposals from brands. They have an algorithm that pitches or matches brands to suitable influencers.
5: Dovetale
Dovetale has established a very cheap tool that is used in managing and scaling up marketing by influencers.
The Dovetale platform provides an affordable set of tools needed to manage and scale influencer marketing. Dovetale is trusted by e-commerce merchants on Shopify and some of the largest agencies and brands in the world like Procter & Gamble and Publicis
6 Tribe Dynamics
Tribe Dynamics offers advanced influencer marketing analytics and solutions for iconic lifestyle brands. Our influencer marketing analytics platform allows you to get the full picture of your brand’s earned media program. We help you: – Gain full visibility into all of the most important influencer content created about your brand. – Understand your entire influencer community and evaluate individual relationships. – Refine and pivot your influencer marketing strategy by tracking, evaluating, and comparing campaign performance. – Learn from your brand’s performance metrics over time and leverage competitor, market, and industry analytics to expand your lead.
7. Hivency
Hivency’s 360-degree solution enables brands to identify relevant influencers and ambassadors, manage their collaborations, and generate and collect quality consumer reviews. Founded in 2017, Hivency has over 90K micro-influencers, 200K nano-influencers, and 240K consumers in 140 countries. It accompanies more than 1,000 brands of different maturity and industries, including L’Oréal, Sephora, TF1, Promod and KitKat.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing is the use of social media by niche experts with a good number of followers and goodwill to endorse brands and products of organizations. Influencers swindle sales in favour of organizations using social media platforms like Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, and so on. An Influencer Marketing Platform is a software tool designed to aid brands with their social marketing campaigns.
