Sponsor Me, Cowards: Regular People Are Dipping Their Toes in Creator Waters

One recent winter day, grad student Joey Brown went on Twitter to express her love and joy for two yogurt brands. First, she tweeted, “@Chobani would love a sample of your most bold yogurts.” Several hours later, she wrote an ode to the frozen yogurt treat Yasso: “@yassofroyo is the only joy I have.” While the tweets received minimal likes or retweets, due to Brown's small Twitter following, to her surprise, Yasso dm-ed her and offered to send 20 boxes of frozen treats. While they didn’t ask her to, Brown posted a photo with the boxes to her private Instagram account, which has less than 1000 followers. “My boyfriend and I were kind of trolling on Twitter,” Brown admitted. “It was more of a cosplay as an influencer,” she said, adding that a bit of free merch is a perk. “It feels really good to get free stuff.” Community engagement—a well-worn social media marketing strategy—is a key part of Yasso's marketing strategy, which is willing to trade a few free boxes for organic marketing. “Our team is constantly looking for ways to proactively surprise and delight fans, with nothing in return expected,” says Kelsey Gill, director of integrated marketing at Yasso. The line between creator and consumer is blurring, and Brown isn’t the only one to take advantage of it. Turning regular people into brand fans and then advocates have been around for years, but it's gaining pace as companies have sprung up to mediate this new proximity. A 2021 survey conducted by the Harris Poll on behalf of social marketing software Sprout Social found that 31% of respondents significantly or slightly increased their use of social media for the purpose of interacting with brands and companies over the past year. Joey Brown posted a photo of her with Yasso boxes to her Instagram. Growth is fueled by tech startups There is a bevy of tech startups seeking to mediate this new proximity between brands, nano-influencers and regular people. For example, companies like Social Studies work with micro- and nano-influencers—those with followings that range from 200,000 to less than 10,000—who might be particularly influential in a niche community. Others, like Stackla and EnTribe, help brands manage the user-generated content that already exists about their brand on the internet. Collectively, these startups seek to digitize and automate the process of learning about a product from your friends. “It just used to be called word of mouth marketing,” Cristina Lawrence, evp and head of social at Razorfish, said. “What’s changing is adding a technology platform and turning it into this micro-influencer kind of industry.” This helps brands connect with younger demographics—who might be wary of advertising—and acquire niche pockets of customers. “It’s about trying to be laser-focused with precision and targeting. So now you’re just applying it to how we think about influencers,” Lawrence said, noting these creators can be very influential to a small group. Steering micro-influencer strategies Yasso, for its part, works with more than 600 micro-influencers. “These are smaller reach, highly-engaged Yasso fans with a digital presence who we provide with in-kind product and sometimes small stipends for content, ” Gill said, defining an in-kind product as a free sample without a requirement of posting. “Their influence within their circles, both online and off, make them among our most powerful brand advocates.” Content from consumers can be more compelling than traditional advertising, said Brandon Biancalani, head of paid advertising at direct-to-consumer agency Modifly. But brands shouldn’t rely on raw UGC—which can often be low quality—but instead steers fans to post content that meets brand goals. For example, Modifly worked on a campaign with micro-influencers and consumers for Super Coffee, encouraging them to post a photo or video “adding something positive,” a part of the campaign's messaging. “The best UGC is incentivized,” Biancalani said. “If you’re going to ask something from the customers you need to ideally [share what the brand is looking for].” Expensive and hard to scale While brands will seek out alternatives to traditional influencer marketing, which can seem particularly not genuine, no brand intervention can trump actual word of mouth. But micro-influencer strategies can be expensive and hard to scale, and, not to mention, they are at risk of losing their impact. “As paid word of mouth becomes pervasive, the less trust there is in society,” said Andrew Frank, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner. "Is someone telling me about a product because they really like it or do they have an incentive?” Your Influencer Marketing Strategy Is Likely Outdated