# Diving into Influencer Marketing
Our Approach
Seed creates compelling influencer marketing campaigns with expertise in building and co-creating with and for youth and Gen-Z, on campus, in culture and beyond.
We’ve worked with Adobe, Amazon, Spotify, Lululemon so we know how to harness the power of influencers across social media, university campuses read more about our brand ambassadors here and throughout youth culture.
Seed helps brands understand, influence and connect with students and Gen Z, whether it's creating a secret music festival or a touring experience, designing a hype-building campaign with TikTok creators, or increasing sign-ups through ambassador activations and paid social, Seed’s knowledge can help brands to build lasting relationships with the next generation.
Over the last 10 + years, we have built intrinsic close relationships with a huge network of over 10,000 influential students and young people throughout the UK and across Europe. In that sense we can call ourselves an influencer marketing agency.
Using a unique selection process, we find and build a team of digital influencers, social influencers and on the ground student and youth influencers and ambassadors, that will diffuse a brand message across their peer group and beyond.
We use an art + science approach
Authenticity is a widely used term within this space, but it is vital. So when we are casting influencers we adopt an ‘Art + Science’ approach, making sure that we are not only hitting the right audience demographics but also that the talent we recommend is the right personification of your brand to deliver your campaign. In this way, the content feels real for the audience. Because if it doesn’t feel real, then ultimately it won’t influence them.
Building communities, not casting influencers
We therefore talk about building communities as opposed to simply casting influencers. And when we do that, we focus on those individuals who have hyper relevant influence, to connect with your target audience, who then create a rapid scale, creating maximum impact for your brand.
Influencers that we use have a deep level of trust with their followers, which allows us to introduce your brand into authentic and credible online conversations with engaging content that feels relatable, trusted and genuine.
Increased emotional connection between influencers and community, also gives us more flexibility of scale and opportunity to keep audiences engaged with fresh content and perspectives, which all ladder up to help reach a broader but interested audience.
Our campaigns integrate multiple platforms and channels, including Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Twitch, utilising paid social targeting when greater amplification is needed.
Measurement
Seed’s use of proprietary tech stack and methodologies, help to prove the effectiveness of campaigns across all platforms so you can see how campaigns and communities are forming and be sure that we are investing in the right areas.
Working with Influencers - at Seed we have 7 key principles for working with influencers to ensure that they’re right for your brand campaign.
#1 AUDIENCE FIRST
An audience-first approach to influencer marketing is imperative, as it is a creator’s audience by their very nature that makes them valuable.
#2 VALUE EXCHANGE
With an audience-first mindset you must then think, how are we creating value for the consumer? It doesn’t have to be a physical offering but if you want them to take an action there has to be a fair exchange in value between the brand and the audience through the content.
#3 BUILD WITH THEM, NOT FOR THEM
And if you want to understand what is of most value to them, then it is best to build your online communities with your audience as opposed to just for your followers. Having their input and accepting their thoughts even when critical can bring them closer to the brand, forging stronger bonds and ultimately pay dividends for your business.
#4 LET THEM OWN IT
No one knows their audience like the creator themselves. They are their own community guardian and if they are allowing you access it is good to take on their advice. Create the sandbox for them to work within but if you have selected the right creators for your campaign, then there should be enough trust for them to interpret your brief best for their followers.
#5 FIND YOUR DREAM TEAM
An art + science approach is needed to identify the right cast of talent. Engagement rates and audience demographics are important but you also need that human eye to determine whether a creator is the right personification of your brand online to make sure that the collaboration comes across as authentic.
#6 TRACKING AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Impressions and Engagements are important success indicators of a social media campaign however, it is critical that any campaign is tied back to a real business impact. Is your campaign genuinely leading to more brand awareness? Are your new customers as valuable to your business as those acquired through other channels?
It is important that tracking is robust, full-funnell and that goes beyond Reach and Likes, and can require a technology that lives beyond social media platforms.
#7 INVEST IN THEM AND DO IT RIGHT
To earn buy-in from your influencers it is important for them to be paid appropriately and timely for their efforts on a campaign. Not only does it offer them fair compensation for offering access to their audience but it accurately reflects their input into content creation, audience insights and platform knowledge. Furthermore, it holds them more accountable for their input into the campaign.
