So you wanna be an influencer?

When I was growing up, it was cool to be a doctor. Now days, the job of choice for young folks (god I sound old)? Influencer.

So, now that one has decided to pursue a career shaping the opinion of others with social media posts, I thought I would give some guidance on how to maximise instagram to drive your dreams of being paid to go on holiday in the Maldives (or is that just my dream?).

Use the right hashtags on your posts

Seems basic right? Wrong. Many people either don’t use tags at all, or use ones that are too broad or too niche. On Instagram, every hashtag you use has the potential to open that post—and thus your profile—up to a whole new audience. Give your hashtag game some thought: Don’t be too broad (i.e., #dog) but don’t be too niche (i.e., #labradoodlesofpottspoint). Don’t go overboard using hundreds of hashtags either - studies say that posts with 9 hashtags get the most engagement. The old adage works here - quality over quantity.

Use hashtags in your Stories and bio, too

Stories don’t directly earn Instagram ‘likes’, which seems to be the highly sought after vanity metric people are chasing (of course, after more followers) and neither does using hashtags in your bio, but using them strategically in both of these places is a way to expand your reach to new audience who are looking to find pages related to those tags. Hot tip: If you think hashtags in stories are ugly, like I do, you can hide the hashtags in your stories by placing them off side of screen or behind other stickers etc

Tag people and brands, when relevant

You get what you give, and that goes for attention, too. If its products you genuinely use, clothes you wear, then tag away! Share the love and again, you’ll appear in the tagged section of these feeds. Pro tip: Dont be spammy and incessantly tag a modelling agency and allllll their competitors over and over again in chance of getting scouted…. (it doesnt work)

Geotag your location

More than just a humblebrag about your excellent taste in cafes or cool abstract art galleryies, geotagging your location is a way for more people to find your profile and hopefully like your content. If people like the venues you like, and check the geotag, you’ll show up in the content display. Win.

Post consistently

It might seem obvious, but posting regularly and consistently is such an important part of building your instagram follower and engagement. There isnt a ‘perfect’ number - the old adage of ‘you must post twice a day’ is dead, but what you do want to do is have your audience hear from you in a pattern that feels regular and systematic. You don’t want to annoy your followers but spamming them with content that isnt interesting, engaging or relevant, but neither do you want to make them feel ghosted. There’s so many scheduling tools that allow you to set up content in advance if you’re worried about forgetting. Find a rhythm that works for you and your audience, and then stick to it.

Post when your followers are looking

Instagram doesn’t show posts chronologically, but its algorithm does favour “recency.” Which means that if you want to get in front of eyeballs, it’s important for you to know when your audience is actually looking at the app. Your own analytics section of instagram will give you some guidance as to peak times in terms of day of week and time of day.

Don’t post and ghost

Instagram, like any social media platform, is designed to foster communication and relationships between users. If you post and then leave the platform, without replying to comments or questions, engaging with your audience, or engaging with other peoples content, your content wont receive good engagement and instagram’s algorithm wont value your posts or present them to as many eyeballs. So invest in your audience. Remember, its a mutually beneficial relationship!

Now, go enjoy your new found status as social media superstar. You’re welcome.

Stop being a fucking martyr

I’ve been sitting here typing up my daily update for the #CEOUpdates slack channel, and it got me thinking about how far the culture of transparency has come in my company. Its week 5 of COVID. Everyone’s working remotely. We’re in media & advertising - one of the industries that’s easiest for a CFO to put a big fat red line through when times get tough. ‘Marketing?’ they say…’ Yeah turn that off’. 

Back to my team update.

“Average booking value is down 22%. Talent sign ups are up 28% - more people seeking work, so this makes sense, but we have a supply exceeding demand problem. Number of jobs posted per day is down 7% and conversion rate is at a historic low…Now lets look at our burn rate, and the runway we have left…”

Not a pretty picture I was painting.

When I first started theright.fit I wanted to protect my team from the daily stress associated with being a part of a startup. I was worried that if they fully understood the risks or knew how little cash was available, or the time frame we had to prove this thing could work, they might panic. I was being a total martyr about it - “it’s my job to lose sleep, to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, not theirs” I would tell myself. 

In fact, it was complete bullshit. I wasn’t giving them all the info because I was scared - scared they wouldn’t trust my leadership. Scared they’d leave. Scared they’d lose faith in the idea. That if I just showed them the shiny, glossy, exciting positive parts, all the wins, all the positive feedback, it’d allllll be fine…

It was my mentor sitting me down and explaining that actually all I was doing was isolating myself from the very people who had the skills and expertise to help - in fact, I was paying them to do exactly that! So why wouldn’t I let them in?  He gave me a book called ‘Principles’ by Ray Dalio. My current human being crush. 

If you don’t know who Ray Dalio is, here’s a quick bio. He’s worth $17 billion dollars. He founded what is now the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater and they have about $160 billion under management. But he’s entirely different from what you would expect a multi-billionaire, finance dude to be.

Here’s one of my favourite quotes from him:

"I want independent thinkers who are going to disagree. The most important things I want are meaningful work and meaningful relationships. And I believe that the way to get those is through radical truth and radical transparency. You have to put your honest thoughts on the table. Then, the best ideas rise to the top.”

Now what he’s done in his highly successful company is formularise how the entire company goes about assessing ideas. Everyone gets to share an opinion on every subject within the company, including their opinions on their fellow workers.

Then everyone gets to have an opinion on the opinions and all of these opinions are quantified. The results are analysed through a series of algorithms - in fact the process is very mathematical.

So while initially all this brutal truth sounds chaotic and disruptive, it’s quite the opposite. It actually maps people’s nature in assessing other people’s ideas, whether they’re prone to negativity or positivity, whether they’re literal or lateral thinkers and builds that data into the equation. It’s mathematically measuring the worth of ideas and cutting out the guesswork.

Ray describes it as the very pathway to creating a meritocracy of ideas.

“[I wanted to create] an idea meritocracy, not an autocracy where I lead and others follow, or a democracy where everyone’s opinion holds the same value, but a meritocracy where the best ideas would win out.”

So now, in my companies, all the team has access to everything - the targets we need to hit, how much everyone was getting paid, what marketing channels we’re spending on, what’s working, the ugly stuff that isnt… everything. It means they have the data, they have the FULL picture,  and they can help generate ideas, identify trends, spot problems, and have a robust, healthy, informed conversation about them. Radical transparency in action.

And I think its really pertinent in this COVID world we’re currently all trying to navigate. Business owners, managers, all trying to figure out how the f*ck we get our companies through this, and out the other side.

But if you’re hiding things from your employees, how can they feel included in decision making and idea generation? They can’t and they won’t. If people can’t see the problems or know the KPIs or drivers or financials, how can they put forward ideas that might help? Being a martyr might make you feel special, but you know what feels even better? Solvency.

As Dalio says, Poor transparency = poor culture. 

And with $17 billion in his bank account, I think thats definitely worth listening to. 

Working remotely doesn’t have to mean being isolated

I don’t need to preface that this is an unprecedented moment. In fact, unprecedented has to be the buzz word of 2020. As you have likely come to realise over the past few weeks, remote work has its share of challenges, and team members feeling disconnected & isolated can be one of the toughest. But social distancing doesn't have to mean social isolation.

Theright.fit being a tech start up, with teams based in different cities & countries from day 1, I’ve had some experience in how to keep people connected when working remotely. We’ve applied this on mass now that my WINK Models business has had to move remote, too, and we’re not also seeing the 650 or so models we represent regularly. 

Here’s 4 tips I’ve learned along the way.

1. Set communication channels up for success

One of the most obvious, and important things, about working remotely, is having the ability to communicate easily, effectively and efficiently with stakeholders internally and externally. I think it’s possibly also obvious that in today’s ‘connected’ age, its not a lack of having the tools to do this, but setting parameters for how and when to use each. I’m sure we’ve all felt those moments of being inundated with slack alerts, whats app notification, sms pings, facetime calls... yikes the list goes on. So one thing I would recommend is setting a purpose, and response guidelines for each channel. Need an urgent answer on something? Call. External stakeholders required in the meeting? Zoom. Sharing that great piece of customer feedback but doesn’t require reply right now? Put it on the ‘Feel Good’ channel on slack (yep, we have one of those). Let people know which method to use and why, so they don’t feel like they’re drowning in the noise.

1. Right tools to do the job

Your team can only succeed if they have everything they need to do their jobs- both hardware and software. Don’t assume people have high speed internet at home, or a home computer or laptop powerful enough to handle the work they need to do. Nothing makes people feel more disconnected or isolated than not being able to do the work they care about, and want to do, because they don’t have the practical things they need to do them. Because I travel so much anyway, I use the HP Dragonfly which is super light, and has 16hr battery life, and really high level security features which is important for me. I also dragged my stand up desk topper home to use on my kitchen table, and encouraged my team to do the same, and take home any screens they wanted to make these interim home set ups more functional. Make sure you ask your team what they need - practically not just emotionally - to win at remote working. 

1. Virtual water cooler

I’m a huge fan of slack for this. We have a few channels dedicated to keeping up the ‘day to day’ water cooler chat. “Bangerz” channels is for your fav playlists. “Stuff I’m reading” is what it says on the tin - books, blogs, articles, that people want to share with the team. We’re also big fans of memes and gifs, it just goes so much further to conveying a feeling than words ever could…! 

1. Celebrate successes

No one likes feeling that the work they do doesn't matter, and this can be amplified by not seeing your team mates and being around the hub bringing to life the ‘why’ of the company's mission. So during this time, remember to celebrate the incremental victories. Customer called to say thanks for an awesome experience with the product? Share that with the team. Noticed that the average booking value has increased, or churn decreased, or whatever the metrics might be in your business? Shout about it- those devs working long days at home with screaming kids in the background would love to know. It doesn't have to be big, and it makes the world of difference to the feeling of connectedness in a team.

Ultimately, finding virtual ways to recreate our most valued in-person interactions means getting creative, and really making time to over-communicate and think about culture. I personally believe even though it’s going to be rough in the interim, there’s a lot of good that can come from this experience. By the time we all return to the office, it’s possible your team could have improved culture & connectedness, and you’ll have created new traditions that you’ll keep. 

The pain is in the execution

I bumped into an acquaintance today and, knowing im in the start up space, excitedly told me that he too was embarking on a new business venture of his own. “Ahh this is exciting!!!” I remarked, as a genuinely do love hearing people’s ideas, sharing war stories, hearing the passion that exudes from people before the grind wears the sparkle out of their elevator pitch. “What is it?”

‘I’ll have to get you to sign an NDA first’ he replied

Insert a very blatant  eye roll here. Coupled with an exasperated sigh.

This kills me. Every time I hear someone say this (the best ones are the cold outreaches on linked in, asking for your advice, but only if you’ll first sign their NDA….), I just want to take them firmly by the shoulders and shake them.

I don’t though, cause that sort of thing is frowned upon… so I’ll rant here instead.

If every brilliant start up just needed an idea (and one they kept securely under a not-so-secure NDA because really, i mean what were they going to do, sue someone with money they don’t have for stealing their IP for a business that doesn't exist yet but they told them about in a cafe one day…) to be successful, then we’d all be millionaires. 

Idea’s are the easy part. Over my Christmas break, I was on the beach with some of my most talented, successful, hardworking, entrepreneurial, status quo disrupting friends (with a combined 6 businesses and 2 successful exits around the towels) and we were in firm agreement that if only there was a ‘place’ we could drop our great ideas off to - filled with executors, do-ers, finishers - so that these germs of an idea could live to see the light of day as successful businesses. A sort of Y-combinator, incubator, hackathon where the ‘ideator’ (can you even call them a founder?) can keep a small chunk of equity but none of the responsibility moving forward, and some executor - searching for that spark of an idea they are passionate about, can go reap the fame and rewards. I would love that, can some finisher go invent that please?

Because we were all painfully aware that ideas weren’t the problem. The time, energy, resources, skills, people to execute them were.

The pain is 100% in the execution.

No one is waiting for you - their friend, acquaintance, lover, bestie, neighbour, co-worker - to come along & share your idea, so they can steal it from you and make it a roaring success while you tell your grand kids you invented Google before Larry stole it off you. People are busy, with their own ideas, their own dreams, their kids school projects, Katy’s sisters daughters Christening... they’re busy. Hopefully, they care enough about you and your passionate idea to give you some feedback, take time to ask some open ended questions, perhaps connect you with someone they know that could help you on your journey, or send you an article they read about a start up in a complimentary space you should talk to. 

What we lose by not sharing ideas is exactly this. The broad variety of sounding boards who can offer us a different perspective, their insights, their hundreds of thousands of hours of reading and watching and learning as we do as humans from a different view point. What could possibly be better than that when trying to validate an idea? As broad a range of perspectives as possible? Before you go and quit your job, mortgage your house, and tip your parents life savings in to follow your passion? 

In full transparency, I’m not a lawyer (surprise!) and Im not advocating for you to post your intricate algorithms or detailed product wireframes on the net.. But I am saying inherently, I believe people are good - and I’d prefer to err on the side of positivity when it comes to birthing new ideas.

Train until you spew? My ego was all about that.

Believe it or not, I haven’t always been into exercise.

I remember having a fickle attempt at learning to run about 7 years ago (couch to 5k app.. I must be the only person to ever fail at that) and trying all the fads that popped up promising weight loss without having to actually do much… (those vibrating plate machines that guaranteed results in a 10min workout? sign me up). But it would be a stretch to say I ‘exercised’, and I certainly didn’t have a gym membership or any of that sort of healthy malarky.

But as society shifted away from burning calories on the dancefloor at 5am (where I most definitely had a membership, or 4), to 5am sunrise yoga sessions, I guess I too somehow got swept up in the move to stop treating my body like maybe I could just trade it in for a new one when this one wasn’t in top nick any more.

And, like everything in my life, I didn’t just ‘start exercising’. I wanted to be GREAT at it. I wanted to do the hardest workouts, at the earliest hour, for the most days of the week. I don’t do things by halves. I got a personal trainer. I trained so hard I spewed. I got my skin folds done, and one of those body mass scan things that provides you a hyper colour visual ego blow. I made my team train with me before work (bless, they said they enjoyed it, I guess I’ll never know if this was a ‘work perk’ or a hostage situation). I trained in an altitude room (in high-altitude environments, breathing delivers less oxygen to muscle making every exercise 20% harder). I was up at 5.15am every morning to train there before work. Every. Single. Day. Of course, weekends meant a sleep in… until 6am, because then I would drive all over Sydney to try boxilates (yep, that was a thing), boot camps, UFC fight club, vegan no-coffee-allowed yoga retreats, cross fit… you name it, I did it.

I pushed and I pushed until one day, I just f*cking snapped.

I remember the moment pretty vividly. I was exhausted, I’d had about 5hrs sleep from being at a work function the night before. I was having a really stressful time at work. My relationship was a mess. I was on the rower (a personal enemy of mine) and I was hating it. Not just like “Ugh, another set, surely no, insert passive aggressive eye-roll” kind of hating it. Like, “I am so not enjoying this, I am detesting every second of this workout, I am finding no joy in this and I would give anything to be anywhere else but here.”
And, as I can be known to do, I burst into tears.

I was done. I was spent. I wasn’t even crazy lean or ‘shredded’ because my body was so stressed from everything I was throwing at it every single day (high pressure job, lots of travel, long days in the office, coupled with a full social life) it was in constant survival mode, holding onto every inch of fat it possibly could.

After scaring my trainer with my melt down, a full blown hysterical Kimmy K ugly cry, I went home. And I quit.

Now don’t get me wrong. I learned so many new skills during this 18 month or 2 year endeavour. I met amazing people. I conquered things I never thought I could (30min of burpees, nothing else… just burpees… yep). I was fit. I got the post workout highs where everything was amazing. I gained some very epic playlists from various trainers. I learned what all those complicated sounding exercises meant and was pretty OK at most of them.

But, I didn’t have balance. From where I was standing, I couldn’t even see balance on the horizon. Lets just maybe assume that balance isn’t something I’m naturally…. great at. That maybe I struggle a little bit (cough a lot) in this area. It was a pretty amazing reflection of some of the other areas of my life that needed some work. And it was hard. Some pretty brutal self reflection (aided by some probing questions from my mentor… but thats a blog for another time), some contemplation of what the ‘ego’ drive was in all of this (I mean, does instagram really need another #fitspo photo?). And perhaps, just perhaps, working out what I was a running from.

And it took some time, some professional help (thats a blog in itself, why is there so much stigma around having a psychologist in our armoury?), but it completely reset my approach to exercise (amongst a multitude of other things).

I train now because it makes me happy. I do things I enjoy. In moderation. I use ClassPass to mix yin with spin, sauna’s with boxing, without leaving the bubble of the east. I genuinely look forward to the 3-4 workouts I do a week. And the post workout photos? Well yeah, they still happen, but now they’re filter free, red faced and real. And much less frequent.

The irony is, I’m writing this on the back of a weekend where, with 2 of my friends, we did a 3hr ‘back to back’ session of 1hr boxing at Hustle, 1hr F45 class, then 1hr spin at Upcycle.. and it was a blast. Because it was the exception and not the rule. It was an anomaly, and not the regular. And because, lets be honest, sometimes that ego creeps back in and just wants to see you suffer ;)

Interview with Behind The Brands

Taryn Williams is one of Australia’s most popular female entrepreneurs and digital influencers. The smart, vivacious and down to earth powerhouse is the CEO and founder of theright.fit and WINK Models.

She was awarded the 2017 B&T Women in Media tech leader and recognised for her work with theright.fit winning the 2018 Mumbrella Award for innovation. Taryn has featured in the B&T Hot 30 under 30, SmartCompany 30 under 30, and been a finalist for numerous awards including 2015 Female Entrepreneur Awards, Women’s Agenda Emerging entrepreneur of the year and AIM young entrepreneur of the year. Phew! She is one female entrepreneur kicking some serious goals.

We recently met Taryn when she was in Perth speaking at a conference.

What ignited the spark in you to start your business?

I could see the changes in our industry – a move to smaller bits of snackable digital content, a higher spend on online advertising, an the advent of social media, and I could see the traditional agency model was ripe for disruption. I had fallen in love with technology through building a platform to manage my first business, WINK models, and could see the opportunity to build a scalable marketplace for models & creative talent.

What is the vision for your business?

To build a global marketplace for creative talent to connect with brands and advertising agencies, to create world class content.

If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?

I’d hire talented professionals sooner! I spent so many years thinking I had to do everything myself because I couldn’t ‘afford’ help – like a bookkeeper, or account manager, or head of product. But what I know now is it was actually costing the business as it wasn’t allowing us to scale and grow, and my time wasn’t being spent on the areas I could really add value.

Was there a significant turning point when you decided to become an entrepreneur?

To be honest, I have never had a job so I don’t know any other way! I think I was born this way I’m afraid!

What do you believe was the best decision you made in business?

To just start. Honestly, there is never the perfect time, and you will never feel ‘ready’ or have all the time, money, resources you need. So just committing to executing an idea I think is the best decision I have ever made.

Looking back is there a piece of advice you wish to pass onto someone starting out their entrepreneurial journey?

Celebrate the incremental victories. It can be so easy to be caught up in ‘what’s next’ and that you always have something to do, and there is always something to ‘fix’ etc. But it is so important, for you and your team, to enjoy the wins along the way – whether it your 50th sale, or your new office, or a positive Google review. Enjoy the journey, as well as the destination.

What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

Tenacity. An appetite for risk. A bias for action.

Who do you look up to in business? Who inspires you?

My incredible mentor who has both soft skills and business acumen, and is incredibly patient.

Nicole Eckles from the Sapphire Group whose honesty, advice and vision is inspiring.

How have you personally measured your success?

I think there are a few measures, for me personally. Having a business I am proud of is important – which means happy clients, happy talent, and a happy team. Industry recognition in terms of awards is definitely something we strive towards. And personally, growth and development and learning of new skills is how I measure my success.

What is your favourite thing to do in your downtime?

Walk Centennial Park in Sydney with friends, it is an incredibly beautiful spot in the heart of the city that holds a lot of special memories for me.

What is your favourite app?

Slack – I don’t know how I operated a business without it.

Outsource the skill or learn the skill?

Depends on the skill and if it’s something you’re going to enjoy learning/executing, and if it’s a good use of your time!

How To Launch A Start-Up, From Someone Who Already Has (Twice!)

This first appeared in Marie Claire Magazine.

When marie claire partnered with business-education company Tech Ready Women for a two-day masterclass, our mission was to help women reach their full potential. Below, founder and CEO of theright.fit Taryn Williams talks us through the secret to her success.

What’s the one piece of advice you would pass on to women thinking about launching a start-up?

Do you research before you take the leap - make sure you understand the size of the market, your competitors, and have a robust financial model so you can understand the metrics you'll need to achieve to make your idea financially viable.

What’s been the biggest learning/takeaway along your business path journey so far?

The journey is much more enjoyable if you surround yourself with amazing people. Whether that's mentors, staff, other founders, board members or advisors, get the smartest people around you as early as you can!

If you could go back in time what would you do differently?

I would have hired a product manager sooner - it transformed our engineering team and had a profound impact on the product having someone solely focused on this element of the business.

What are 3 main personality traits a founder of a startup should possess?

Tenacity, an appetite for risk and unwavering work ethic

What’s the one skill you need to be a successful entrepreneur? 

Resilience - entrepreneurs are survivors. The most important attribute is never being willing to give up.

The power of UGC (user generated content)

Love it or hate it, the rise of user-generated content marketing as a powerful marketing tactic is undeniable. Like the phrase itself implies, this is content that’s created and published by your consumers, customers, visitors and/or clients. Types of user-generated content could be photos, videos, hashtags and even comments that are submitted to websites, blogs and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest.

In today’s crowded marketplace it’s more important than ever to push authenticity and user engagement as top priorities. This is why many brands are now incorporating user-generated content social-media strategies into their marketing plans and these top 5 benefits certainly show why:

1.Take The Pressure Off Your Content Team

UGC is an effective way of easing the strain of creating custom content and supplementing it with an effective and powerful alternative. Whether you’re creating content in-house or outsourcing it to an agency, this can mean increasing your ability to share highly-targeted content far more often than if you were creating it all yourself.

2.Boost Your Social Media Reach & Growth

Successfully executing a UGC campaign can significantly strengthen your brand and build customer relationships across social media. There are a number of ways to do this. For example, create a custom hashtag or photo contest on Instagram, ask a question or create a challenge on Twitter or Facebook, or even launch a video contest on YouTube.

3.Gain A Few Search Engine Optimisation Perks

Getting your brand’s online assets ranked highly on search engines is always a concern. Particularly if your business relies on this to make sales or gain new clients. UGC can actually aid these SEO efforts. If users around the net are publishing content about your brand with backlinks to your website, this can in turn significantly improve your presence on search engine result pages for applicable terms.

4.Building Relationships With Your Audience

After all, what better way to engage your audience and make them notice your brand than to highlight their own content. Discover what makes your audience excited about creating content and engaging with your brand, then use this knowledge to bake personalisation into your marketing initiatives. You’ll have faithful brand ambassadors lining up in no time.

5.Create A Lifestyle Around Your Brand

Whether you choose to work with micro-influencers or celebrities, finding users who can advocate your brand while showcasing it as a part of their daily lives will bring immediate authenticity to your marketing. This transforms your advertising efforts by harnessing user-generated content to create a desirable lifestyle around it instead. 

Why top global brands are now booking models with social reach

When it comes to analysing models who also have incredible social media reach, there is one name that has become synonymous with this kind of super-influencer marketing; Kendall Jenner. In the past few years, she has transitioned from a teen reality star with big dreams of being a model to a bona fide fashion icon. It’s no surprise that with her famous family’s network and her natural long limbs, raven hair, luminescent pale skin and incredible work ethic, that her talent has become finely honed on the runway. In fact, she’s walked for the likes of Marc Jacobs, Givenchy, Chanel, Diane von Furstenberg, Donna Karan, Tommy Hilfiger, Fendi and Dolce & Gabbana, to name just a few.

The Social Effect

While Kendell Jenner is certainly reaching new heights of fashion fame, she’s certainly not an isolated incident when it comes to models who boast a couple of million followers on their Instagram accounts. You’ll also notice the likes of Gigi Hadid, Bella Hadid, Sofia Richie, Cara Delevingne and Hailey Baldwin in this inner circle too. All of whom are in a modelling league of their own, while also posting engaging content every single day for their loyal fans to consume.

At the end of the day, this is an added boost for any brand who happens to work with them. These “new-age” social media models are the ultimate super-influencers. In fact, even just a quick behind the scenes video or snap can have a reach that spans into the millions for a specific brand. What kind of brand manager wouldn’t want this many eyes on an upcoming campaign, runway show or beauty product? It’s the ultimate PR gold!

Now your models can eat, sleep and breathe your products for a targeted audience of consumers, rather than just for a few minutes on the runway or for a day of shooting. This kind of commercial tie-up is yielding incredible returns for all sorts of brands.

Match Made in Heaven

After all, when it comes to social media, a supermodel amassing a large following is comparable to a TV show receiving high ratings. The more expansive and active their following becomes, the more in demand they will become for endorsements. However, the more famous they become, the more expensive they become to book too. 

How to get your brand noticed in a crowded market

Contemporary brand managers certainly don’t have it easy when it comes to cutting through the white noise created by the sea of content that bombards the average consumer daily. Whether it’s online videos and social media or tv adverts and even posters in a bus stop, everywhere you turn there are brand messages just screaming for your attention. It’s no wonder that consumers have become increasingly resilient at turning a blind eye to the majority of advertising tactics that marketers have taken for granted over the decades.

The Deceptively Simple Secret

How then, in today’s crowded market, does one get a brand noticed? And not just fleetingly noticed either, but actually seen by busy consumers who then convert to your products or services? The answer is deceptively simple: get to know your audience like never before, and never forget you’re talking to a human! Now we say “deceptively” simple because this is so much easier said than done. Finding an authentic voice for your brand, one that engages consumers who are incredibly savvy at spotting an “advert”, is one of the finest creative arts in the advertising industry right now. 

75% of Marketers Say…

…this is why influencer marketing is so hot right now! No really, from small start-ups all the way up to Fortune 500s, businesses are engaging with social media content creators to bring an authentic face and voice to their offerings. Having influential people spread your brand message for you is one of the most genuine ways to connect with audiences and engage consumers.

These certainly don’t need to be celebrity endorsement deals either. With the rise of the “micro influencer”, applicable content creators can be almost anyone who is relevant to your industry and has an engaged following on social media. Someone who can discuss and promote your products or services with their “peers”. This could be a mommy blogger in Australia or a budding photographer in the USA. All around the world, there are emerging influencers who are thrilled to promote products they believe in.

Content That Resonates

Influencers who have built substantial followings all have one thing in common regardless of their industry or speciality; they know their audiences and have figured out what drives them to engage. This is how they’re already in a comfortable niche of creating content that resonates with their followers by the time your brand approaches them.

Should your brand authentically be of interest to their target market, then you’re already cutting through a lot of the white noise out there. This could be in the form of blogger reviews, vlogs, social media posts, PR endorsements and various other forms of content (both online and off).

Making the corporate mobile lifestyle a reality

According to Roy Morgan, 2.2 million Australians, or 11 per cent of the population, travelled by air for business purposes in 2017. Experienced business travellers are hyper-connected and smart users of technology that helps make them more efficient. They have figured out that four walls and a desk are no longer the most productive way to work.

Companies from all sectors need to see this evolution as an opportunity rather than a constraint. They need to remain agile and adopt modern ways of working to enable mobile productivity—and this starts with adopting the right technology.

As technology has evolved to be more reliable, secure and portable than ever, there are now many industries in which it doesn’t matter whether employees work at the office, at home or on the move.  They just need to be connected. But business travellers have become so reliant on technology that the impact of any failures or downtime has increased.

As a result, fostering a corporate mobile lifestyle is no longer about giving employees the right technology and letting them get on with it. Building a true mobile business lifestyle, and turning it into a business advantage, needs to be approached in a much more strategic manner. Here are three tips for doing just that.

1.    Ensure mobile technology is protected

As we become more mobile, the risk associated with the potential of damaging mobile devices is higher, which keeps CIOs, IT managers and purchasing managers awake at night.

Kitting out employees with accessories that secure and protect technology, such as laptop cases or screen protectors, is crucial to ensure they can do their job whether in the office or on the move.   

Companies can easily work out how much they spend on mobile technology and on replacing it (such as damaged mobile devices) and calculate how much they could save if all employee mobile devices were better protected.

2.    Don’t let your employees down

How often have we found ourselves out of battery when we need to respond to an important email while on the move? This is more than an inconvenience: it costs companies significant amounts of money since workers can’t be productive when they’re not connected. Communications failures can also damage a company’s reputation with key customers and partner organisations.

Companies need to equip their mobile workers with reliable chargers or power packs to ensure they are reachable at any time and can continue to work productively while travelling by plane, train, car or public transport, or just in a café. In the office, we take power for granted, with a socket at every desk; we need the same mindset for business travel, with a mobile power pack or charger in every pocket. I personally use a Mophie juice pack which is thin enough to not feel cumbersome, while still giving me an extra full charge.

3.     Turn your business into a mobile working environment

It’s become commonplace for companies to have more employees than workstations. This allows businesses to save office costs while some employees work remotely.

As such, the use of mobile accessories such as mobile keyboards compatible with smartphones, tablets and most smart TVs, is a good way to offer that flexibility in the office. The benefits of this approach include greater collaboration and teamwork as employees move more freely around the office, rather than being tied to the same desk in the same part of the office. This can also help to deliver other benefits such as higher satisfaction and motivation.

Employees have come to expect the same connected experiences they enjoy outside of work while on the clock. Many businesses may shy away from these three tips due to the capital expenditure, but investing in mobile technology will in fact increase efficiency and productivity. With this type of thinking, businesses can reap the benefits of mobility, including effective use of time during business travel, to gain a competitive edge.

Expertise First, Influence Second: When influence is a by-product of expertise

Like any form of advertising and promotion, influencer marketing is not without its controversies. Earlier this year Australia’s Federal Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, ordered his department to stop paying social media influencers engaged as part of a campaign designed to encourage young women to exercise more. Concerns about the return on investment from the $600,000 of taxpayer dollars, along with worries about brand alignment, led to the minister putting the kybosh on any further spending.

Analysis by Lumio found that while many of the Instagrammers contracted by the government may have boasted impressively high numbers of followers and healthy engagement rates, they may not have been as influential as they claimed to be. In fact, Lumio’s origin story is one on the perils of influencer marketing – when they launched they engaged 87 influencers over three campaigns, but only five accounts led to any sales.

The story serves to highlight the importance of choosing the right influencers to partner with on social media, and the potential pitfalls in getting it wrong. There is plenty to be gained from influencer marketing, but as in all things due diligence is required. Artificially inflated follower counts, poor brand alignment and accounts that drive clicks without necessarily improving KPIs are all unfortunate realities of the practice.

Fortunately there are ways to evaluate social media influencers to make sure they are a good fit for your brand and business. One tactic is to seek out influencers who are famous for their expertise, rather than simply famous for being famous. 

Unlike some social media stars out there, experts build their influence the old fashioned way – by knowing their stuff and creating consistent content to prove it. Experts may not always have the same reach as other influencers, but their followers are often much more loyal and seriously engaged. A good word about your brand from an industry expert might reach only a fraction of the numbers than if it came from an account with a larger, broader audience, but research shows that consumers are more likely to take action on recommendations from voices they trust."

A study by Nielsen comparing the effectiveness different sources of content found that expert content lifted purchase intent 38% more than branded content and 83% more than user-generated reviews. In fact, the research found that branded and user-generated content become more effective once a stable foundation of trust has been established through the channel of third-party experts.

Consumers play a huge role in keeping brands accountable and demanding authenticity and honesty in marketing campaigns. This means that brands must become more socially aware and truly understand what consumers want in order to effectively connect with them. 

We’ve seen the power of this strategy play out time and again at theright.fit. For example, last year we helped source talent for AAMI Insurance’s International Women’s Day TV commercial, ‘Her to Hero’. AAMI were looking for strong, sporty and active models and actors to play AFL women’s stars in the shoot. Imagine how thrilled they were to learn that we already had three AFLW players from the Western Bulldogs on the books! Using real AFLW stars lent the TVC a far greater level of impact than could have been achieved by having actors play the part.

It’s easy to game the social media system, but trust and authenticity must be earned. Building credibility with your audience takes time, but businesses willing to go the extra mile to find voices and create content that really resonates will reap the rewards.

Modelling 2.0: Instagram influencers are bringing brands to life

The year is 1998. As you flip through a magazine, you spot a perfume advert featuring your absolute favourite supermodel and you find yourself pondering, “I wonder what she’s doing right now” or even “I wonder if she’s ever actually used this product”?

Fast forward 20+ years, you’re scrolling through your Instagram feed and you spot your favourite supermodel. She’s streaming a live video of all her preferred brands for the season, from Clinique’s latest perfume to that super cute Givenchy duffel. You can post comments, shop the products instantly and even see minute-by-minute updates of what they’re up to with their day.

Which scenario would you find more compelling as a consumer? Because, either way, 2020 influencer marketing statistics confirm that most prefer engaging with the latter!

This is because social media influencers can really get inside the heads and hearts of customers. Suddenly a product isn’t just something that a brand who wants your money “says” you should buy. It’s now the preferred product of someone you admire and feel emotionally connected to on a day-to-day basis. Not surprising, as you can follow their careers, vacations, special occasions and aspirations daily. As a marketing tactic, this is a powerful tool and can absolutely trigger emotional buying habits.

To be fair, this doesn’t just apply to supermodels and celebrities. In the fast-paced world of social media, these influencers can more often than not also be everyday people who have a passion and aren’t afraid to tell the world about it. Whether that be cooking, beauty, fashion, comedy, dancing or gaming, influencer marketing possibilities are endless. 

The future of work: what does it mean for the products we use?

So, I’m currently sitting in a coffee shop in Japan, after attending a conference on the future of work, digital innovation & new digital economies. I’m working from my laptop, tethered to my phone for internet, just a short 9hr plane ride from my office.

There was some really interesting takeaways from today. For example, the Japanese government is investing heavily in start ups, with the intention of producing 20 unicorns by 2023(!). A noble, if lofty, ambition.

I also learnt that 60% of the top 5 global brands made a significant investment in digital transformation in the last 12 months, with the intent to disrupt the market they play in. That’s a significant realisation that these big behemoths need to innovate to avoid becoming the incumbent - to not have their lunch eaten by these start-ups so nimbly changing the landscape across such a broad range of industries.

But most interestingly to me, as the founder of a marketplace for talent, that connects creative talent job opportunities, was the focus on the move towards independent workers and the rise of the gig economy. 

A recent Australia on-line survey questioned more than 14,000 adult Australians from all regions, and of that total, almost 1000 (or 7 percent) reported having performed some kind of platform-based gig work within the last year. Another 6 percent of respondents have performed gig work in the past.

When you couple this with stats like this one from the conference today “over half of workers in the US say they have, or are working, remotely. Over 70% say they work from home or away from the office 1 day a week.” People are looking for careers that give them flexibility, autonomy, and are focused on outcomes not on presenteeism. And they will either choose to work with organisations who align with this, or they’ll simply move to the gig economy to manage their own careers. 

It’s pretty clear that the future of ‘work’ has dramatically changed, and will continue to, in the coming years.

So what does it mean for the products we use in our day to day work life? 

Security & privacy - as smart as we & our products are, those determined to ‘do harm’ will ultimately work to find a way to surpass the safeguards we put in place. Continuing to develop systems to adapt to these ever changing goalposts of security & privacy is a key pillar for products.

Portability - our products need to be light, powerful and robust. We’re not willing to compromise power for weight. Like everything in our lives now, we want it ALL. 

Connectivity - to be an effective member of a team, we need to stay connected. We’re blessed to be in an era that technology allows us to virtually connect to our coworkers through a plethora of platforms like Zoom, Slack, whatsapp, google hangouts, facetime, without cumbersome or expensive investments.

The new HP Dragonfly laptop, unveiled at this conference, has put a great deal of thought into addressing these key drivers in unlocking the ability for work & life to exist in harmony. With a ‘privacy screen’ that means people can’t see over your shoulder, to a 24hr battery life, and with models starting at just 990grams, it’s evident they’ve not been resting on their laurels of being one of the best laptop manufacturers in the world. This is a perfect example of a market leader thinking like a start up - listening to their customers, constantly iterating to improve their offering, and never being satisfied with the status quo, working collaboratively (it was a close partnership with Intel that bought this product to life), and valuing sustainability (much of the product is made from ocean bound plastics).

Bravo HP. I look forward to getting my hands on one when they hit our shores in November. 

Vodafone Red Wire Series - Culture for Growth

Another episode live talking culture with Viona Young and Julie Bradshaw for Vodafone Red Wire Series. "culture guides discretionary behavior and it picks up where the employee handbook leaves off. Culture tells us how to respond to an unprecedented service request. It tells us whether to risk telling our bosses about our new ideas, and whether to surface or hide problems. Employees make hundreds of decisions on their own every day, and culture is our guide. Culture tells us what to do when the CEO isn’t in the room, which is of course most of the time." (from HBR).

Full episode: https://www.vodafone.com.au/red-wire/culture-for-growth

When did we all get so... angry?

I just got off an international flight, and to me, airports had always been like they’re summed up in “Love Actually”

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”

Today, it seemed like everywhere I looked, read, or listened - it was the exact opposite.

From the lady berating the check in counter girl for the plane being late (cause, you know, she controls that stuff), to the angry couple exasperatedly arguing over who’s job it was to have remembered the phone charger, to almost all the news I read in the paper in the lounge, to the angry email I got from a talent who’d forgotten to cancel their monthly membership saying they were going to “tell everyone what a bad person you are and give us a 1 star google review if you don’t give in to my demands” (golly, happy Tuesday!)

What happened to us? When did we all get so… angry? So spiteful? So disillusioned that it gives us some sort of feeling of control by trying to make someone else experience our frustration and pain by hurting them too?

When I got back to my hood (Potts Point), saying good morning to the old lady I always pass on the way to my coffee shop, sharing morning banter with my barista at Room 10, acknowledging all the junkies coming home from their adventures, before going to the convenience store across the road to get my newspaper from Hassam who always throws in a little home made baklava on the weekend. And you know what? It makes me feel awesome. Not the baklava (well, that too) but the basic giving and receiving of kindness.

Now that I sound like some sort of Ghandi type who walks around in a perennial state of bliss, lets just clear that up. Im far from perfect. I have my rants after being on hold for 45min with Telstra, or when I cant get my new mobile to synch my contacts, or when Oracle lied to my CTO. Sometimes I’m tired, I’ve spent all day giving the best of me to my clients, my talent, my team, and I just don’t know if I have it in me to listen to my building managers review of last nights AFL game..

Then I realise how f*cking lucky I am to have a building manager who actually checks in on me, notices if I’m working late too often and reminds me to take care of myself. That my mood should not dictate my manners. I dont always get it right. It’s a practice. And I only got here by realising by holding on to anger I was losing twice - the person I was angry at was blissfully unaware of my ‘suffering’ (Tim Cook wasnt losing sleep over my contact synch, lets be clear), and the only person that I was hurting, was me. So not only had I had to deal with whatever the shitty situation was (al la ear on fire listening to hold music while rage grinding my teeth…), I then got the double whammy joy of being all f*cking angry about it for hours. Definitely lost twice.

So I’d ask, given the current climate (literally and figuratively), with people losing their lives and livelihoods in Ukraine, with the shocking stories from Epstein, Weinstein, et al coming to light, to the bushfires and continued lack of indigenous health equality; could we maybe just be a little bit kinder? To one another? And use all that energy, emotion, passion, frustration, to a cause that’s going to leave our society, our planet, our economy in a better place?

The next time the baby in front of you in the supermarket line is losing its sh*t, help amuse it. Someone tries to cut in in traffic? Let them. Mum asks you for the 50th time to show her how those ‘disappearing photos’ (lets be honest, its a better name than instagram stories) work? Show her, again.

See how it feels. I think you might just find you kind of like it. Social good smugness looks hot on you.

And if your struggling with what to do with all that spare time you have now that you’re not being pissed off, leaving spiteful google reviews, yelling at your partner or sending angry emails, check out some of these very worthy organisations you can donate your time to:

https://www.next25.org.au/

https://twogood.com.au/

https://www.indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au/

MINI CONNECTED WITH TARYN WILLIAMS – HELPING YOU RECONNECT.

Behind the glossy scenes of her two successful fashion businesses, Taryn Williams is a busy woman. But with the help of technology like MINI Connected, she is able to make sure that her day runs smoothly and keep up to date with the people she loves. 

For Taryn, CEO and Founder of The Right Fit and WINK Models, technology is an absolute must-have to support her as she travels around the country to help brands bring their advertising campaigns to life.

The Right Fit is Taryn’s newest venture; and since she launched it about two years ago, she’s been using innovative technology to allow her to partner with some of the world’s top models, influencers, photographers, stylists and makeup artists.  

“At The Right Fit, we connect brands with creative talent to unlock content, and all of that is done now through digital and technology, which form the heart of both of my businesses. The Right Fit really is a tech company, first and foremost, and technology allows us to connect brands and influencers in a transparent, seamless and scalable way.”

“Wink Models is also powered by a tech platform, called Wink Central, which connects all of our talent to the jobs available to them, and also manages all of our scheduling, our onboarding and our invoices for clients.”

Having recently launched a Singapore location that’s set to disrupt Southeast Asian advertising markets, Taryn spends her time transiting between her Australian and international agencies, which means she spends a lot of time working on the road (or in the air).

“I travel a lot to see our clients,” she says. “It can be really taxing but I love what I do, and technology has now afforded me the opportunity to work in a global economy. I have lots of great opportunities, events to attend and public speaking engagements and [I love] being able to share my story with other people.”

Such a hectic business itinerary means Taryn cherishes her downtime, using it to reconnect with friends and family and spend time in nature. 

“I love to get up early still, even on weekends, and I love doing long walks of Centennial Park in Sydney or the Tan in Melbourne. I like to get into nature and get some Vitamin D on my skin.” Taryn says.

“The perfect day outside of work is really about connecting with people,” she says. “The time I get to spend with my friends and family is what grounds me. I’ll share a meal with friends and family; check out the local sights; and try and get some life admin in.

But of course she’s never too far from her trusted tech, which helps her catch up with loved ones even when she’s far away. She’s able to turn to MINI Connected to book local restaurants, discover new sights in the city, and communicate with her loved ones when she’s travelling.

“I think for me, technology really plays an incredibly important role in my personal life allowing me to stay connected, especially as I travel so much for work. Being able to easily and quickly check in with friends and family as I’m on the road or when I’m running between meetings is so important for me.”

And after all, isn’t being connected what life’s all about?

Long Read: The new era of influencer marketing

By Mariam Cheik-Hussein | 30 September 2019

This first appeared in the AdNews September edition.

By day two of Instagram hiding likes in Australia, Jules Lund had already felt compelled to post a “rant” smacking down the media for deriding influencers. After the news from Instagram broke, it naturally led to a wave of commentary, both from new and old media, on how it impacts creators, many gleeful the move would be the end of influencers.

The theory was that Instagram had taken away their source of power – likes – rendering them valueless to brands. Now, there would be no need for creators to post outrageously flawless gym shots or vapid brunch snaps every day.

These predictions were not only untrue, but also unfair, says Lund, the founder of influencer provider Tribe, and the result of a few bad actors in the influencer category who are picked up and amplified, tarnishing the image of all influencers.

“Influencers aren’t much different to any group [that] people enjoy bashing for their own enjoyment,” Lund says.

“There’s certain behaviour that frustrates anyone, and a lot of those influencers leave themselves open to that criticism. At times it’s constructive and reasonable, and I too would agree with it.”

Ridiculing influencers has been a trend not just in the public, but also within the marketing industry. For example, asking creatives and social media experts to review influencers’ Instagram posts for brands, led to comments labelling them as “embarrassing”. One creative turned down the opportunity to review them, saying they had nothing positive to say, while Glenn Dalton, ECD at Hardhat, boldly said he “hates most influencer marketing” for its inauthenticity.

Marketers too have downplayed the rise of influencers, or predicted their demise, none more prominent than the former Unilever CMO Keith Weed who said the industry needed to “take urgent action now to rebuild trust before it’s gone forever”.

Detractors’ view is that the meteoric rise of influencers has taken away the very thing that made them valuable – authenticity – or has been built on empty metrics, with transparency around reporting and measurement the biggest concern.

In addition to these challenges, influencers also take on the issues of social media, the environment in which they still live, which has big brand safety complications.

Following the Christchurch terrorist attack in March, both Facebook and YouTube were criticised globally for failing to promptly remove the livestream of the attack which left 51 people dead.

In another case in the US, a young man posted images of his murdered victim across social media.

While platforms can work to take such content down, the reality is that they can’t keep up with the volume of content being uploaded online every day, and brands that choose to advertise on social media risk appearing near “violent, abhorrent” material – nothing any marketer wants to associate their brand with.

BBC StoryWorks Australia boss Jelena Li warned that many marketers who rely on social media are stuck in short-term thinking. “Quality of content is one thing but if you’re not pushing out that content on the right platform then it can’t really shine, it can’t really unleash its full potential,” Li says.

This string of criticisms has driven the skepticism around influencer marketing, but the opposing, more positive view of influencers, which Lund subscribes to, is that they’re creative geniuses who used a free platform to turn themselves into advertising powerhouses and are only going to grow from here.

Taryn Williams, The Right Fit CEO, points out that while influencers are paid less than creative agencies, and often given less credit, they’re also often producing the same work.

“All the things that the brands would pay for, such as hiring a studio, a model, photographer and stylist, are included in an output an influencer delivers,” Williams says. “An influencer is really a creative director, a stylist, a producer, and an editor all in one.”

Still, the common perception of influencers is that they are lazy and entitled people who make their way off free products for reviews on YouTube or a selfie on Instagram. Hardly difficult work from the outside looking in.

But the reality is that influencers are also immensely popular personalities, joining the ranks of big name celebrities. And for those “micro-influencers”, with 5,000 to 50,000 followers, they can still have an incredible pull for local businesses. Notice the correlation between your local cafes with waiting lines to the number of Instagram Stories they’re receiving from people in the community.

Multinational brands that once used US celebrities now also opt for influencers because they are both less expensive and more personalised.

One example of an “influencer celebrity” is Sydney-based Sammy Robinson, who has more than 600,000 followers on Instagram and roughly 720,000 on YouTube. Robinson has been tapped by make-up brand M.A.C, Swarovski, which also pulls in heavy-weights such as US model Karlie Kloss, and GHD Hair. Her attraction isn’t limited to Australia, with her attending an event in New York with US model Gigi Hadid as part of partnership with another make-up giant, Maybelline.

Influencers have also created big brands from scratch, such as Iraqi-American beauty mogul Huda Kattan who started by filming YouTube make-up tutorials and now runs a billion-dollar business, Huda Beauty. Then there’s Australia’s fitness influencer Kayla Itsines who co-founded the Bikini Body Guide and the SWEAT app off the back of her followers, which has now grown to 11.6 million. She, along with her partner Tobi Pearce, is estimated to have a wealth of $486 million.

The value of influencer marketing is hard to pin down, largely due to uncertainties around metrics, but it certainly shows no signs of slowing down. A 2018 study by the World Federation of Advertisers showed that 65% of multinational brands planned to spend more of their advertising budgets on influencers. Another PwC report estimates that “personality-driven marketing” will reach $240 million this year in Australia alone and up to $10 billion across the world by 2020.

The most popular platforms for influencers are still Instagram and YouTube, as suggested by a study of 3,000 kids aged between 8-12 years which found being a YouTube star was more sought-after than being an astronaut.

The arrival of new platforms and their influencers is already upon us. In August, fashion label Superdry used three Australian TikTok influencers, or TikTokers, to launch its newest store. Between the three TikTokers, they had 7.5 million followers with 20% of that audience in Australia.

“We had 300 people line up just to meet the TikTokers, which is definitely higher than we’ve had for store openings but in saying that we had no expectations,” Superdry’s Marketing Manager Matthew Iozzi says.

“We had people leave school early. One lady I spoke to had pulled her daughter out of school at 11am so that she could drive three hours to meet the TikTokers at 3.30 pm.”

Iozzi says Superdry opted for TikTokers because it was more innovative than Instagram. “TikTok allows users to inject a little bit more personality than Instagram given that it’s primarily video-based,” Iozzi says.

“It encourages both users and viewers to engage in an honest conversation, rather than just a static image and post. There’s a very strong and unique flavour that comes with TikTok in terms of a social platform and we’ll be utilising this as a more organic way of presenting information to our audience.”

The Chinese-owned platform, which has an estimated 500 million daily users, hasn’t yet figured out how to monetise the platform, although it has started to roll out advertising. TikTokers aren’t making a significant sum from brand partnerships either, with payment per post floating around $500 mark. However, Born Bred Founder Clare Winterbourn says this is starting to change.

“Brand partnerships have risen hugely,” Winterbourn says.

“Now we’re doing a lot of product placement, organic partnerships and clothing hauls.

“So I see brand partnerships amping up to be very similar to what we’re processing through with Instagram.”

Currently, TikTokers are making their money from TikTok Live, where that can be “gifted” money, usually in exchange for a shout out. There are also other entries from new categories, with Twitch, owned by Amazon, leading the gaming influencer space with a reported 15 million daily active users. Microsoft’s Mixer is on its heels after poaching one of its top gamers, Ninja, who had close to 15 million followers and has already climbed to one million on Mixer.

The emergence of influencers across different categories doesn’t surprise some, with Yash Murthy, Social Media and Creative Director at Switched On, saying influencers are no different to brand advocates, product spokespeople and celebrity endorsements.

“The innate human need to seek reassurance and ascribe aspirational value to the consumption choices they make hasn’t changed. It’s just the delivery mechanism that has,” Murthy says.

“In our current media environment, the value of influencer marketing lies at the intersection of accessibility and authenticity. Viewed as such, as online communities continue to scale and diversify, the opportunities for growth are massive.

“Influencers’ aren’t just YouTube beauty vloggers and Instagram fitness models any more. It will be interesting to see where TikTok goes from an audience growth and monetisation standpoint, while the continued sophistication of esports and other rapidly emerging sub-communities only serve to create more opportunities for brands and platforms alike.”

When Ninja departed from Twitch he made the announcement through a video posted to YouTube. The minute and a half clip included a product placement for Red Bull and received 3.5 million views within a week of being uploaded. The energy drink brand also plastered his face on its cans.

Big tech is also recognising the value of influencers and making moves to pull in more revenue from them. In Australia, industry bodies such as the Audited Media Association of Australia (AMAA) are also snapping into action to implement best practices.

These updates from big tech and local bodies are about to inject even more authority and legitimacy into the space, ensuring it continues its steady rise. As it does, “influencer celebrities” will simply become the celebrities of the future, morphing into something more akin to creative agencies with their own audiences to reach consumers.

Lingering issues around reporting
Instagram wasn’t built with influencers in mind, so from the start it was ill-equipped to deliver creators the right reporting tools to communicate with brands.

Influencers overcame this by screenshotting their metrics, giving social media managers “read access” to their personal account to view their insights, or by simply self-reporting. All of these methods are less than optimal and some of them are still used today.

However, reporting has improved immensely within Instagram and YouTube. Outside of the platform there’s also a long list of third-party tools – – Tribe, Vamp, Hyetap, The Right Fit and Fluency – – which provide their own reporting.

Cal Guyll who heads up the recently-launched MSL Fluency, which is run by Publicis’ PR arm MSL, says new technology, such as AI, has played a big role in improving reporting.

Like most third-party tools, Fluency is end-to-end. It helps match brands with influencers and provides marketers with real-time campaign reporting. Fluency has more than 165,000 influencers in Australia and New Zealand.

“Marketers are used to having large-scale media spend with data available to them in real-time,” Guyll says.

“They can make really smart, fast-paced decisions. But influencer marketing it’s not as simple. Marketers are relying on data that comes from a third-party source, i.e. the influencer, and there can be all sorts of reasons why that data is unavailable at the time. They could be away, unresponsive, busy, etc.”

These third-party tools also help to detect fraudulent activities, such as fake engagement and bots which inflate a person’s follower count and diminishes trust in social media. According to AMAA’s 2018 Media Trust Study, social media has now eclipsed even programmatic trading as the channel that needs the most oversight, with 63% of the industry saying it needs more. This is compared to 56% for programmatic trading and 45% for online video. The study spoke to 407 marketers and media agency professionals, with an even mix between client-side marketers and media agency professionals – 41% were C-level/senior level and 59% middle/junior levels.

But while the study showed a greater need for oversight for social media compared to last year, media buyers are pleased with the improvements from third-party tools, saying it will help strengthen influencer marketing spend in the long-term.

“As people become more au fait with the process of evaluating them effectively and there are more trusted third-parties like The Right Fit or Tribe, I’d expect solid and consistent growth in spend on influencers,” Ogilvy’s Head of Social Alex Watts says.

“Not the explosion of the past couple years, but more constant growth year on year.”

Watts also says the space has reached a level of growth that means he expects consolidation. “While growing, the market is cluttered, and there’s only so much space for differentiation,” he says.

But while transparency around reporting has come a long way due to these third-party entrants, we can expect to see the issue continue to rear its head while the sector continues to develop.

Understanding metrics
The noise created after Instagram revealed Australia is one of seven countries trialing the removal of the likes count showed the level of misunderstanding around what brands actually look for when they look at influencers’ metric.

Likes has already fallen away as a significant measuring tools, both because it doesn’t necessarily mean business results, and because people are simply engaging less on social media.

“Previously you would have said getting a million likes on a post is great but realistically, what does the business want to drive?” says Guyll of MSL Fluency.

“Now brands have to consider if it wants likes on a post, to drive people to the brand’s website to make purchases, or make people fall in love with the brand.”

Speaking with The Right Fit’s Taryn Williams, Bernice Averion, growth marketer at Koala.com says she doesn’t look at engagement rate when searching for influencers to partner with to grow the mattress business.

“Engagement rate doesn’t really matter to me, it’s really about what their true audience is,” Averion says. “So if they have 100,000 followers but only 50% of that audience is within Australia I will only really want to pay for that 50%.”

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“We can’t actually do this”: Business owner furious as Oracle’s Bronto fails to deliver

Business owner Taryn Williams is filing ACCC and Fair Trading complaints against Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) multinational Oracle, claiming the company “promised her the world” but failed to deliver, despite continuing to charge her thousands of dollars in fees.

Williams, founder of online talent marketplace theright.fit, says she engaged Oracle’s digital marketing company Bronto earlier this year to deliver an end-to-end transactional marketing tool that could work across email and text message.

However, about four months after paying the initial onboarding fee and devoting “hundreds of hours” of development time to try and get the service to integrate with her business, the provider turned around and told Williams it was unable to deliver transactional SMS services.

“They came to us and said ‘we can’t actually do this’,” Williams tells SmartCompany.

Williams says the company was unable to confirm they were able to send text messages longer than 160 characters in the correct order, saying internal testing had shown messages being sent in two parts, with five minutes between them.

Williams says she signed the dotted line on a deal with the company, involving monthly charges, after being told repeatedly by the company they would be able to deliver the service.

Frustrated, the entrepreneur took to LinkedIn to detail her experience in a series of posts that have garnered significant attention among those in the local e-commerce industry over the last week.

In an email sent to Williams by Bronto in late-June, the company admitted it was unable to provide her business with the product it required.

“I wish I had better news on all of this for you and understand the resource time that has already been invested,” the Bronto representative told Williams, saying they would look into a way to compensate her for lost dev time with additional services.

Bronto has continued to bill Williams, despite repeated requests to suspend and cancel her account in the wake of the company’s admission it is unable to provide the service. 

Williams is currently seeking a full refund to the tune of about $15,000.

However, she says attempts to contact the company to process her request have been unsuccessful on multiple occasions in recent weeks, with emails and calls made to the company by her lawyer going unanswered.

“I’ve tried twice to call our account manager and emailed them twice … no return call or email. Literally just ignoring our calls and emails? Crazy? Every single one of their competitors has called us directly to offer to help,” the business owner posted on LinkedIn last week.

As the posts have gained traction, several other business owners have come forward claiming to have had similar issues with Oracle in recent years.

“We are having exactly the same issue right now,” one e-commerce executive said.

Williams was able to speak to a senior manager at Bronto last week and was told it was “unfortunate” her complaint had become public.

More than a week later, Williams yesterday said she had still not heard back from the multinational about the status of her account, although she did receive another bill from them on Wednesday for more than $9,000.

Oracle’s Bronto declined to comment on Friday morning. 

Taryn Williams: What it takes to run 2 businesses successfully

By Dynamic Brands

Taryn Williams is the CEO and founder of theright.fit and Wink Models.

She is one of Australia’s most popular female entrepreneurs and digital influencers. A former model, Taryn launched Wink Models in 2007 at the age of 21 and it has since cemented its place as one of Australia’s leading commercial modelling agencies with turnover in the millions.

In 2016 she launched her second business, theright.fit, a two-sided marketplace connecting brands with creative talent and influencers. Soon after launch she successfully negotiated investment (over $1million) with Airtree Ventures, along with other strategic partners and funds. The platform has over 6,500 talent and has worked with brands like Veuve Cliquot, Toyota, Johnnie Walker, LG, AAMI Insurance, Westpac, Menulog, General Pants and Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy.

Taryn has featured in the B&T Hot 30 under 30, SmartCompany 30 under 30, and she has been a finalist for numerous awards including 2015 Female Entrepreneur Awards, Women’s Agenda Emerging entrepreneur of the year and AIM young entrepreneur of the year.

With both of her businesses, theright.fit and WINK Models, Taryn has proven herself to be a game changer and digital disrupter.

Recently Dynamic Business attended “Making Influencer Marketing a Success”, a panel discussion focused on helping brands make sense of what defines a great influencer campaign, the questions to ask and the data to look for.

This was hosted by Taryn who was joined by Bernice Averion, Growth Marketer at Koala.com and Sally O’Neil @thefitfoodieblog, influencer, Jamie Oliver ambassador, food blogger and photographer.

From the insights of the event, Dynamic Business has published a summary of the benefits on influencer marketing, how to do it and what to expect when you delve into it, as well as an insider perspective from Bernice at Koala.com. 

Taryn has recently appeared on Dynamic Business’s guest podcast “Human Potential” hosted by Oliver Freer. The podcast has been developed for an audience who are interested in characters in business and are fascinated by outsiders, achievers, creative thinking, future potential, deep learning, human endeavour and who particularly enjoy inspirational stories that challenge the status quo.

In this episode of the Human Potential Podcast our host, Oliver Freer, talks with Taryn Williams the former model turned entrepreneur and digital disrupter on what it takes to run two successful businesses concurrently.