Our resident social media expert is back! Social media expert, Cassandra Craven returns to the Lunch with Norm to talk about the difference between Influencers and content creators. Whether you are an Amazon FBA seller or in eCommerce, you won’t want to miss this one! In this episode, we tackle the roles of influencers and content creators, their similarities, their differences and which one is ultimately right for you. We explain how to leverage influencer marketing to raise your brand awareness. We also breakdown where to look for influencers, how to decipher the real ones from the fake ones, and what to be aware of when you are making your contracts!
Date: November 4, 2020
Episode: 59
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Cassandra Craven, Social Media & Content Manager at Helium 10
Subtitle: The Power of Influencer, Brand Ambassadors and Content Creators
Final Show Link: https://lunchwithnorm.com/episodes/episode-59-influencers-vs-content-creators-which-one-is-right-for-your-business-w-cassandra-craven/
In this episode of Lunch With Norm…, Norman Farrar introduces Cassandra Craven, Social Media & Content Manager at Helium 10.
Cassandra is a social media maven. She discussed the difference between influencers and content creators and how to leverage influencer marketing to raise your brand awareness.
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Norman 0:01
Hey everybody is Norman Farrar, a.k.a The Beard Guy here and welcome to another Lunch With Norm, the rise of the micro brands.
Norman 0:20
I don’t use the word super excited too much. But today, I am super excited. We have returning social media expert and Helium 10’s very own Cassandra Craven and in today’s episode, we’re going to be discussing the difference between influencers and content creators. So I can’t wait to talk. This is one of my favorite topics, by the way. But before that, we’re living. We’re living to you right now. We’re broadcasting to you live on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. Now, where is my son?
Norman 0:56
There he is.
Kelsey 0:57
Hello. How are you?
Norman 0:59
Hi, you got me a little nervous there. It took a microsecond to click in.
Kelsey 1:03
I’m sorry.
Norman 1:05
I was just going into the fetal position.
Kelsey 1:07
Yeah, I was writing something down a little.
Norman 1:10
Well, thanks for not paying attention.
Kelsey 1:13
This is how it’s gonna be today?
Norman 1:17
Maybe it’s gonna be a weird day just like the election. So that’s enough. I’m not getting into politics. All right. Oh, okay. What do we do?
Kelsey 1:26
All right, like us on social media. Hit that or smash that like button, ring that bell. We are on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram. Just search Lunch With Norm, Norman Farrar, anything and you’ll find us, we should think we’re taking over those searches. We are an official podcast. So you can find us on Apple, Spotify. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, you can find Lunch with Nrom and yeah, like and share. If you’re joining us today, you can let us know where you’re watching from. We’d love to know, or let us know what you’re doing next weekend or, just have a conversation with us.
Norman 2:05
There we go. Yeah, you’re a nice person to have a conversation with.
Kelsey 2:09
Oh, thank you.
Norman 2:10
You’re welcome.
Norman 2:12
Okay, so if you do have any questions, or if you have any comments, throw them over into the comment section and we will get to them during the episode. If we can’t get to them, we will definitely answer them later on. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the show and Cassandra.
Cassandra 2:33
Hi, Norm. How are you?
Norman 2:36
I am doing awesome. How are you?
Cassandra 2:38
I’m good. I’m good. I’m here in Orange County, California, US of A and we’re still waiting on results. So it’s an exciting time.
Norman 2:48
It’s very exciting, I don’t know if they’re gonna happen today. Maybe next week. We’ll talk about it.
Cassandra 2:53
That’s a whole nother hot topic.
Norman 2:56
Oh, yeah. Very and for social media, by the way.
Cassandra 2:58
Yeah. I actually was gonna pitch that idea to you. But then I thought you know what? I’m just gonna, let’s just not. Let’s just see how this unfolds.
Norman 3:09
In case someone doesn’t know you, can you give us just a little bit of background about yourself?
Cassandra 3:15
Of course Norm. I am Cassandra Craven, Helium 10 Social Media Manager. I’ve worked in film, television, advertising and now I am bringing you all things social media, at Helium 10 social media networks. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, find us anywhere, more to come. Recent winner of Seller Poll 2020 for the best YouTube channel among many more software companies, podcasts, just little things like that. But yes, I’m happy to be here.
Norman 3:46
Just in case, you didn’t hear it. You work at Helium 10 right?
Cassandra 3:51
I do. I work at Helium 10. I’m obligated to say that a certain amount of times.
Norman 3:57
Okay. Yeah and it’s gonna be it’s actually kind of fitting for today’s topic, because we are going to be talking about influencers but brand ambassadors. I mean, if I think and Helium 10 is not a sponsor, I don’t have any affiliates. But, being able to get out there and having the Helium 10 t- shirt on, mentioning, just that is a brand ambassador. A person that lives the brand and it’s kind of interesting, because it fits right into what we’re talking about today.
Cassandra 4:32
I bleed blue. Yes.
Norman 4:34
Yes, you do.
Cassandra 4:35
No, I’ve given away all my other wardrobe. I only own Helium 10 merchandise that’s just par for the course that’s just par for the course.
Norman 4:44
This is gonna sound really really corny. But I was coming down the stairs and all of a sudden this song came into my head and I was thinking about Cassandra Craven and it was like the Candyman came on.
Cassandra 5:03
That is my theme song?
Norman 5:05
There we go, we’ll just change it to woman and it’s all about you.
Cassandra 5:10
Oh my God, Norm. I love that. Thank you. That made my day. Just so you know, I get energized when we do these. It’s my favorite part of the week when I get to talk to you.
Norman 5:21
Oh, that’s awesome and vice versa.
Norman 5:24
So, look, let’s talk about something that we’re hearing more and more about. But I don’t think people are doing it. A lot of people are doing it effectively or efficiently. But that’s the topic of influencer marketing. Can we just go over a little bit about what does an influencer do?
Cassandra 5:48
So influencer marketing is actually one of my favorite aspects of social media and it’s something that kind of fell into my lap though, originally. So I started doing social media marketing, and influencers just kind of became a phenomenon around 2015. I remember starting to work 2014- 2015, starting to work with them and I think that also had to do with the rise of Instagram in popularity. So really, it’s a kind of lifestyle marketing. People with large followings, social followings, credibility, and how it fits into their brand and their brand image and they put your products into their lifestyle imagery on social media essentially. So that’s how they market your products. It’s usually either a content swap, or there’s some sort of payments, exchange for doing so. Contractually or on a freelance basis. But really, it can be effective if you’re tapping into the right niches, tapping into the right hashtags, locations, audiences, demographics, things like that.
Norman 6:48
I think it’s important too, that when you’re picking an influencer, that you know the type of influencer that you’re looking at because depending on your reach, depending on your money, depending on just engagement. I mean, we can start at a nano influencer, go to a micro, go to a mega, go to the big celebrity. Anyways, there’s four or five different levels and one of the things that I find is that people always hear about Kanye West, the Kardashians and spending the big bucks, right? Yeah, I can tell you with one of the businesses that I have, we paid big bucks for this one YouTube video with the product in the background and it was a lot of money, got nothing, got 15 sales.
Norman 7:40
Started looking at nano influencers and these are people that have very few followers and it depends on the social media look at like a nano influencer defined on Instagram is different than TikTok but for me, I don’t know about you, but a nano influencer micro influencer kind of go one to 10,000 followers, 10,000, 100,000 followers. Do you agree with that?
Cassandra 8:05
Correct. Yes, definitely. Words right out of my mouth.
Norman 8:11
With the nano influencers, first, Do you work with nano influencers? Or do you like the bigger influencers with more following?
Cassandra 8:19
I do a wide range and variety, especially just even in my past careers and other companies I’ve worked with, because really different levels and tiers, they each serve a different purpose. Yeah, of course, working with a Kylie Jenner, or Kim Kardashian is a huge power play, and is going to get you probably a lot of engagement, a lot of eyes on your product. But it may not necessarily convert into the conversions that you want, or the sales you want, or the awareness that you’re looking for. Whereas if you work with smaller influencers, nano, micro, as you mentioned, that is a smaller community, and it’s a smaller trusted community. So people usually know those influencers, either personally, or they’ve met them at one point at an event, things like that. So they’re really trusted, their word is trusted, their reviews are trusted, and you’re more likely to get a conversion off a smaller influencer, just because of that smaller niche category. It’s someone they know, it’s someone that they have this relationship with. Whether it be on or off social media, and that can really result in some higher increases for sales.
Norman 9:29
Another point is engagement, higher engagement.
Cassandra 9:35
Of course, definitely. Because it can be again, you see these people with millions of followers. But if you go back and look, if the product isn’t resonating with that audience, you’re not going to get the engagement that you want. But if the micro influencer you’re working with, if you’re in a beauty category and their niche is beauty, then of course, you’re going to get a higher engagement because that’s what the audience is coming to their page for. That’s what they look to this influencer for or beauty recommendations, things like that. Whereas if you just find a hardware salesman or something, it’s like, that’s just not going to result in what you want.
Norman 10:10
The other thing about it is you can recruit them very quickly, rather than trying to get the attention of a pro athlete or celebrity, they might not even look at you, and just trying to get their attention right? It’s tough.
Cassandra 10:28
Oh, definitely.
Norman 10:30
You could reach out to smaller influencers, and get them talking and they’re excited about your product.
Cassandra 10:37
Oh, yeah, it’s definitely more of a grassroots approach. You can slide in the DMs, as I always say, look for them through hashtags, geo tags, categories. You can find them through similar influencers, similar accounts on Instagram, TikTok, things like that. But that’s going to be more of a grassroots approach and like you said, if they’re not as active and doing that before, they may be more receptive to working with you, because it just leverages up their brand as well and their credibility show, kind of a content swap, showing credibility, showing how, hey, these brands want to work with me. This is me kind of coming up on my branding, my marketing, and then it works out well for you because you’re getting to tap into their communities for engagement, sales, conversions, and overall awareness for your products.
Norman 11:25
When you’re talking about a content swap, for Amazon sellers that don’t know that, what do you mean by that?
Cassandra 11:31
So I think it can really be a variety of things. So either, if they’re taking photos for you with your product, you can then repurpose it for your social media accounts. You can say, hey, we’ll leverage this on our accounts as well. If you’re willing to make a video for us, if you’re willing to make a TikTok and Instagram reel, things like that. Especially long form content, if you go over to YouTube, and they want to do a demo or tutorial or a testimonial, that kind of stuff, you can swap with them and say, Hey, we’re happy to highlight this on our channels as well, tag you, tag your links, put your website in there, whatever you want to do to do cross promotion. So there are a variety of ways to work with it. It’s kind of a model photographer. The photographer needs a model, the model needs a photographer, you got to work together to get the content you need for each other and how you can work together.
Norman 12:20
Do you need to do this right from the start?
Cassandra 12:23
I would recommend about six months into your journey, if you will. Seeing how things are working on your social media channels in general, it’s always good to have kind of your ear to that community, kind of keep a lookout for what your product is, and who you can tap into and sometimes it’s not that obvious. So if you have an eco friendly product that can dive into so many other subcategories for influencers and content creators, there’s always a lot of mommy bloggers that are receptive to those things, depending on your again, depending on your product, if it’s a pet product, there’s pet owners, pet activists, pet advocates. There’s so many not only the higher level categories, but those subcategories of influencers that you can tap into. So really get your niche going and your flow of content creation on social media, and then see the direction you want to take that in for your product, for your awareness and engagement and that’s when I would recommend start tapping into influencers and seeing who you can work with, who you can collaborate with, whether it’s a one off a freelance job, or if you want to do a long term collaboration. Maybe this is a person who takes your product throughout q4 and shows how it’s viable throughout the holiday season. Or if it’s more of a summertime product. Maybe they’re posting regularly, throughout June, July, August, showcasing your pool supplies, or floaties, or things like that and it’s really about the duration that you need it for and also what’s in your means in terms of budgets or content and you have to really work with the influencers, back and forth on that.
Norman 13:57
So let’s go back to the very beginning. I am new to Amazon, or maybe I am a little bit worried about reaching out to influencers. I’ve never done it before, what would be the very first thing to do?
Cassandra 14:11
Okay, so from my experience, this is why having your social media channels in check and really curated properly is very important. Because when you reach out to an influencer, the first thing they’re going to do is go back to your social media channels and check you out. They’re going to say like, hey, do I want to collaborate with this person? What are they all about? What are they advocating for? What is their platform essentially? What is their product? What are they talking about? Is this something that fits in with my lifestyle, my branding, my public persona, my image. So definitely you want to make sure that your social media channels, your website, your product listings, your Amazon listing, everything is on point, so that when people come to want to collaborate with you, they know exactly what they’re getting into and what you’re all about. From there, I would also say what you’re looking for, what you’re hoping to achieve. I wouldn’t even really get into budgets or financial dealings or content or anything. It’s more of a, hey, I really want to work with you. You seem to fit my category very well, how can we talk further offline, whether that be via email, a Zoom call, a phone call, and then really talk about what you’re looking for, what your needs are, and what they would like to get out of the deal as well.
Norman 15:26
One of the mistakes that I’ve seen with some Amazon sellers, it’s not so much when you first get on board. But it’s when you get to the intermediate to high level sales, where you might have a bit more ego and what ends up happening is you don’t leave your ego at the door and people will almost demand that follower, the influencers work with them and nothing is better to turn off a influencer than the ego. It’s stroking their ego, right?
Cassandra 15:59
Correct. Exactly I mean, again, yes, we’re entrepreneurs, we’re dealing, we have our own set of expectations within our own head. But so do these influencers, so do content creators, and more and more, so they’re learning the value of what their branding can achieve for your business. So they are not ignorant to the fact that this could really take your business to the next level, this could garner more attention, more engagement, more awareness, as you had mentioned. So you kind of want to play into their ego, and how your business can benefit them and how you would like to work with them. In a way, they’re the pseudo celebrity, you got to be the PR Maven and come in there and stroke that ego and talk to them about what they’re doing well, what they’re known for, how your audience can resonate with them, and why you would like to collaborate.
Norman 16:53
I’d like to add, you have to have a similar personality, either your brand or just you and the influencer. I think that helps a lot too.
Cassandra 17:03
Agreed. I mentioned 2014, 2015 is when I started working with influencers, and it really does take a personality to reach out to people in general. Wait, long before Norm, I did work in customer service and retail, so I kind of way way before Helium 10, and Hollywood. So I kind of already knew how to like you have that conversational aspect, you have to be approachable and you really want to tap into how you can talk, align yourself with this person and what they’re looking for. When I worked in Georgia, actually, I worked with a lot of television bloggers, fashion bloggers, and I would have them come and do set visits on the set of paternity court and all the court shows I worked with, and really they got such an inside look at not only the show itself, it leverage their brand, because they’re invited to an exclusive event, an exclusive taping, they got to do a meet and greet. So really, it’s kind of Hey, you get to benefit from this and who else can be this connection for you and you need to think of it that way for your product as well. How can you leverage my product to leverage your brand and up your game, if you will. So really giving them something exclusive, whether that’s a free product, or like I mentioned a content swap. So you really kind of have to cater to their needs and see how you can be that liaison to them to bridge the gap.
Norman 18:29
So one of the things that you taught me on the very first podcast is I have to stop in the middle and give some shout outs. So that’s what we’re gonna do right now.
Cassandra 18:38
Let’s do it.
Norman 18:39
Kelsey, because of my poor eyesight. Let’s give some shout outs.
Kelsey 18:44
All right, we got tons of people. They love you, Cassandra.
Norman 18:49
Everybody loves Cassandra.
Kelsey 18:50
We got Timmy back.
Cassandra 18:53
My ego. Okay, go ahead Kelsey.
Cassandra 18:55
We got Timmy back. He’s one of our viewers on LinkedIn.
Norman 18:59
Oh, great to see you Timmy back.
Kelsey 19:00
He loves to pop in. We’d love to see him. We got Cara. So she’s lots of lovely influencers supporting brands. Yelchin. He has a question for us that I’ll tell you later on.
Norman 19:12
Okay. Great.
Kelsey 19:13
Same with Tony. Karen. I don’t know if you saw this Cassandra, you are such a genius. Cassandra. This is pure gold, you’re sharing. We have Dr. Koz with another question.
Norman 19:25
Karen’s awesome.
Cassandra 19:26
Karen’s the best. She’s so cool.
Kelsey 19:29
We have Abdul. He’s saying that you guys are explaining very well and choosing simple words. Great job and we got Yarrow. Yarrow is back. He was actually a winner of one of our Lunch With Norm giveaways.
Norman 19:42
Yeah, just recently.
Kelsey 19:44
Yep. So yeah, we got a lot. So if you’re watching, come say hi. Put it in the comments. We’ll throw you up and we’ll talk about you.
Norman 19:54
Yes, thank you all. This is great. We’re trying to build a community that engages not only during the podcast, but in the group, and it’s all about you, that’s why we’re doing this. So, Kelsey, you said there were a couple of questions. What are they?
Kelsey 20:10
Yes. Okay. So let me see.
Kelsey 20:14
Actually, we have one in the script. It’s from Marina.
Norman 20:20
All right, yep.
Kelsey 20:22
Just a second. Standing by.
Cassandra 20:26
You guys are so fun. I love this, by the way, just so you guys know, you’re such a dream team.
Kelsey 20:31
Oh, thank you.
Cassandra 20:32
I love it.
Kelsey 20:33
All right, Marina, this is actually from the Facebook group. So we have a brand new Facebook group, where we can put your questions ahead of time. So this is from Marina, how do you decide how to compensate influencers? Is there a guideline, a certain amount of money per thousand followers, their video review proposed? So what are your thoughts?
Cassandra 20:58
So I would say there’s a lot of resources out there that you can just google and see like templates, or contractual templates that you can work with and take the cues from there. Again, it’s really about your budgets, your needs, what you’re looking for, depending on the followers of the influencer, and what they can bring to the table as well as what you can bring to the table for them. So once you kind of flush out all of those details, I would really look to HubSpot, Sprout Social has a lot of great resources. There’s a few influencer databases that are also really helpful with that sort of thing. Some of them are pricey, but they kind of vary with tiers. So they can also help you leverage what you’re getting into, how to negotiate and just knowing what the influencers’ costs are upfront. So before you even have to get into haggling or negotiating. A lot of times influencers are like, these are my rates depending on their tier and usually that’s where you go to mid or upper level tiers, they already have a pricing plan laid out for X amount of posts, I cost I charge this much. If you want me to do a video, I charge this much. One thing that I think is really great if you do go and use a third party database for influencer relations, they can also because they’re contractually obligated through that third party, there’s a clause that you can have your content on their page for an X amount of days that they cannot hide it, they can’t archive it, they can’t remove it. It’s not just like a one and done of like, Oh, I posted it, pay me and then it’s gone and an hour. They’re contractually obligated to keep that post up there for a week, a month, a quarter, however long that you want that available and visible on their pages. So definitely look into third party databases as well as there’s Later Media. Isaiah is a great one, Klear, Klear with a K is a great one. So check those out. Those can be a little pricey. But also there’s grassroots approaches that you can just google templates. Go to Sprout Social, HubSpot, things like that digital marketer, and they have some great resources for you.
Norman 23:13
I think there’s a couple more I could add, Tomoson is another database that you can use and they’ve got about 100,000 influencers. Then you’ve got Intellifluence, which is another one. Buzzsumo, it costs a bit more than the rest, but Buzzsumo is very good. But there’s also, these are two databases, one is free that people don’t think about is going out to Haro and just trying to recruit there, free.
Cassandra 23:45
Look at you Norm. Give me a run for my money.
Norman 23:50
Well, but it’s my business.
Norman 23:55
But the other one, I mean, if you’re a medium to more advanced seller, take a look at Susan’s database. It’s the biggest one in the world. But it’s megabucks. It’s anywhere from 5000 to $10,000 a year. But what can you get from that is incredible. I’d also like to add, Cassandra, fake. Like, sometimes you are looking at influencers and if you’re investigating, they’re saying they have 2 million followers. A lot of these people are fake, and do you have any insight on how to tell a fake influencer from their profile?
Cassandra 24:40
If you’re a novice, the first thing you’re going to want to do is look at the follower to engagement ratio. I think that is the simplest way to take a look at it and it is just off. Even if you’re not a social media expert. You don’t have to be an influencer expert to know if someone has 5 million followers and 30 likes. That something is not right here.
Cassandra 25:03
If you just start looking through it, you’re like, Well, where’s the engagement? A lot of other times you can see the comment section and usually a dead giveaway is a profile list image, where it’s just the silhouette of somebody? Or it’s just you can tell if it seems robotic. If it seems spammy, if their comments don’t seem genuine or organic, it really doesn’t take it, a genius to figure that out. Other times, it can be a little trickier. But that’s where I think you need to dive a little deeper and do some investigating into again, go look through the likes, go look through their follower account, go look through their follower list, who are they following and just really take a look and decide for yourself. Again, going back to those third party databases, a lot of times they will flag how many they can do like a breakdown, a percentage breakdown of this is not only where the followers are coming from in terms of whether it’s by state or region or country. But it can also be like, Hey, here’s a section of unknown followers and we’re not sure that’s also usually a dead giveaway on the third party apps of this is a unknown source, we’re not sure where this engagements coming from and that can be a clear sign of a fake follower. So, there’s some grassroots approach and as we mentioned, but you don’t have to be a social media expert to usually spot a fake.
Norman 26:28
Yeah, and the other thing that we look at, like everything that you just said, is bang on. One other quick thing to look for, too, is if it looks like their bot responses. So responses one, I mean, if it just doesn’t look normal, right? It’s natural, right?
Cassandra 26:46
Or, like, I’m just emojis. Like, there’s, and I’m a big fan of replying with an emoji. But I think if you just start to see that as a consistent, recurring comment section of just, thumbs up or, things like that, we get a lot of that on YouTube as well, that’s like a big flag for it, you can just tell and oftentimes, they’ll have a repeating profile images, like I’ll see accounts with the same profile image three times, and you’re like, well, that clearly can’t be right. Like, if you want to be a social media expert to spot a fake, but yeah, I completely agree with the automated responses.
Norman 27:26
I just wanted to loop back to Marina’s question too, going back to nano. With nano influencers, for the most part, you’re going to be paying next to nothing for. When you get to the micro, you might be getting between, I don’t know it could be 5-10 dollars up to about $100. Maybe a bit more. But when you start going past that, yeah, you could be looking at 100 up. I mean, it could be thousands and 10s of thousands, when you get past that. So that’s one of the reasons why I like staying in that group. Plus, you can get so many of them on board. So if I got 20 or 30 nano influencers, Hey, that’s that could be a ton of people who trust who engage and I’m paying really nothing too, especially Maayan Gordon.
Cassandra 28:22
Yes. Love her.
Norman 28:25
She dropped a nugget the other day.
Cassandra 28:28
What was it?
Norman 28:30
I think we were talking about this the other time. But, depending on the platform that you go to she uses TikTok. TikTok influencers haven’t got the same pay scale. They just aren’t charging, like on Instagram. So you go over there, you could pick up somebody that has a million followers or 2 million followers and pay really not a lot of money. They’re just doing it right now for fun, or that like that whole paid engagement hasn’t really crossed over and I hope it stays like that for a while. But that’s one nugget that she gave the other day to check out, going over to TikTok.
Cassandra 29:14
Oh, yeah and I was actually just reading in preparation of this moment, Norm.
Cassandra 29:20
Of course, I was doing my research as well. I believe it was HubSpot that had a great article about how to repurpose your TikTok content for Instagram Reels and I thought that was really genius. Because I mean, we’ve talked about this before we’ve touched on it, where when COVID broke, pandemic and quarantine, TikTok blew up. That was like the go to everyone was like, the older generation was like, What are the kids talking about? Let me get into this TikTok thing and people just started creating massive amounts of content and I think their creativity just exploded as well. So a lot of people who weren’t even trying to be influencers or content creators at the time, they kind of fell into that niche and then that’s where you’re saying the pricing scales are just so skewed compared to an Instagram, because usually an influencer, who is on Instagram or on YouTube, doing tutorials, demos, reviews, whatever it may be, they know what they’re doing. They know that this is what they wanted to do. That was their goal, that was their objective. Whereas I think a lot of TikTok content creators just fell into it, I think they were like, Hey, I like doing this, whatever it may be, or I like this product, we’re at home, we’re bored, I like this juicer, or whatever you’re doing and then they became, they have this, natural, organic following and now, they may be a little more novice to breaking down for pricing tiers and contractual obligations and things like that. But once and I think a lot of people are moving over to Instagram Reels, but TikTok is still very, it’s still a great source for content creation, for engagement, awareness. You’re breaking into a lot of new regions and demographics there. But you can always repurpose that content to your Instagram Reels as well. So don’t think that, it’s kind of a one and done. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of options to keep that content viable on multiple platforms.
Norman 31:10
So Instagram Reels is Instagrams version of Tiktok.
Cassandra 31:16
It’s their rival. Yeah, well insert, Instagram has a, I love them by the way, of course, we always have to be good to Instagram. But they have, I think they have a long reputation of when another platform kind of starts taking over, they kind of swoop in and make their own. It happened with Snapchat and now, TikTok is feeling that as well. I personally still like TikTok. I will get captivated and into an hour of scrolling through TikTok and content, Instagram Reels, I think is a bit more curated, more elaborate, more production quality behind it, whereas TikTok is a little more organic, kind of just grassroots approach, running the mill people doing what they do.
Norman 31:59
Got it. Now with them, what was I gonna say, Oh, the influencers.
Norman 32:07
You want to protect yourself and you want to protect yourself with probably an agreement that says that you can publish and you own the copyright. So you can publish it on your pages. We did fall into a client, that great product, put it up and got nailed, had to take the video down because he didn’t have a proper agreement. So don’t think that you can just go up there and hire the influencer, because you never know what their mindset is, and what they’re thinking about ownership is or sharing content, who owns the content at the end of the day. So you want to make sure that you have an agreement that allows you or transfers over the copyright to you. So just a heads up, I’ve gone through.
Norman 32:59
This is before I met you though, because that would never have happened, prior to meeting, oh my gosh.
Cassandra 33:09
Norm it’s true, in my experiences as well, it is about the person too. Like even working at IMAX and when I worked at a lot of studios, we did have a lot of influencer relations for what we did and content and it was so funny how there were people I would reach out to, and some of them were just like, cool, I love your brand, let’s do it, send over what you need and then of course, there’s people who are negotiating. It seems like they have maybe a skewed perception of what they’re after, or what they want from this, and it’s all business, it’s really it comes down to its business, you can’t fault anyone for that. But yeah, you’re gonna get a wide range of people who are either just like, let’s do it, let’s collab, you’re awesome. Or, well, let’s discuss, where’s my lawyer?
Cassandra 33:57
So you have to be prepared for that and you have to make sure that you’re covering your bases and making sure that everything is aligned, whether that’s a one sheet agreement, or a 10 page contract that you need to have, especially depending on the size of your business. Again, you want to make sure whatever you’re dealing with anyone outside of contractual agreements, content agreements, yes, that you own the rights to things. You can repurpose, when needed, that they make sure that you make sure they hold up their end of the bargain, that you’re not getting short sighted for anything, which is also why I do like, and I admit, going back to that of like third party databases and platforms, because they sign up for the services, they’re essentially getting business through these third party software companies or databases and there are certain things to keep everyone accountable for what needs to be upheld for contractual obligations, content creation, things like that.
Norman 34:53
I always think of the influencer. There’s another category, the influencer that we started talking about. But not a lot of people, I think understand. It’s that super influencer. It’s still an influencer. But we call them brand ambassadors. So what’s the difference between just any of those influencers? They’re all grouped together. When do they become that brand ambassador?
Cassandra 35:19
Well shout out to Karen, our brand ambassador for Helium 10. Well, like you said, I think it’s someone who really lives the brand and essentially, it has to come naturally. I don’t think it’s something that can be forced, because it’s just not going to come off as genuine and that’s what social media is really all about, being organic, keeping it real, things like that. I think that’s where a lot of large scale companies and entities and brands, that’s where they find these brand ambassadors, because they’re already living it through and through. I think Disney is a great example of brand ambassadorship. These are people who are already fanatical about your brand and I mean that in the most positive sense. These are people who want to, whether they want to wear your shirts, just because they use your product, because they genuinely love it. They would tell everyone about it, whether you pay them or not and that’s when I think it crosses over to brand ambassadorship that you are a genuine advocate of the brand, love it through and through whether someone was paying you or promoting you things like that, you would talk about it regardless and I think that’s where it really becomes a brand ambassadorship where I think a lot of it even in the celebrity realm, that’s where that crosses over as well. You’ll see a lot of celebrities say, Well, this is not an endorsement, but this is my favorite, product or alcohol or, whatever it may be and that’s because it’s a genuine connection, a genuine resonating with the product, resonating with the audience, and they really live it through and through and that’s when they become a brand ambassador.
Norman 36:52
So dealing with a typical definition of a brand ambassador is exactly like you’re talking about, but when we’re working with Amazon, the micro brands can take huge advantage of brand ambassadors like people buying the product. Think of this, you can spend no money on rebates, three bucks on rebates, $15 on rebates and you don’t know the rebate group you’re getting to the better ones that are, you’re a lot more safe with. But still, what about a brand ambassador, like, okay, they love your product, they’ll buy your product for 15% off, they’ll use their network to spread the information through their network for more sales of people in your category, who loves your product that are real, and you’re giving them next to nothing. Plus, what I love about brand ambassadors, is they can be under contract. So for the first year, or for the first three months, they need to post three times they need to do this, they need to do that and it’s not like a typical brand ambassador sometimes when you’re looking at the bigger companies, right where they come on, they’re paid. These people are still not paid and Amazon sellers, and e-com, in general, just missing the boat with what people can do with brand ambassadors.
Cassandra 38:25
Oh, 100% and like, again, that’s where you’re saying, they’re not being paid. But what they are getting are exclusive deals. They’re getting the heads up. They’re getting sneak peeks at new products. They’re getting the unboxings. They’re getting the swag boxes that come to their homes, and they’re getting that Sneak Peek. They’re getting the first look at everything, and that is carrying the message through to their audiences. So that’s what they’re really getting out of it if you will, or whether it’s, especially if it’s not compensated, because again, they already love the brand. So that’s like, their Christmas, they get, oh, Hey, I got this first look at this product new feature, or I got to demo this new feature for this product. That’s what they’re really getting out of it. They’re the ones who are able to translate and be the liaison for sneak peeks, exclusive, exclusive content that they can also provide to their audiences that no one else can have, which then will translate back to you. That’s a great driving force for your sales, your conversion rates, things like that. So you want to make sure that that’s what they’re getting out of it is that they have this fast track into the intel of your product and your brand.
Norman 39:37
Yeah, and it’s endless content.
Cassandra 39:39
Endless content and I mean, there’s so much that people can do with it one, I mean, going back to when we had rebranded for Helium 10 and we did the swag boxes and everyone got new shirts and things like that. I saw so much cool content come out of that from our big Ambassador, big influencers and even right down to new sellers who have a smaller following that are creating content from it and that’s what’s so exciting to see is that, we had people do full scale YouTube videos for us and right down to TikToks and Instagram stories and Boomerangs and that’s what’s so cool and you don’t every person is going to share something different. So that’s also going to generate interest to different audiences, different demographics. Where people are located, what their interests are. So it really just translates like you said, it’s endless, the possibilities are infinite.
Norman 40:31
You know Paul Baron?
Cassandra 40: 32
I do
Norman 40:34
The king of this. So he really knows how to build an influencer and brand ambassador network. So get this, two months ago, he ended up getting over the last two months 2000 pictures, 2000 pictures. Now, let’s just put a price tag of $50 a picture on that’s cheap, right. But you could go as high as 100. But let’s just do 50, it’s a lot of money and the thing about it is it’s coming in every day without asking.
Cassandra 41:16
Yep, people want to do, exactly. That’s the beauty behind it. I love that. I love hearing that.
Norman 41:22
Amazon posts, and then oh, I need some videos for Amazon live. Because you’re building that brand community. Right? So hey, we’ve got followers now, if you can drive them back over to your brand page on Amazon, click that follow button. Well, how do you do it? Endless stream of Amazon post. Hey, you got 20 or 30 videos, just Hey, I need a video and the other part to that I know I’m taking up so much of your time.
Cassandra 41:49
No, I love it. I love it.
Norman 41:52
What he did was, Hey, can you feature this benefit? Can you show this and it’s like a press release. You can put the information in your words, you can do the exact same thing and just ask the influencer or brand ambassador, especially brand ambassadors to do this, and they’ll do it. So Paul leverages his brand ambassadors so much, increasing them exceptionally well, especially if they’re writing content, he pays.
Cassandra 42:26
I love to hear that. It’s about relationship building, too. You have to make sure that yeah, that’s that’s a great way to make it.
Norman 42:35
This is how crazy it is. He has events for his brand ambassadors, because they feel special and he makes, I mean, he’s got a whole system where that’s what he does and it’s really incredible to see how his brand, in a highly competitive seasonal, I would never get involved with it. Not only does it go, it gets bestseller badges right across almost every category you can think of. You type in as keywords, well, you’ve got the amazon.com you’ve got driving back to the website and then I think the one example he showed me had five articles about his product by influencers.
Cassandra 43:24
That’s the best thing you can have. As a society, I think that’s where people go first. Yes, you can see commercials, you can see your heavily curated product photography, things like that. But that is something that is invaluable. Definitely worth it over time. Definitely worth it in reception and engagement and credibility and that is just so phenomenal to hear Norm and something else I wanted to point out was that you are the King of PR, and it works hand in hand and so I really think you have this great point of view and perception of how these two work together, these two entities, these two mediums, and how they can really dominate a business, if done correctly.
Norman 44:06
If done correctly.
Cassandra 44:08
If done correctly, that is the key.
Norman 44:10
Yes, yes. Now, let’s talk about another type of content creator. So you got the influencer brand ambassador and then you’ve got a content creator. So what’s the difference?
Cassandra 44:25
So a content creator is going to give you more long form content, and more, I would say entertaining content. So an influencer is going to be more lifestyle imagery, maybe a demo, maybe a tutorial, but a content creator is going to take it up a notch. It’s going to be like a mini commercial. This is where Instagram Reels is really valuable as well, because they are actually Instagram is actually catering two content creators. Currently, you can’t run paid ads to Instagram Reels. So really they are rewarding content creators essential for the content they create, and how engaging it is, and the amount of views it receives and engagement, things like that. So really, they’re going to give you more of a long form content, it’s going to be a mini commercial, they may be doing a backflip or skating or dancing or, doing something dramatic or engaging or humor, hilarious and humorous and things like that. So really, it’s almost like you’re paying, I would say they’re more like an actor than anything. Whereas influencers are more like a model, if you kind of want to take it back to some similarities and how you can make that more synonymous on social media.
Norman 45:37
Got it. So Kels, are there any other questions?
Kelsey 45:42
Yes and we are at the 45 minute mark. So if we can just like quickly, like, go through a couple of questions. A couple of them, we have kind of discussed a little bit. So there’s a little overlap, but from Yelchin. There are different websites to find suitable influencers, which website has the most accurate data about influencers?
Cassandra 46:03
I mean, that’s where, what were some of the ones you said Norm? Because I know mine are a little bit more, they’re not as grassroots. They’re a little pricier. You can go to HubSpot and go to Later Media and I think you have some great resources.
Norman 46:17
Yeah. Buzzsumo is 99. I think it was 99 bucks a month. You still have to, so Yelchin, make sure that you look at the profiles. They might look good, but make sure they’re not fake. Then Tomoson and I think we have a Tomoson code like they’re 699 a month. We’ve got a code for $49 a month. I think that’s in the group from Dan. But anyways, you can get on that platform and you can check and you can check out all the different price points of all these people by niche, by age, by demographic. Intellifluence is another one. There’s also if you’re looking for people who are looking for work that’s going to Haro, Help A Reporter Out. Yeah and then Cision. But that’s not for everybody. That’s expensive.
Cassandra 47:12
That’s the thing. Yeah. Like it’s kind of, for what the line of work I do, and for where I’ve been, it’s, I’m going to that it’s that medium to larger influencers. So there’s going to be a price at your tier, but I think you have some great resources for kinds of those grassroots micro nano influencer approaches.
Kelsey 47:29
Okay, and Tony, Hi guys, Happy Wednesday. How can I really check out organic engagement levels of influencers since many times they use Telegram groups to comment on similar profiles?
Cassandra 47:40
I mean, I would say this goes back Norm to what we were talking about about like it’s not really rocket science so much if you kind of go back and look at ratio to engagement count on social followings and things like that, whether it’s kind of those spam bot comments, things like that, recurring emojis and such. I think that would be your best bet. But then as we mentioned, there are some tools you can utilize. Third party base features that will kind of flag any unknown sources for fake followership.
Kelsey 48:13
All right and if you guys have a favorite emoji, put it in the comments, and put an emoji train in the comment section.
Cassandra 48:20
What is your favorite emoji Kelsey?
Kelsey 48:23
There’s a little emoji with like a manicure.
Cassandra 48:29
Oh, that’s a good one.
Norman 48:31
How that does that look Kels?
Norman 48:35
Oh, there we go. Okay.
Kelsey 48:37
Okay, moving on.
Cassandra 48:39
I had to know.
Kelsey 48:41
So Doctor Koz, regarding nano micro influences, what type of prices guidelines do you recommend? Price per video, price for photo, etc.
Norman 48:50
Most times are free.
Cassandra 48:51
Yeah, often I would say free. This is where the kind of cross promotion content swap comes into play and that goes back to what we talked about Norm, like relationship building. Reach out to them, take it offline to email or whether you want to have a call with them, and see what their needs are, and then work it out from there, just don’t don’t feel like you have to have a baseline already integrated. Be flexible depending on what you’re looking for and what they’re looking for.
Norman 49:19
Since the beginning of the year, Paul Baron has received 6000 images of his product for social proof and he has not paid one penny.
Cassandra 49:30
There you go.
Kelsey 49:34
Oh, and it looks like someone wants to hire you. From Bogdan. Can we hire Cassandra?
Cassandra 49:40
I better talk to the team in Helium 10 about that one.
Kelsey 49:44
All right. We got two more. So Oleg, he’s got two questions. First one, Hello. What do you think about influencer marketplaces and about their recommendations?
Cassandra 49:55
Like people who recommend influencers for certain products or niches? I’m guessing that’s what he’s referring to. I mean, overall, I think they’re pretty credible, because it’s about their reputations as well. Like we talked about the third party databases, things like that. I would also just look for going back to social proof and seeing who people are working with, who they’re gravitating towards naturally and organically on social media, and who you want to work with. Like I said, I think especially for smaller brands, things like that, it’s more of a grassroots approach, you don’t need a company kind of telling you what to look for, it’s more about what you would like to use and utilize for your brand.
Norman 50:39
Here’s a tip too. Don’t forget to use Google. So let’s say that you’re in the bully stick category, and you want to go to Purina and you find a blog site, and you saw a really great influencer. What you do is you just put in related colon, and the blog site, and it’ll pull up all the different other bloggers that are related to that type of article and the other thing that you can look at too, and these, you can find them on the internet, but they’re all sorts of search operators, or just search strings that you can use, like site:instagram.com and then you might put the word advertising in there. So that’s somebody that has the word advertising in their profile, then this is great. Then you put “@Instagram photos and videos”, and that’ll give you everybody who wants to do photos and videos on Instagram, for your specific niche. You have to put in bully sticks or whatever you’re looking for. But that’ll do and you can even do a geo targeted search at the end in San Diego. So yeah, so don’t forget about that. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to find influencers.
Cassandra 51:58
Exactly. Great point. Norm.
Norman 52:00
Thank you.
Kelsey 52:01
Okay and our very last question, how much influencers and when do you recommend to enlarge the number of influencers? So I’m guessing, like when you start, but I think you mentioned that already?
Cassandra 52:14
Yeah, I would say, influencers grow with your brand. So when you’re a smaller brand, I would reach out to more nano influencers, if you can get a micro influencer a medium here, thought leader or an influencer, that’d be great to kind of hopefully push you over the line there. But as you grow, your influencer should grow. When you get to Kylie Jenner status, you know you’ve made it.
Norman 52:41
Right. You said something at the very beginning too, about consistency. So you can go and target all the influencers that you want, but if your brand sucks, or your product does, they’re not going to be interested. If you have a great product, they’re going to want to get involved with you and it’s not just a great Amazon listing, like you said, websites got to be consistent, social media has got to be consistent. So make sure you do that. It doesn’t usually take that much to do. It’s just being consistent.
Cassandra 53:13
Oh, yeah, I get a lot of brand ambassador increase to, and then when I go back and look at their profile, I’m just like, you don’t have an image, there’s nothing for me. It looks shady, and you’re like, No, thank you. But then you get some credible ones and that’s who I’m gonna work with more. It’s someone who has their content laid out, has their brand on point, because that will ultimately leverage my own brand.
Norman 53:40
Is there a chance that you’ll work with me?
Cassandra 53:45
We’ll talk, we’ll talk.
Norman 53:46
Okay, we’ll talk. All right, I know that you have to go very senior. So the last question is, are there any action steps that you feel we can cover very quickly, that people should do?
Cassandra 54:01
I actually just love what you just said about geotagging. I think looking for people in your region, and going through those Instagram geotags is a huge benefit. There’s also so many articles, whether it’s on BuzzFeed, there’s a lot of places that can talk to you about where the most Instagram worthy spots are and that’s where you’re also going to find a lot of content creators. So, don’t be afraid to kind of whether it’s you or you have a VA doing this and assistant, a creative specialist, Social Media Manager. Definitely start looking through those geotags and look for those hotspots, those really cool locations where people take photos and videos and curate their content at whether it’s not just about looking at Miami, it’s about looking at the Getty, in Los Angeles and finding those influencers that have gone there and post content from there because that’s a great resource that I think people don’t think about initially. So that’s a really great untapped resource and even right now we’re talking about the election. Instagram recently hid all recent posts of hashtags, just because they didn’t want false information out there. But geotags are still viable. So you never know. So it’s just kind of one of those things. It’s kind of a good, reliable source that you can always go back to.
Norman 55:22
I can’t believe it’s been about an hour.
Cassandra 55:26
Oh no! I could give it for four hours, three more hours.
Norman 55:28
Well, next time.
Cassandra 55:30
Dinner with Norm.
Norman 55:31
All right, there we go. We’ll do Dinner with Norm.
Cassandra 55:33
Lunch, dinner, appetizer.
Norman 55:36
Cassandra, you’re amazing. Thank you for coming on again and I believe Cassandra is going to be joining us once a month to share her social media secrets.
Cassandra 55:49
Oh, yeah. We’ll come up with a cool topic for next time, too. So it’ll be December right before the holidays.
Norman 55:54
Right. Of course. Yeah. There we go.
Cassandra 55:57
We’ll have some fun stuff. Okay.
Norman 55:59
So thank you so much. How do people get a hold of you?
Cassandra 56:02
Helium 10. Definitely at helium10.com. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. We have our Facebook groups and you can find me on Instagram @cassandra_craven, @helium10software. We’re everywhere. So check us out and definitely you want to become an ambassador, let me know.
Norman 56:22
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Cassandra. Until next time.
Cassandra 56:25
Thank you. Mwa.
Norman 56:27
See you.
Norman 56:28
Alright, everybody, I hope you enjoyed the podcast today and we’re going to be posting all episodes on Norman Farrar, a.k.a The Beard Guy. They’re going to be whole episodes as well as video clips as well as other content. Kelsey?
Kelsey 56:46
Yes. Hello.
Norman 56:48
Hello, son.
Kelsey 56:49
Great episode. Alright, so if you have any questions, if you’re thinking, Oh, shoot, I forgot to ask my question. You can go over to our brand new Facebook group, Lunch With Norm Amazon FBA & eCommerce collective.
Kelsey 57:08
I put the link in the bios there, right here. Go here. We have a discussion post for the post episodes. So if you have any questions, comments, captions in it. I believe Cassandra is in the group. Yep, she is. So if you have any questions, you can post them there. Norm or Cassandra could probably help you out with something for clarification and yet, if you haven’t yet, please like this episode. Maybe think of a friend who likes social media or is trying to be a brand ambassador, influencer, put them in the comments, get the word out, share the video, it would be appreciated. Thank you guys.
Norman 57:49
Yes, it would, without begging, right? That’s the next step. We’re on our knees begging. Yeah, but we won’t go there. Anyways, we have a newsletter. It came out on Monday, it comes out every Monday, it doesn’t suck. We have tons of content and it’s new content every month. It’s not going to be static and all it is it helps online sellers become better online sellers. That’s it.
Norman 58:17
Next couple days. Ah, okay. So on Friday, we’ve got Kevin King coming on again for his monthly update and that’s going to be pretty interesting. So yeah, join us there for our November, can’t believe it’s November, our November QA and I think that’s it.
Kelsey 58:39
That’s it.
Norman 58:41
So join us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at noon, Eastern Standard Time and what is this? The next two weeks are including special Thursday episodes?
Kelsey 58:50
Oh, no, no, no.
Norman 58:53
Kelsey. What’s that?
Kelsey 58:58
Copy paste.
Norman 58:59
Do you know something I don’t know? Anyway, I gotta read this thing and I don’t do this without a teleprompter. So anyway, so we’ll see everybody next week, or next Friday, hopefully, and enjoy the rest of the day.
