Using Influencer Tactics in Creator Communities

BCG just dropped a new influencer marketing projection—if you’re a marketing head, you have to take notice. By 2030, India’s creators will influence $1 trillion in consumer spending. Today, they already shape over $350 billion—and the curve is steepening fast. But brands won’t win this wave with old playbooks. • Treating creators like billboards is a dead end. Consumers scroll past forced promos in seconds. What works now is integration—where the product fits naturally into the creator’s content, tone, and community. • The next frontier is regional creators. Most influencer strategies today still revolve around urban, English-speaking faces. But real growth lies in Tier 2 and 3—where trust, relatability, and language matter more than follower count. • Spray-and-pray influencer campaigns are losing relevance. Audiences are savvy. They can spot insincerity—and tire quickly of influencers who promote twenty five competitor brands in the same category. Brands need curated, long-term partnerships with creators who truly resonate with their ethos. Throw in product co-creation with influencers because that’s going to be a game changer. The new game is alignment, curation, and depth. Creators who live your brand, not just mention it. Integrations that feel native, not disruptive. Smart CMOs will treat creators not as media buys, but as long-term brand collaborators

I once ruined the audience of an app by spending $500k on Creators. Here's how, and what I learned... A few years back, I did a series of Creator deals to promote a mobile game app called QwikMatch, which let users randomly match to chat and play minigames. We decided to allocate ~10% of our sizeable influencer marketing budget (about $500k of $5M) to get 10-15 big Creators with varied audiences across gaming and lifestyle to promote the app. The thinking was we could pull a huge number of users with relatively little effort, see who churned and who stuck around, and then adapt our strategy accordingly. It worked so well it ruined the app. What we didn't take into account was psychographics. Psychographics are how you describe and segment audiences based on psychological factors. When working with Creators, understanding the psychographics of their audiences and choosing Creators whose audience psychographics align with your product is literally make or break. Through most of our Creator partners, we acquired hundreds of thousands of young women who used the app to make new friends through casual chatting and gameplay. Through ONE Creator, we also acquired tens of thousands of young male gamers - and that caused a plethora of problems. Long-story short, we put hardcore male gamers in virtual rooms with ultracasual female gamers, and it didn't go well. By the time we released an improved chat safety system, most of the female users had left, leaving feedback about their poor experience with lewd messages and "send nudes" requests. Most of the male users also left, but their feedback was that the minigames were too casual and boring. I learned three things from this experience: 1) Align the psychographics of the audience with the offering of the product. Inviting hardcore male gamers to play cutesy ultracasual games or match with ultracasual female users just looking to relax was doomed to fail. 2) Make sure you understand the psychographics of a Creator's audience. Analytics don't help with this - you need to dig in deep, watching their content and reading their comments/chat. Had we considered the "quality" of the gamer's chat against our user experience, we would have avoided the deal and resulting issues. 3) Don't overextend when experimenting - start small and go big once you know what works. Otherwise, you risk unintended consequences that can spiral out of control. We should have done our experiments with much smaller Creators, so that we spent less money and gained/lost fewer users. We ended up making a ton of adjustments, and started to grow the app again, but WOW did I learn a lot from that catastrophic campaign.... Have you ever had unintended consequences with a marketing or Creator campaign? --- #CreatorEconomy #InfluencerMarketing #Marketing #Growth #Startups

American Eagle Outfitters Inc. just launched a new creator programme with a 1,000 follower minimum. Not 100k or even 10k - 1k. The key to this community seems to be scale: small creators are incentivised to earn points for posting AE content (haul videos, styling challenges, seasonal campaigns), and the points convert to products and gift cards to be spent at their stores. There's also a dedicated chatroom where creators can chat directly with AE reps, who check in on their progress and offer advice. In the first week, 911 creators signed up to this scene. And it’s a million miles away from their old marketing strategy. Six months ago, AE was running one of the most infamous celebrity campaigns in recent memory. The Sydney Sweeney controversy got eyes on the brand, but it also showed the risk of putting everything behind one face with one message. So now they’ve decided to distribute risk across hundreds of smaller voices, which honestly seems to be sound logic! As mentioned in our recent Digital Voices’s Trend Report, micro-influencers who speak directly to their own communities tend to resonate in a way big-budget celeb endorsements usually can’t. Localised content that feels native rather than broadcast is a great way to build (or in this case win back) the trust of the consumer. Ashley Schapiro, AE's VP of Marketing, put it well: ‘creator-led content performs much higher than brand-led content. It's critical for us to start thinking about content as commerce.’ I’m not suggesting we need to choose between celebrity *or* creator marketing. It's knowing when to use each effectively. Celebrity for cultural spikes; smaller creator networks for sustained, distributed presence.

Influencer marketing advice I’d give you (if I wasn’t afraid to hurt your feelings 😅) I’ve spent millions on creator campaigns. Here’s what most brands are still getting wrong. (And if you’re spending £50k+ a month, this might sting a little.) → You probably need more creators, not fewer. Early campaigns aren’t about perfection - they’re about signal. If you’re placing big bets on 3-4 creators, you’re not testing. You’re gambling. → That celebrity deal you’re pining for? Don’t. Blow. The. Budget. If you’re still building brand equity - don’t skip steps. Work with lots of creators, find ones who convert. Then scale up. Even then? One celebrity post won’t change your business. → If a creator’s views aren’t consistent, you can’t predict anything. Not reach. Not ROI. Not even visibility. Stop planning for their best post. Start planning for their worst-case baseline. → You’re probably giving creators too much creative freedom. “You know your audience best” is not a strategy. You either: a) Back a format they already know works b) Or give them one that you know converts - and scale it with paid media → If you’re trusting AI to pick creators based on demographics + view count... You’ve already lost. 🧠 Psychographics > everything. If your customer doesn’t aspire to be that creator - there’s no influence to buy. → If you’re not negotiating rates, you’re just donating budget. Agents will always shoot their shot. Doesn’t mean you pay it. → If you don’t understand target CPMs by niche and platform, you’re not buying media. You’re letting yourself get played. If you've been around long enough you'll know that creator rates are ALL OVER THE PLACE. Know what you're willing to pay and let them convince YOU they're worth more. In the pic: Here's a realistic look at a big-budget influencer marketing campaign with us at WE CREATE POPULAR® You'll notice: → Virality didn't necessarily drive conversions → Spend stayed flat, but conversions optimised over time → 9-12 months in, came the biggest ROI - and it's only getting stronger This is how it looks when brand and performance start living in harmony ✨

Dear Brands, the Creator Economy Isn’t Broken. Maybe Your Playbook Is? For years, every time a campaign underperformed, I heard the same tired blame game: 👻 “Must be fake followers.” 👻 “The algorithm tanked it.” 👻 “That influencer didn’t deliver.” Meanwhile, after 10+ years in the trenches — building global creator programs, scaling talent at multiple orgs and and working with hundreds of creators and brands across APAC — here’s what I actually know: 👉 The real problem isn’t bots. 👉 It’s that most brands still don’t get creators. Especially in India. Let’s talk about the biggest blind spots still holding your campaigns back: 💡Creators aren't “assets.” They’re media companies in sneakers. You see a 30-second Reel. I see a solo production studio running scripting, shooting, editing, audio, thumbnails, posting, analytics, AND community management. You send them a 14-slide PPT brief that reads like a TVC script and then ask, “Why does this feel inauthentic?” Because you killed the vibe at the briefing stage. 💡 You want reach… but you’re ignoring resonance. A creator in Tier 2 India speaking the right language with deep audience trust will always convert more than a mega creator with millions of passive followers. India isn’t a monolith. It’s a mosaic. And cultural connection > follower count. Every. Single. Time. 💡 If you treat creators like vending machines, please do not expect brand love in return. Post once, get results? That’s not how influence works - ask your CRM team. Retainers, not random collabs, are where the magic happens. 💡 You undervalue the actual business of creativity. Late payments. Loopy contracts. IP drama. You wouldn’t do this with your agency — why do it with your creators? They’re not side hustlers. They’re full-time founders of content empires. Treat them like it — or risk losing the real ones to competitors who actually get it. So… what works? 📌 Co-create, don’t dictate. 📌 Chase community > clout. 📌 Commit for quarters, not quickies. 📌 Respect creators as partners — not platforms. Look, if the creator economy feels “broken,” I promise it’s not just because the creators are flaky or fake. It’s because the brand playbook is still stuck in 2018. Time to rewrite it. If you want to win in India — really win — partner with the storytellers already holding your audience’s trust. They’re not just building content. They’re building culture. So, What’s been your “Ohhhh... we were doing it wrong” moment with creators? Drop it below Or DM👇 Let’s learn and unlearn — together.

Why are long term creator partnerships outperforming one off influencer posts?   Because in today’s marketing mix, consistency builds trust, and trust drives performance.   I’ve seen this pattern play out across gaming, tech, SaaS, and AI brands. A single post can spark awareness, but it rarely shapes behaviour. Long term creator relationships do something different. They give brands repeated moments of credibility, relevance, and authentic education in front of the same warm audience.   When a creator integrates your product into their everyday workflow, their community begins to understand it, not just notice it. And once people understand a product, they are far more likely to adopt it.   Here’s what long term creator partnerships actually deliver: ▶️ Compounding trust: Repetition builds familiarity, and familiarity builds confidence. ▶️ Higher quality content: Creators get better at showing real use cases over time. ▶️ Stronger ROI: You’re not paying for one spike. You’re paying for consistent influence. ▶️ Marketing assets you can reuse: Tutorials, demos, reviews, and deep dives that fit across paid, owned, and earned channels.   The lifetime value of creator content is rising fast. Brands that treat influencer marketing as an ongoing relationship, not a one off tactic, are already seeing the difference.   If you want influence that lasts, you need partnerships that last too.

Celebrity fatigue is real. And brands can feel it. For years, the default playbook was simple. Big celebrity. Big cheque. Big splash. But quietly and now visibly, that equation is changing. What we are seeing on the ground is not a rejection of celebrities. It is a recalibration of influence. Across categories like #beauty, #food, #fashion, #fintech and #consumertech, #brands are asking tougher questions. Not “who is famous?” but “who actually moves behaviour?” Not “how many followers?” but “how many conversations?” And most importantly, “does this feel real to the consumer?” At Bloomingdale Public Relations, we are seeing this shift play out every day. #Campaigns that once hinged on one large face are now being broken into many smaller, sharper voices. Regional creators. Community insiders. Micro and nano #influencers who speak the language, understand the culture, and carry credibility within tight circles. This is not about cost alone, though efficiency helps. It is about control, relevance and trust. A #celebrityendorsement delivers instant visibility, but it is also top-down, transactional and increasingly predictable. #Creator-led narratives, on the other hand, travel sideways. They feel discovered, not delivered. They invite participation instead of applause. Another big change is accountability. Brands today want to see linkage. Between content and engagement. Between engagement and action. Between action and business outcome. Influencer ecosystems allow testing, learning and course correction in ways celebrity contracts never could. What is interesting is that the most effective campaigns now sit somewhere in between. A familiar face to anchor trust, supported by a chorus of credible creators who make the story local, personal and repeatable. This is not the end of celebrity marketing. But it is the end of celebrity marketing as a shortcut. Influence today is earned in communities, not rented in bulk. And brands that understand this shift early are not just saving money. They are building relevance that lasts longer than a campaign window.

𝗟𝗶𝗳𝗲𝟯𝟲𝟬 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝟭.𝟲𝗠 𝗧𝗶𝗸𝗧𝗼𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘀. 𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗽𝗽 𝗚𝗲𝗻 𝗭 "𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀." Keith Bendes and I did a live podcast at Creator Economy Live in Vegas last week with @Brittany Lamp, Senior Director of Brand Content & Community at Life360. First, some context on just how big Life360 is: • 90M families use the app globally • 6th most popular social media app • 13th largest app by daily active users • 776 TikTok posts published last year • 231M organic impressions    These numbers don't happen by accident. I noticed several key themes they implement that other successful brands apply in their social (and larger brand) strategy today: 𝟭) 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Life360 had a reputation problem. Gen Z called it the "helicopter mom" app. Instead of fighting it, they owned it. It's a jiu jitsu move. By acknowledging the perception rather than ignoring it, they've taken ownership of the narrative. This makes the brand emotionally resonant, credible, and relatable. They used social listening to understand how their community actually talks. Then they spoke that language. They even crowdsourced their most brutal hate comments and turned them into merch. 𝟮) 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 Brittany used the word "casting" intentionally when describing their creator/influencer strategy. I thought this was really smart. This reframes the conversation. When you think "casting," you stop overindexing on follower counts. You start asking better questions: Does this person represent our consumers? Do they project the image we want? Are they tonally right for the brand? The numbers matter. But the intangibles matter more. 𝟯) 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗔𝗻 𝗔𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗢𝗻 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 Life360 has an ongoing network of 50+ creators they work with. Why? Because one-off partnerships waste momentum. The first project is always the hardest. Everyone's learning how to work together. But when you work with creators over time, your efforts compound. They understand the brand. They can move fast. Life360's social team has full autonomy from leadership. No lengthy approval processes. This enables them to push content within an hour of a trend emerging. Relevance beats perfection. Every time. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻: The brands winning on social aren't fighting the conversation. They're joining it. They're building creator relationships that compound. They're prioritizing speed over polish. Thanks to the Creator Economy Live team for another great event.

Influencer Marketing Lessons Part 3 We found our best performing influencer creators without using a single influencer marketplace. We skipped influencer platforms entirely at Mailmodo. We used keyword search instead. Marketplaces organize creators by broad categories like "tech" or "marketing." Those labels are useless for a B2B SaaS product with a specific ICP. We searched terms like "email marketing AI," "SaaS growth hacks," and "marketing automation tips," then looked at who was creating content around those topics. The signal we optimized for was not follower count. It was comment quality. If comments on a creator's video were people asking "which email tool should I use," that told us their audience had the exact problem Mailmodo solves. Each platform surfaced a different type of creator: - X: thought leaders sharing opinions on marketing tools - Instagram: carousel educators breaking down concepts visually - TikTok: demo style creators reviewing SaaS products on camera - Google video search: YouTube creators ranking for keywords our audience searches (most underrated) Keyword discovery is intent driven. Marketplace discovery is category driven. For B2B SaaS, relevance always beats reach. Next I will share how we evaluated creators before reaching out, including the one metric that predicted performance better than anything else.

If your influencer strategy looks like paid media with creators’ faces, you’re already miles behind. Here’s some data from our own influencer campaigns in 2025: 1. 96% of the content that required scripting from the brand performed up to 50% worse than influencers' non-sponsored content 2. Brands that allowed creative freedom and positioning by the influencer performed the same or better than their organic posts 89% of the time 3. Repurposed influencer content (through usage or whitelisting), brought 4-x6 higher engagement and lower CPAs than past brand creative not involving influencers The brands we saw winning in 2025, like those running long-term partnerships or hybrid UGC + influencer models, saw ROIs of $5–7+ per $1 spent because they prioritized trust over control. If the return isn’t what you expected, it’s not your influencers. It’s your influencer strategy. Stop scripting. Start trusting. Give clear objectives, disclosure rules, and key messages, then let creators cook in their own style. That’s how you turn creator partnerships into a real growth engine in 2026. What’s one thing you’re loosening up on this year to drive better results?