[MUSIC PLAYING] Pretty much, most of my success with Instagram marketing through, I would say, I guess, influencers. Yeah. Maybe not, like, actual individuals per se. Like, there are Instagram accounts that I follow that are just, like, city-based. Yeah, yeah. Like niche accounts. Kind of like the myHotel that you just showed me. Vertical accounts. Yeah. So there's, like, one that I work with pretty often. So like, paid shout outs?
Kind of? Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, so there's one that I've worked with named Love Toronto, and they just post pictures of the city. Yeah. And then they'll curate, obviously, those photos, and then post in the tagged photo. Yeah. And you just-- do you provide them with imagery? Yeah. Cool. But what I'm finding is that-- so let's say you use them, like, three times.
Yeah. So obviously, the-- well, sometimes, the first time will be-- There's diminishing returns. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. So once that happens, then it's harder to find a new or another person-- It can also be the content medium at times. Like, have you tried video through those accounts before? Because sometimes, mixing up the medium of content or the style of the content can really help with things like diminishing returns with your shout outs.
So yeah, like, some forms of video go kind of more viral than others. Like, also using influencers in general, even just for content creation, can be a really good idea. So outside of paying them to post the product, it can actually be gifting them the product in return for a post, or paying them to generate content for you, rather than posting.
So if there's, like, some street style blogger that you love, except he's really expensive to post because he has like 200,000 followers, for them to create content for you rather than just to post to their feed. And a lot of the time when you do pay for like, them to create 10 pieces of content or 5 pieces of content, they like the content they created, and they might include it in their post, or they might just subtly include your product in their posts sometimes from then on, because it creates that kind of relationship between you, regardless.
And a lot of the time, like, those 5 to 10 pieces of content can cost the same as just, like, one post to their social feed. So it can be a lot of, you know, on a budget, a better way to kind of get that content at scale that you're able to repurpose in different ways, like for your advertising, or just straight onto your feed, in your emails, and your website. So that would definitely be something to try as well.
OK. So another thing, obviously, would be, yeah, looking more at-- I don't know. Have you done much work with influencers in the past? I have. Yeah. I have a shorter PR list. It's not extensive because the brand does sort of sell itself through customer referrals. Yeah. But I've started sending more PR boxes to influencers and makeup artists, just to create looks, so the customers also know what kind of looks they can create with the items they're getting in the box.
I love that. And also just for their personal opinion, because the beauty industry is very review-based. Like, people really need to see reviews, and they need to visualize what they're getting in a box before actually buying it. I love that. It's really important. And tutorials as well? Yes, correct. Yeah. I know that there's so many of those huge makeup tutorial accounts, and makeup tutorials go really viral on Instagram. I'm always seeing them on my Explore page.
Yeah we have a really great page that posts us. So it's called DUPETHAT, they have over a million followers. Amazing. And whenever they post us, it's insane. How do they post you? Like, do you pay them to post you? Or do they-- do you gift them to post you? I could have paid them to do a YouTube video, but I actually just send them a box, and they decide to post it or not, but they've been posting it the whole time, so it's been great, That's amazing.
Yeah, that's so great. So have you tried to approach kind of more accounts to do that at scale? Yeah. More vertical accounts? I have. I've been trying to use micro-influencers more than the bigger ones, just because I feel like they have more of a niche following. My subscriber base is very-- it's quite of a niche. It's a younger crowd, I would say. It's between are 24 to 35, so not-- let's say, mid.
Yeah. I would definitely say that's a mid crowd. Mid-age. Younger, I would call, like, 16-year olds. 16, exactly. It is $35 plus shipping, right? So you had to have some sort of disposable income to afford that. Yeah, of course. So the-- I find that the micro-influencers are definitely able to help me reach those people better. Yeah.
And you can do that as a product for post sort of thing. Yes. Yeah. That definitely makes sense. I think utilizing kind of a bit more of the micro-influencer content as well, while keeping up your kind of consistent brand aesthetic is also, of course, really important. Yeah, that's somewhere I've been struggling, to be honest. [MUSIC PLAYING] I feel like a lot of influencers are obviously open to receiving product.
Yeah. But what's the best way to ensure that even if it's just a picture-- because I find myself sometimes having to follow them, like, email multiple times. And that's sort of-- I don't know if that's, like, basically hounding them, you know? Follow-ups are something that is normal. Like, it's-- you do often need to follow up with an influencer to make sure that they do post.
You could get-- like, it can just be good within your team to train somebody, like a customer service person or something, to be able to do those follow-ups rather than you having to do them all the time, because, I mean, it would use up a lot of your time. Exactly. But follow-ups, you know, they are worth it. Because a lot of the time, they're not deliberately trying not to post the product. They've just honestly forgotten because they are gifted a lot of things.
It's not always front to mind. So I think the main thing is that they're already happy to post, like, and feature and be gifted your product, so they understand the value of the product, which is great. So you don't have as much of a problem with the reach out stage. It's more in the campaign management stage. Correct. Yeah. I think even just having more systems in place, like a spreadsheet. Do you have like, an influencer spreadsheet? Yeah, I do.
And do you say, like, followed up here? Like, email here? Yeah. So, I think you're doing-- like, it sounds like you're doing it in the right sort of way. And I know it's frustrating, having to follow up, except at the same time, outside of paying for a post, that's the only way that you can kind of do it. Like, if you're paying, it makes sense that they kind of lock it in more. It's like a business transaction. But if it's gifted, you're definitely, yeah, going to need to kind of keep following up, which, yeah, can be frustrating.
And do you have any tools on, let's say, filtering or reviewing the quality of their audience and their engagement? Yeah, well, I mean, I have an influencer marketing platform called Hey Influences. And basically, what you do is you can go through-- you can create a campaign on the platform, and that campaign is then boosted out to our database of invite-only influencers.
Then you can also-- so then, influences are able to hey your campaign, which is-- it's kind of like a dating app for influencers and brands. So an influencer can hey you. If you hey them back, you match and go down the campaign workflow together, and it's kind of a good way to keep all of those relationships in the one spot, to get, you know, things like reminders to follow up. We can send you email reminders, if the influencer hasn't posted and it's been a certain amount of time, for example.
And all the content is tracked through the one place. So when an influencer does post or create a story, that's dragged into the platform. So either they'll upload it, or we'll see if they use the branded hashtag, and we'll pull it into the platform, so that's a handy way. I think because you do do it at a bit more scale, like, I wouldn't suggest everybody needs a platform, of course. But the brands that are ready to kind of scale and take their gifting or their, like, even their macro-influencer marketing to the next level, we have a mix of macro and micro.
And we do have a lot in the beauty niche as well, that you can filter as well. So outside of influencers hey-ing you, you can hey an influencer as well. So then you use the search filters, and you can use things like their location, gender, age, reach, and engagement. So there are a few different factors. Another good thing if you'll collaborating with maybe more of a macro-influencer so that maybe you will pay or just that you're going to kind of maintain that relationship more, is you can ask them to send you a screenshot of the analytics page of a profile.
Yeah. Have you ever done that before? Yeah, I have. Yeah. So that helps you at least see things, like the breakdown. Correct. [MUSIC PLAYING]