Finding the right influencer for your marketing campaign used to be a huge exercise. First, you’d need to scour the internet to find each influencers’ social media accounts, track their posts and their followers, only to have all this information outdated literally within minutes.
Then, there is the question of verification — do these influencers really have legitimate followings or were the numbers bought? And just how influential are they when it comes to conversions and sales?
To fill this gap, influencer marketing platforms are taking the guesswork out of this process.
CastingAsia is a new influencer marketing platform in Asia that ranks influencers across social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat.
Founded by Kosuke Sogo, CEO and co-founder of AdAsia Holdings, the platform’s key features include recruitment of influencers, management and communication with them, and monitoring and reporting the campaign performance on a macro and micro level.
For marketers interested in Chinese influencers, there’s Shanghai-based ParkLU. Launched in July 2016, the platform connects brands with thousands of Chinese bloggers, gathering their influence from six social media platforms including the “notoriously guarded WeChat network”.
“With 762 million Chinese using WeChat on a daily basis, it’s extremely important to establish brand presence on social media, with the backing validation of trusted KOLs,” says ParkLU CEO Kim Leitzes, a fashion retail strategist and marketer.
“Some brands choose to engage a few top bloggers, which may cost upwards of US$3000 per post and is rapidly increasing, while others collaborate with a wider range of ‘mid-fluencers’ and ‘micro-influencers’ in exchange for a smaller cash incentive and product sponsorship.”
Since its soft launch in 2015, ParkLU has already worked with multinational brands like H&M and Macy’s, connecting them with top influencers including Gao Bo (aka FreshBoy, 530K followers on Weibo and averages 99K views per post on WeChat) and Anny Fan (aka Anny_StyleOnTop, 1.6 million followers on Weibo and averages 50K views per post on WeChat).
ParkLU is a subscription-based service for marketers and charges a cut off any deals made on the platform, while CastingAsia is available as part of the AdAsia Digital Platform portfolio.
Both AdAsia and ParkLu can also advise and guide marketers on their influencer marketing strategy and suggest the best mix of influencers to clients.
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