Utilizing Organic Content Creatively to Build Partnerships

“You know there’s an influencer for every single niche. So when I think of creators, I kind of lean towards that because they have this creative mind. And they’re able to put something together out there in the world that I think is very unique to the type of personality that can be a creator. Traditionally, it’s influencer, and creator is kind of becoming this more public or more common phrase in the marketing and influencer marketing community.” Mac Enright from Lumanu

Whether the title is influencer marketer, creator, or brand ambassador, those in influential roles play a big part in brand marketing with today’s reliance on social media. Using the term creator shows the diverse approaches to brand awareness that a partnership with an influencer can bring to a company. This creativity is being explored and boundaries are being moved as influencer marketing expands and becomes a necessity due to its trending towards outpacing traditional ads. Let’s take a look at some new tactics and resources to get the most out of influencer marketing for both the brand and the creator.

Quick Breakdown of Our GRIN Gets Real Episode #12

In this week’s episode, Katya Allison from GRIN meets with Mac Enright to talk about the process of whitelisting and its usage in influencer marketing. Mac comes to this discussion from Lumanu, a company that offers an operating system for the creator economy or, as Mac simplifies, “how creators share their assets, services, and their IP to brands and making sure it’s secure for both creators and for brands.” Lumanu has two sides serving the creator platform and the brand platform and Mac breaks down what each contains for the listener. 

One of the main topics of discussion in this week’s episode centers around what it means to whitelist and how this tactic can improve a company’s marketing. Mac discusses whitelisting as the action of a brand running ads from a creator’s social handle and breaks down how dark posting plays into it all. Katya and Mac talk about these different forms of advertising and how whitelisting is separated from traditional brand ads by using the creators handle, the sponsor tag appearing under the creator’s handle, and an attached CTA button.  

“So you can create a creator ad from the creator’s handle without having the creator actually post for you organically or create a sponsored post. Once you get their permissions through the whitelisting process that we talked about, you’re able to create these influencer ads from those handles using any content that you want, whether the influencer sends you images to post…you can do all of that right in your ad account.” Mac Enright from Lumanu

In this episode, you will also learn about boosting and why this may not be an ideal tactic for brands, why whitelisting is boosting 2.0, and the benefits of whitelisting over traditional ads and influencer marketing for brands and influencers alike.

Katya gets all the best advice on how to get influencers on board and how to scale this tactic for increased ROI. Being a relatively new marketing tactic, influencers may be hesitant to participate. Whitelisting involves allowing the brand to access an influencer or creator’s social handle. Because of this, it is really important to establish a good relationship with influencers that work well with your brand image. Whitelisting is just a new and improved way to utilize this company and influencer collaborations. After all, there is plenty of organic content already out there that reaches the audiences of influential people. Why not do more with it and turn it into a paid social channel?

Mac and Katya take a dive into the benefits of whitelisting for influencers as well. This tactic is mutually beneficial, and learning how to make the most of it for both sides is a huge benefit to utilizing whitelisting and operating systems like Lumanu to streamline this process. There is also a breakdown of how to scale, what kind of starting budget a marketing department should expect to dedicate to this campaign, and how long to test out the campaign to see if it is a good fit for the company’s goals. 

Listen in to hear about how asking an influencer to whitelist is like dating and how Will Smith falls into all of this. You will also hear about the best platforms to whitelist on. Mac talks about how currently, there isn’t much use of whitelisting on platforms such as TikTok. However, there may be an opening for it to boost brand awareness. We will have to wait and see if this picks up in the future. Speaking of the future, make sure you stick around until the end to hear Mac’s predictions for whitelisting in 2021. Check out the full episode now.

Quotes from the episode

“Working and growing alongside inspiring Lumanu executives, Mac took on roles at Lumanu ranging from Client Success intern to Sales Engineer to his current position as Marketing & Growth Manager. Mac is proud to help build a Lumanu team in his home town of Milwaukee, WI, even with the company having hubs in NYC, San Francisco, and Chicago. Lumanu being his first job out of college, Mac’s professional inspiration comes from the success, relentless drive, and encouragement of his coworkers. He’s grateful to be a part of Lumanu since the beginning and excited about Lumanu’s direction and rapid growth.”