How Both Shopify & Afluencer Collabs Work

Before we analyze the pros and cons of each platform, here’s a bird’s eye view of the key differences when we pit Shopify Collabs vs Afluencer.

Getting started

Shopify: Go to the Shopify App Store, find the Shopify Collabs app, and install it.

Afluencer: No app installation is required. All collaborations can be managed directly from the Afluencer website—that’s one less step than Shopify!

Creating an account

Shopify: On the Settings panel in your Shopify app, click on Apps and sales channels, and select Shopify Collabs. Click on ‘Open app’ and accept all the terms and conditions.

Afluencer: Sign up on the Afluencer website, answer a few prompts, and get started right away—no additional technicalities or reading through complex documentation.

Collaborating with influencers/ Connecting and customizations

• Shopify: Shopify Collabs streamlines the influencer collaboration process, but may not offer all the capabilities necessary for merchants who want an extensively customized collaboration environment.

• Afluencer: Influencers can create custom profiles that represent their brands on Afluencer. With custom communication channels, if a mutual match is found, Afluencer introduces the brand’s decision-maker, facilitating tailored, one-on-one conversations.

Afluencer is relatively simpler than Shopify Collabs: no intermediary salespersons, no contracts, and no fees.

Pricing: Shopify Collabs vs Afluencer

Afluencer Pricing

Afluencer offers three plans at different price points, which you can choose from depending on your influencer marketing goals.

The most popular VIP plan starts at $49 per month. Some of the noteworthy features include:

• Feature your brand: Get your brand in front of thousands of Afluencer-verified influencers. Plus, get featured in a popular newsletter.
• Connect with your ideal influencers: Choose influencers from niches like beauty, wellness, lifestyle, travel, and more. Get 2x influencer invitation credits per day. (1 credit = 1 invitation)
• Get introductions to influencers: When there’s a mutual match for your brand, Afluencer makes a personal intro to your new partner.
• Promote your partner program: Afluencer feeds your partner pipeline with quality influencers, ambassadors, and/or affiliates.
• Multiple campaigns: Create simultaneous “collabs” for different products and partner tiers. Manage extra brands too.
• Premium badge for all your brands and collabs: With this badge, your brand profile will stand out to influencers.

Access the full list of VIP plan features here.

The Concierge Plan is priced at $99 per month and is designed to give your brand maximum exposure. In addition to all VIP features, it offers the following:

• 5x influencer invitation credits per day.
• 1x feature in Afluencer’s quarterly newsletter.
• 1x custom video created about your brand’s influencer program.

The Boss Plan ($199/mo) offers the ultimate exposure and customer service from Afluencer.com. In addition to all VIP and Concierge features, its key highlight is a monthly strategy call to review and offer feedback on how to improve your Collabs further.

Shopify Collabs Pricing

Merchants on the Shopify, Advanced, or Shopify Plus plans can use Shopify Collabs for free, as the cost is factored into the monthly subscription fee. Shopify’s plans are priced at $79, $299, and $2,300 per month respectively.

Additionally, all commission payments on Collabs are subject to a 2.9% payment processing fee, payable by the merchant. Additionally, foreign currency exchange fees may apply for merchants when using Shopify Collabs for international collaborations.

Shopify Collabs vs Afluencer: The Key Differences

If you’ve been considering Shopify Collabs but aren’t sure how it ranks up against competitors, we’ve got you covered. Let’s look at how it fares against Afluencer Collabs on some of the most essential parameters.

Setting up & onboarding

Signing up for a Collabs account on Shopify seems complex, even for existing users. The process involves multiple steps that require navigating the Shopify dashboard and the Shopify App Store which might not be straightforward for all.

Specifically, you need to install the Shopify Collabs App from the Shopify App Store and then log into your Shopify store to integrate it back to the dashboard. Collabs’ lengthy sign-up process is, on the whole, quite inconvenient.

To set up an account, users need to read through extensive documentation: the scope of services being offered, costs involved, such as payment processing fees, and obligations of the store owner within the app’s ecosystem.

Conversely, Afluencer’s setup is relatively hassle-free. When you visit the website, you’ll find options to sign up or sign in. New user? Sign up on the app, answer a few prompts, and you’re ready to use the platform. Creators can explore and find potential partnerships without signing up or knowing the full benefits of the platform.

User experience

Shopify Collabs has a fairly intuitive interface. A navigation panel to the left of the screen and multiple settings keep users informed about their accounts. Businesses can discover new creators, find affiliates, shortlist their ideal candidates, and track payments. They can also check which applicants are interested in working with them.

Afluencer has a clean design and a seamless, minimalistic interface. The welcome dashboard has all the essential details about brand campaigns, such as the applications, influencers you may like, your brands, and past saved searches. You can additionally explore the influencer directory to find more influencers.

Functionality

Shopify Collabs offers several features for merchants and creators:

• Merchants have access to an extensive creators’ database.
• Creators can collaborate with millions of brands on the Shopify Collab app.
• Users can track their performance and payments using a data-driven dashboard.

However, many businesses find the curated influencer lists, collaboration tools, and analytics offered by Shopify Collabs overwhelming. The multitude of features and options can be daunting. A learning curve is associated with leveraging the app fully for influencer & affiliate marketing.

Afluencer, in contrast, is a feature-rich tool packed with the essential features that brands and creators need for collaboration. The Afluencer dashboard keeps users updated with past and ongoing campaigns. There are also separate sections to track your sales and creator performance.

Creators can also check collaboration programs directly from the homepage without signing up. Once registered, they’ll get updates about new programs to participate in, making it easier for brands to identify interested creators faster.

It’s worth mentioning that the app’s huge Influencer Directory of 24,000+ creators has powerful search filters to help you always find the most relevant niche creators for your brand. Another great feature is the ability to chat with any of the creators and maintain prompt communication on the same platform.

How Shopify Collabs and Afluencer Can Be Used for Influencer Marketing

Finding brand-fit creators has always challenged marketers and independent store owners. Browsing, vetting, and shortlisting the right creators independently is time-consuming. Getting them the right exposure and building a healthy relationship is an added struggle.

Let’s take a sharper view of how Shopify Collabs and Afluencer can amplify your influencer marketing efforts.

Afluencer Collabs

Afluencer is the digital marketplace where top influencers and brands meet. It’s designed to bring your brand’s vision to life, connecting you with the perfect influencers to amplify your success. Whether you’re trying to boost brand awareness, drive sales, or expand your reach, Afluencer’s curated network of influencers can help you unlock the potential of influencer marketing for your brand. 

Let’s look at the three key benefits brands can expect from Afluencer Collabs:

1. Connect with your ideal influencers

Afluencer has A-list influencer partners creating content in 71 different interests, from beauty to wellness, lifestyle, music and dance, and beyond.

Brands can access verified influencers, micro-influencers, nano-influencers, and creators with real followers who can cater to different market segments and campaign goals. The influencer discovery feature lets you search through influencers to find your ideal partnership. You can filter, sort, and invite influencers in your niche to join your campaign.

The best part? Influencers can come directly to you. If they find your collaboration matches their interests, they can apply to see if they are a match. Influencers can search and apply for collaborations directly from their dashboard.

Working with multiple influencers? Use Afluencer to manage invitations, relationships, and more on one platform.

2. Quick Collab application process

Afluencer offers a streamlined collaboration process. Brands can apply with just the click of a button, making initiating partnerships quick and easy. Set criteria by interests, followers, channels, and more to find the perfect partnership. Set up pay-per-post or commission-based collabs where influencers can apply to join.

Review your shortlisted influencers’ profiles and social assets, and evaluate their engagement scores and other insights. When you’re ready, negotiate a deal with them. Afluencer allows you to create and manage up to 100 Collabs across your brand portfolio.

3. Influencer relationship management

Once you pick the right influencers for your marketing needs, Afluencer lets you direct message them and explore new partner opportunities in the chatroom. Brands can keep track of their partnerships, invitations, contracts, payments, and more, right from the Afluencer dashboard.

4. Promote your brand and collab

When you choose Afluencer, your brand, and Collab get to appear on the Afluencer podcast. The podcast is published on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, and the Afluencer YouTube channel, ensuring it reaches a wide, captive audience. Afluencer also features your brand in its quarterly newsletter, so you can be sure your brand is visible and top-of-mind among creators and influencers in its exclusive network.

5. Performance tracking

Afluencer provides brands with tools and analytics to measure the performance of their collaborations accurately, including reach, engagement and much more. These insights enable brands to understand their ROI, iterate their strategies, and make data-driven decisions for future campaigns.

Shopify Collabs

With Shopify Collabs, brands can find creators, manage their marketing campaigns effortlessly, and stay on top of expenses. The app helps streamline the process of working with creators.

Let’s look at the three key benefits brands can expect from Shopify Collabs:

1. Discover niche creators from a marketplace

Shopify Collabs’ Creator Marketplace is a database of creators from various niches and channels, picked by the Shopify team. Any brand can set up an account and create an application form for creators interested in collaborating.

Alternatively, brands can search the database to find creators that check the boxes. Merchants can filter profiles by target audience, follower size, channel, and more.  So, you only need to shortlist the most promising profiles and start a conversation.

2. Hire and manage creator relationships

With Collabs, store owners can search from thousands of candidates, and then partner with their selected creators directly from the platform.

Collabs generates customized insights so brands can optimize their campaigns for maximum impact. Use these to frame creator guidelines and set campaign metrics. Additionally, it gives you unique links and discount codes so you can work with multiple creators simultaneously and track their output.

3. Win affiliate sales and track payments

Shopify Collabs simplifies affiliate relationships. Get a comprehensive view of your affiliates’ sales; the app automatically calculates commissions for each. Additionally, you can pay affiliates directly from the platform. It generates analytics for each affiliate’s progress so you can reward high performers.

Collabs handles the essentials, so you don’t need to hire a large affiliate marketing team.

How to Decide Which Platform: Shopify Collabs vs Afluencer

While Shopify Collabs is a worthy addition to Shopify’s product portfolio, we must remember that it’s a tag-along app to what is essentially an e-commerce platform. Afluencer, on the other hand, is a feature-packed platform solely for influencer marketing. It has been conceptualized, designed, and built to address every need in the influencer-marketing ecosystem.

Additionally, you may need to consider some of the main drawbacks of Shopify Collabs:

Compatibility Concerns

While Shopify Collabs is tailored to Shopify users, businesses using a different platform (like WooCommerce or Magento) may find integration with the platform difficult. This may require you to explore alternative collaboration platforms. Unfortunately, a disjointed collaboration experience could impact your ability to achieve your desired outcomes.

Limited Customization Options

Although Shopify Collabs simplifies collaboration, it has certain limitations in terms of customization. You may need to rely on third-party tools, such as third-party CSS or HTML tools to customize the look and feel of your collaboration portal. This poses a challenge for businesses with limited resources as it’s time-consuming and may require technical expertise.

Potential for Increased Competition

While collaborations with other businesses can unlock opportunities, it could also increase competition. By partnering with businesses in your industry, you might inadvertently give them insights into your business strategies and operations.

For example, collaborating to launch a new product means your competitor might gain insights into your customer base, pricing strategies, and marketing tactics. This would give them a competitive advantage and make it more challenging for your business to stand out in the crowded marketplace.

Why Afluencer Wins vs Shopify Collabs

Signing up for a Shopify Collabs account is complex. It involves a multi-step process with various settings and terms to navigate, and sophisticated tools to master. Some of the platform’s shortcomings also include the absence of email customization and no multi-language feature. Users on the app store report frequent glitches related to poor loading times,  integrations with social platforms, and others.

Afluencer wins on multiple attributes: quick setup and ease of use, a large database of active influencers, and a dedicated support team. Another key advantage is that where Shopify Collabs only allows you to connect with micro-influencers directly, Afluencer lets you connect with any influencer via direct messaging.

The clincher, for us, is that Afluencer is a dedicated platform for influencer marketing. It has been thoughtfully designed around the needs of influencers and brands and effortlessly facilitates interactions between both sides.

Install the Afluencer app for Shopify here.

The post Shopify Collabs vs. Afluencer Collabs  appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> https://afluencer.com/collaborate-your-way-to-success-with-influencers-creators/ Thu, 23 Feb 2023 10:35:00 +0000 https://afluencer.com/?p=21400 Imagine the frustration of having an incredible product but no way to get it into the hands of potential customers. That happened to Vela’s Raphael Velazquez during the shutdowns in 2020-2021. With businesses closed and people stuck at home, Raphael struggled to find a way to get his exercise resistance bands into the hands of […]

The post Collaborate Your Way To Success With Influencers And Creators appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> Imagine the frustration of having an incredible product but no way to get it into the hands of potential customers. That happened to Vela’s Raphael Velazquez during the shutdowns in 2020-2021. With businesses closed and people stuck at home, Raphael struggled to find a way to get his exercise resistance bands into the hands of people who needed them.

Fortunately, he discovered Afluencer, a Shopify influencer marketing app that connects merchants with influencers who have followers that fit their target customers. Through Afluencer, Raphael recruited over 100 influencers to help him promote and sell his products.

Raphael represents a brand’s determination to overcome obstacles by utilizing every tool at their disposal. In this article, Brett Owens, Founder, and Chief Matchmaker at Afluencer, shares how to achieve your business goals through successful Shopify collaborations.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST: Brett Owens talks about Collabs on the eCommerce Fastlane Podcast

5 Reasons Why Partnering with Micro-Influencers Outweighs Mega-Influencers

Amidst the challenges of high CAC and disappointing return on ad spend, merchants are refusing to give up. They seek ways to be more efficient and cost-effective in acquiring new customers, recognizing influencers’ critical role in the creator economy.

Micro-influencers have emerged as a compelling alternative to mega-influencers. Here are some key benefits of partnering with micro-influencers over their larger counterparts:

1. Targeted audience: Micro-influencers have a smaller but more targeted audience. This audience distribution is better for companies with niche products or services that may not appeal to wider audiences.

2. High engagement: Micro-influencers typically have an engaged audience that values their opinions and recommendations. As a result, their content can carry more weight compared to mega-influencers, who may have a larger but less engaged audience.

3. Cost-effectiveness: Partnering with micro-influencers is a low-cost alternative to expensive mega-influencers, making micro-influencers a more accessible option for small and medium-sized businesses with limited budgets.

4. Better authenticity: Many people view micro-influencers as more authentic and relatable than mega-influencers, who may have a more curated image. This perception can build trust with the audience and lead to higher conversion rates.

5. Work ethic: Micro-influencers are eager to work with brands and ensure their campaigns are successful. They are more likely to create high-quality content than mega-influencers, who may produce generic content.

“You want to collab with someone who’s laser-focused on their interest and aligns with your product.” – Brett Owens

Using Afluencer to Find Shopify Influencers

After deciding to invest in micro-influencers, it is essential to know how to use the Afluencer app to find them:

• Add the app: Don’t be afraid to converse with an Afluencer representative to get help navigating the app.

• Post a collab: A collab serves as a job description and platform for influencers to connect with brands, outlining the partnership expectations. If there are many product lines, it is acceptable to establish more than one collab opportunity.

• Define requirements: Set a price range and use filters to narrow down preferred demographic characteristics.

• Review applications: Eligible influencers can apply after meeting the criteria to collab. Merchants will use metrics such as influencer engagement rates to find the best match.

Hire each influencer as a one-time opportunity, with the potential to continue working together if the partnership is successful. However, if the collab is not successful, move on.

“The goal is to establish a reliable group of partners who can be collaborated with regularly.” – Brett Owens

Managing User-Generated Content Rights

Demand for user-generated content (UGC) is high, as consumers prefer content created by fellow users. However, brands must navigate the issue of content ownership, as the content is, by nature, owned by the influencers who make it.

To get ownership of UGC, merchants should establish clear guidelines and compensation structures with Shopify creators from the outset. Offering additional payment to influencers for content ownership is recommended.

Here are two considerations for brands seeking UGC rights:

1. Clarify with influencers upfront the intent to repurpose the content they create. This discussion ensures that both parties are clear on content ownership and repurposing rights.

2. Give proper attribution to the influencer when using their UGC. It acknowledges their work and reinforces the authenticity of the content.

Picking the Right Way to Pay Influencers and Creators

Afluencer recommends merchants view payments from an affiliate marketing recruitment standpoint. By splitting up pay for recruitment and performance, merchants ensure that they are only paying for the actual results of the influencers rather than for their potential reach.

Here’s how it can be done:

• Afluencer is easy to use in tandem with any current affiliate app, with no extra tech set-up needed. Brands can use Afluencer to find their micro-influencer affiliates. The affiliates will then sign up with the brand’s preferred Shopify influencer tracking software. The influencer will receive their commission payment through the tracking app.

• Brands can also pay their influencers via product seeding; in return, they may receive a commission.

• Pay-per-post agreements can be paid via PayPal. Brands can opt to ship the product they want the influencer to review but hold off on payment until the influencer posts. This is because the product represents an upfront cost and effort. It’s also possible to negotiate a one-off price point based on the influencer’s size and the campaign conducted.

It’s advisable to have a basic agreement or template outlining how these payments will be structured. Having a clear structure can help to build trust and transparency.

“Affiliate marketing offers a guaranteed return on investment, as payment is based on commission or success.” – Brett Owens

Start Your Shopify Influencer Marketing Strategy

For those looking to get ahead, now is the time to invest in micro-influencers. Afluencer takes a unique approach to affiliate marketing by tapping into the up-and-coming micro-influencers. They often produce higher-quality content, making them great affiliates for merchants. It’s still an emerging field, so there are plenty of opportunities to grow and succeed.

The post Collaborate Your Way To Success With Influencers And Creators appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> https://afluencer.com/shopify-influencer-marketing-things-to-know/ Fri, 20 Jan 2023 11:50:57 +0000 https://afluencer.com/?p=21154 When Lena Sarsour and Akram Abdallah started Nominal, their Shopify jewelry brand, they didn’t have enough money to pay influencers. Instead, they gifted their jewelry to a few influencers and found visibility when these influencers posted positive reviews of their products. And guess what? It paid off. Today, Nominal is a seven-figure business and is […]

The post Influencer Marketing for Shopify: 5 Things You Need to Know appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> When Lena Sarsour and Akram Abdallah started Nominal, their Shopify jewelry brand, they didn’t have enough money to pay influencers. Instead, they gifted their jewelry to a few influencers and found visibility when these influencers posted positive reviews of their products.

And guess what? It paid off. Today, Nominal is a seven-figure business and is growing with influencer marketing as one of its three core avenues for success.

Influencer marketing is more than just a buzzword for ecommerce brands. The market was valued at an incredible $16.4 billion in 2022 with limitless possibilities for brands with Shopify stores. In this article, we’ll share the five most crucial things to know about influencer marketing for Shopify to help you kickstart your efforts today.

5 Reasons Shopify Influencer Marketing Should Be A Top Priority

Influencer marketing can be a time-consuming and effort-intensive channel, but those efforts will eventually materialize into worthwhile ROI. That’s why 54% of all businesses investing in influencers are ecommerce brands, many of them operating on Shopify.

Let’s look at five ways influencer marketing can prove valuable when working to promote your online business.

1. Connect with a niche audience and drive conversions

If you run a niche brand on Shopify with a small target audience, you know how difficult it can be to get in front of the right people and convert them into customers. This is one of the biggest reasons Shopify brands run influencer marketing campaigns: the opportunity to build a stronger rapport with a niche audience. Research confirms that educational influencers—those who aim to inform their audience rather than entertain—can bring warm leads and sales by endorsing a brand online.

Here’s one example: The niche superfood-focused brand Blume was able to reach the right audience in a single influencer collaboration with Healthillie, a creator in the fitness space. With this festive marketing campaign, the brand positioned itself as a great option for healthy cooking at home by having the influencer share a recipe that included their product. Not only did this validate the product with social proof, but it also gave a use case that showed the product in action.

2. Refresh your content strategy with quality content

Another advantage for Shopify brands working with influencers relates to content strategy and production. Organic content produced in-house can only get you so far; you need some social proof and user-generated content to mix things up. Research by Aspire indicates brands that prioritize influencer content over professional photo shoots and repurpose this content across social channels perform better than those that don’t.

The good news: you can level up your content strategy with a mix of paid partnerships and product seeding.

Here’s a great example from Nature Made. The brand actively features influencers on its Instagram feed to showcase the different benefits of its health products. You’ll notice these influencer posts are mixed in with product photos and informational content to break things up.

3. Get more bang for your buck with a higher ROI

One study concluded that businesses make as much as $6.50 for every dollar they spend on influencer marketing. Not bad, right?

That’s not all. HBR’s latest study on influencer marketing revealed that a 1% increase in your influencer marketing spend can increase engagement by 0.46%, indicating a positive ROI. These numbers can be a lot higher depending on your choice of influencers. The same study identified seven factors as the main determinants of your influencer marketing success.

Once you have a solid influencer marketing strategy (more on that shortly), you’re on the path to multiplying your sales and hitting those revenue targets thanks to higher engagement and greater visibility on social media.

4. Create a halo effect to increase your credibility

Shopify brands working with influencers bring the benefit of the “halo effect.” What is it? When an influencer talks passionately about your brand and vouches for you, their followers trust you simply because they trust the influencer.

This works well for brands new to a market or vertical looking to build a good reputation. Partnering with the right influencers can establish trust and inspire their followers to buy from you: Data shows 37% of buyers trust influencers over brands to make their shopping decisions.

5. Scale your following and traffic

The most obvious benefit of running influencer marketing campaigns for Shopify is the massive reach you get from featuring on an influencer’s profile. Social media is a goldmine for Shopify brands and working with influencers will give you that extra boost to gain new followers and maximize awareness. In fact, one study concluded that if brands spent just 1% more on influencers, they’d gain a meaningful increase in engagement.

You can also optimize these campaigns with a Shopify influencer app to increase traffic to your website or landing page, redirect new followers to your website, and enhance your SEO performance.

5 Things to Know About Influencer Marketing for Your Shopify Store

Launching and scaling an influencer marketing campaign isn’t easy. However, if you do it the right way, it can help you build social proof, generate awareness, and create a community of buyers. Here are five essential things to remember when planning your influencer marketing strategy:

1. Start by defining strategic goals and channels

Not establishing your goals and channels for your influencer marketing strategy is like running blindfolded through a minefield. You’re setting yourself up for destruction. Without the right goals, your influencer marketing campaigns are a gamble wherein you might win or lose all your investments. Instead of leaving it all to chance, brainstorm with your team to identify what you want to achieve through a campaign and set benchmarks that indicate success.

Your influencer marketing goals can be:

• Winning new followers
• Getting more conversions
• Increasing brand awareness
• Improving audience engagement
• Building credibility and confidence
• Attracting a new segment of the audience

With goals in place, you can start to build your strategy. Look where your buyers hang out the most and study different channels to identify the ones that will help you hit your goals.

2. Create an ideal influencer persona

Once you’ve outlined your goals and channels, it’s time to visualize who you want to work with—the ideal influencers to fulfill these goals for your Shopify influencer marketing efforts.

This is tricky if you’re running a campaign for the first time since you might not have enough performance data yet to identify the key qualities of your ideal influencers. Regardless of whether you have this data or not, here are a few factors to consider when defining your brand-fit influencer persona:

Audience demographics

The success of your campaign ultimately boils down to the kind of audience you’re reaching. Prepare yourself to hit the jackpot with a list of the demographic characteristics of your target buyers, like age, gender, income, and more. Use this data as one of the criteria for filtering influencers.

Engagement rate

A large or small following isn’t a genuine indicator of an influencer’s potential. Sometimes a micro-influencer with 10,000 followers can bring you more clicks or sales than a mega-influencer with thousands of followers. Check their engagement rate to understand how well each influencer’s content resonates with their audience.

Content type

The content you want to promote depends on your choice of channels. If you focus on Facebook and Instagram, you likely need influencers to post short-form videos and stories more than feed posts. This is because short, snackable videos are easy to consume for your buyers, and short-form video is the top lead generation and engagement tactic today. Identify the top-performing content formats for your chosen channels and shortlist influencers accordingly.

Personality

A less objective factor to consider for your ideal influencer persona is their personality. This should closely align with your brand values to add a more authentic appeal to your campaign. For example, if you’re a millennial-friendly brand with an outspoken brand personality, work with millennial influencers known for their unabashed honesty.

Type

You need to know what type of influencers will best suit your campaign goals and fit within your budget. Here are the four main types of influencers and their rates:

• Mega-Influencers: These are stars with celebrity status and a massive following. They charge above $10,000 for a single post on Instagram.
• Macro-Influencers: These are influencers with a follower size between 500,000 and 1 million. They are more professional than micro-influencers but not as expensive as mega-influencers. Their charges are $5,000-$10,000 per post.
• Micro-Influencers: These influencers have just over 10,000 followers and work at a smaller scale. They can charge anywhere between $100 and $500 for a post.
• Nano-Influencers: These are the smallest scale influencers with low follower counts but high engagement rates. They charge $10-$100 per post.

With these considerations, you can profile your ideal influencers and move on to the next step of vetting and hiring from the talent pool.

3. Design a vetting, hiring, and onboarding workflow

The most important part of developing your influencer marketing strategy for Shopify is finding the right candidates. It’s not as simple as searching a few keywords on TikTok, finding decent candidates, and sending them a pitch. Doing this will, at best, get you some high-budget influencers on every competitor’s radar.

Instead, try multiple methods to build a solid list of potential candidates. Here are a few methods to try for expanding your influencer search:

Use an influencer database tool

Afluencer is the perfect place to start your search for brand-fit influencers. The tool gives you access to a massive influencer database of 16,000 influencers with powerful filters to source only the most relevant talent for your campaigns.

The best part? You can save your search setting to avoid the hassle of creating a new search every time you start shortlisting influencers. Once you’ve found the right candidates, chat with them immediately and take the conversation forward.

Perform hashtag research

You can manually look through the hundreds of influencers on different platforms by searching relevant hashtags. This method is time-consuming, but you can hit the jackpot by closely reviewing every influencer’s profile yourself.

Check your customer roster

There’s nothing better than turning your existing customers into advocates. Go through your list of followers to see if there are already creators with a network you can tap into. If not, see if any of your followers stand out regarding content creation. Since they already use your products and follow your brand, they’re more likely to accept your pitch.

Look at your competitors’ talent

A quick way of finding brand-fit influencers is by studying your competition and reaching out to the influencers they work with. This can work well if you want to work with nano-influencers and micro-influencers since they sometimes don’t have restrictive contracts. However, if you’re going to poach talent from a competitor, be sure the content they create for you is original and very different so it doesn’t seem copied. Also, check to see if the influencer has any standing non-compete agreements!

Browse through creator marketplaces

Creator marketplaces on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok will also give you a great group of candidates to pursue. These are designed to connect brands with creators and build mutually beneficial relationships for stakeholders.

Finding influencers can be challenging. However, once you’ve shortlisted your top candidates, go back to your ideal influencer persona to find the best-suited influencers from your shortlists. When you’re ready, it’s time to onboard them to your influencer marketing program. The onboarding process should give them clear guidelines on:

• Your brand vision
• Campaign goals
• Your expectations
• Their deliverables
• Timelines
• Payments

Remember to lay out your workflows and guidelines as part of the onboarding process, as this will minimize friction in their experience working with you and your team.

4. Decide how you want to collaborate with influencers

You can collaborate with influencers in many ways. But the trick is in choosing the right ways that suit your goals, budget, and target audience. Here are a few of the most common techniques Shopify brands use when it comes to influencer marketing:

Giveaways

Host a contest with the influencers to win more followers and get more traction on your page. Here’s a straightforward example of how this could work from Sunset Snuggles.

Collaborations

Song of Style’s social media Collabs with owner and influencer Aimee Song is the perfect example of an influencer-branded collection. By leveraging her audience and influence, these products get in front of an engaged audience.

Product seeding

Send your products as gifts that influencers can post on their profile. It’s not a paid partnership but focuses on word-of-mouth marketing instead.

Briogeo sent its hair mark to beauty influencer Mikayla Jane as a gift, and her post garnered close to 80,000 likes on Instagram. That’s the power of product seeding, where brands don’t pay influencers and only send a gift instead.

Account takeovers

Let influencers take over your social accounts and interact with your followers. They’ll also invite their audience to jump to your page to increase engagement.

This is an example of when Full Psycle invited Peach, a micro-influencer, to take over their Instagram account and go behind the scenes with her day.

Whitelisted content

Whitelist influencers’ content for your brand and run it as ads from your business account. Here’s an example by Factor Meals:

Affiliate partnerships

Share discounts or promo codes with influencers and encourage them to get sales through an affiliate partnership. Decide on a commission structure and pay for only what you earn.

As part of this, be sure to set up all the necessary workflows to offer them a seamless experience.

5. Create a system for tracking and attributing ROI

Your influencer marketing efforts are difficult to measure if you don’t measure the impact of your strategy and optimize it. To track performance, select high-level KPIs to assess your campaign’s results and decide on ways to review individual influencers’ contributions.

Track page views, likes, comments, unique visitors, and other such metrics to calculate the earned media value you’ve won. This will help you identify the monetary value of the reach you could buy through these influencers.

Here are a few tried-and-tested methods to track individual performance:

• Review post-performance through in-platform analytics.
• Create and track personalized promo codes‍ for every influencer.
• Use UTMs to track sessions and sales coming from every influencer.
• Create unique landing pages to measure the traffic generated by different candidates.

Attributing ROI to the right influencers is important to separate the best performers from the low performers. You can focus on retaining these candidates for long-term partnerships.

5 Examples of Influencer Marketing for Shopify

Now that you’re all set to design and execute a failproof influencer marketing strategy for your Shopify store, take a look at these five brands doing everything right to win with influencers:

100% Pure

100% Pure is an organic cosmetics brand with a sizable audience on social media.

Most influencer content showcases how to use different products, like this one in collaboration with Nikki Rodri. The beauty influencer uses various 100% Pure products to show her makeup routine and tells viewers how these products look on her face.

Other influencer collaborations also talk about the benefits of their products in different contexts, like self-care, routine skincare, and more.

Tula

Tula is a probiotic skincare brand competing in a saturated market. The brand places influencers at the core of its content strategy and proactively partners with them to create impactful content. They run product-focused campaigns, spotlighting only one product per campaign.

For example, the brand has been pushing its new launch, 24-7 Moisture Cream with the help of influencers. These influencers have complete creative freedom to promote Tula products in their own style, without making them look too artificial.

Vitruvi

Vitruvi produces diffusers and blends to make your space more fragrant. Since they’re a niche brand with a specific target audience, they collaborate with lifestyle influencers to spread the word about its products.

To buy a fragrance-related product without actually smelling it, buyers would definitely need a recommendation from a person they trust. This collaboration with a home decor blogger, Wendy proves just how it’s done.

Brands like Virtuvi can partner with influencers to create social proof and gain their prospects’ trust.

Vuori Clothing

Vuori, an athletic apparel brand, consistently features influencers on its social profiles. With over 500k followers on Instagram, the Shopify brand showcases customer photos paired with influencer content for maximum reach.

Here’s one such post by a fitness influencer, Paul Wright where he gives viewers a tour of the Vuori Clothing store in LA. It’s a complete look at the brand’s catalog along with Paul’s take on the products he likes.

WLO Wood

WLO Wood sells crates for pets and they collaborated with dog influencers to cater to their target audience. In fact, their entire Instagram profile features happy customers standing next to their crates—combining customer advocacy and influencer marketing.

Here’s a giveaway contest they hosted with Scout to get more people to know about the brand and maximize the festive shopping sprees.

Plan Your Shopify Influencer Marketing Campaigns Effortlessly

With that, you’re all set to experiment with influencer marketing and take your Shopify store to new heights. But remember: this guide is only the tip of the iceberg!

The next step is about making sense of all the moving parts—managing partnerships, processing payments, reviewing deliverables, and more. Create an airtight plan to figure out these details and learn as you go along. Start by searching for the right influencers on Afluencer—sign up today!

The post Influencer Marketing for Shopify: 5 Things You Need to Know appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> https://afluencer.com/shopify-collabs-review/ Sun, 18 Dec 2022 19:07:38 +0000 https://afluencer.com/?p=20663 You need influencers and creators to promote your product. Ideal partners to “collab” with. As a Shopify user, Shopify Collabs seems like the natural fit. Is it? In this comprehensive review, we’ll break down Shopify Collabs’ features so you can decide for yourself. What is Shopify Collabs? Shopify Collabs brings together millions of creators and […]

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]]> You need influencers and creators to promote your product. Ideal partners to “collab” with.

As a Shopify user, Shopify Collabs seems like the natural fit. Is it? In this comprehensive review, we’ll break down Shopify Collabs’ features so you can decide for yourself.

What is Shopify Collabs?

Shopify Collabs brings together millions of creators and ecommerce brands on a single platform. It empowers creators to monetize their content and helps brands hire and manage creators effortlessly. But is it the best tool in the market to run creator marketing campaigns?

The Shopify Collabs app is designed to connect creators with Shopify store owners to simplify influencer marketing. It’s a rebranded version of an older app, Dovetale, which was a part of the Shopify ecosystem for many years.

The new platform has a massive creator marketplace. Creators can sign up for the platform and then choose from millions of brands to collaborate with the ones they like. Every creator has a comprehensive profile covering details like their follower size, engagement rate, channels, and more.

Merchants can also easily partner with niche creators and get more eyes on their brands. Collabs do a lot of heavy lifting on a merchant’s behalf to find the ideal creators, manage their partnerships, and track their performance. If you think influencer marketing is too much work, the goal of Shopify Collabs is to make things simple.

How Shopify Collabs Works

Here’s how you can set up and use Shopify Collabs.

Step 1: Go to the Shopify App Store and install Shopify Collabs.

Step 2: Sign up to create an account. To do this, go to the Settings panel on your Shopify app. Click Apps and sales channels > Shopify Collabs. Then press the Open app to accept all the terms and conditions to create your account.

Step 3: Once the account is set up, merchants can customize their applications page and form. Creators can search for brands they’d like to work with and submit their applications.

What Creators Can Expect from Shopify Collabs

The creator economy is growing bigger than ever—with the market size reaching over $104 billion in 2022. But the bigger the industry grows, the more competitive it gets. This would leave small-time creators little opportunity to monetize their audience. Shopify Collabs is designed to support creators of all sizes: to help them get more visibility, win better brand partnerships, and build a solid portfolio.

Let’s break down the three key benefits creators can expect from Shopify Collabs.

1. Connect and collab with over a million merchants

Shopify has 1.75 million sellers worldwide. Let that sink in. As a creator, you have 1.75 million brands to potentially partner with through Shopify Collabs.

The app encourages creators to design stellar profiles and gain more visibility. Creators become a part of Shopify Collabs’ vast database, where brands can find them through filtered searches. Moreover, creators can also apply to work with brands they like.

The main goal of Shopify Collabs is to increase creators’ chances of getting lucrative brand collaborations that best align with their interests. That way, a partnership is a win-win for both parties with a better ROI overall.

2. Product seeding and affiliate-based commissions

Product seeding is one of the best ways to work with small creators. It’s an added incentive for them to go the extra mile and create inspiring content to nudge their audience toward a buying decision.

Shopify Collabs allows merchants to collaborate with influencers and creators by sending gifts, samples, and promotional items. This product seeding helps get creators more excited about the product(s) or the brand itself, often resulting in more authentic content from real users.

On top of product seeding, Shopify Collabs also allows creators to earn affiliate-based commissions. Merchants can set up their commission structure and track all sales to calculate the commission value for their creators—all within the app (more on this later).

3. Intuitive dashboard to track all earnings and data

One of the biggest benefits of Shopify Collabs is its data tracking and revenue management dashboard. Creators can focus on things they enjoy doing while the app calculates their earnings, expected payments, performance metrics, and other details.

The dashboard tracks collaborations and earnings so creators know who to follow up with for pending payments. This dashboard can organize the more messy part of being a creator: data. It stores all information, visualizes insights, and identifies gaps to improve performance.

Despite all these features, Shopify Collabs doesn’t strike home for many creators. Here’s why:

• The unnecessary and long sign-up process
• Buggy interface with multiple glitches
• Heavy competition among creators

Let’s see how the platform fares for merchants and what they can expect.

What Merchants Can Expect from Shopify Collabs

Shopify Collabs isn’t just for creators; it also benefits ecommerce business owners. Finding brand-fit creators has always been challenging for marketers and solo store owners; there are the struggles of browsing, vetting, and shortlisting the right creators. It’s an added challenge to give them the right exposure for your brand and build a healthy relationship.

With Shopify Collabs, brands can find promising creators, manage their marketing campaigns effortlessly, and stay on top of expenses. The app streamlines working with creators.

Let’s look at the three key benefits merchants can expect from Shopify Collabs:

1. Discover niche creators from a large marketplace

One of the biggest highlights of Shopify Collabs is its Creator Marketplace, a massive database of creators from different niches and channels handpicked by Shopify’s team. This marketplace is the jackpot for store owners that can change how they run influencer marketing campaigns.

Brands don’t have to invest time and effort into finding brand-fit creators. They can set up their account, make their store discoverable, and roll out an application form for interested creators. Taylor Jo Dodson, Creative Director at Snarky Tea, highlights this benefit of Collabs.

“It’s nice that people can find and apply to be an ambassador without us having to do all the heavy lifting. I will say that the Dovetale interface was easier to use before it became SC, and the swap was confusing for some of our ambassadors. Overall, I’d give it four stars.”

Alternatively, they can search this database to find creators that check all the boxes for them. This searchable platform enables merchants to filter according to the target audience, follower size, channel, and other filters. So, you only need to browse through these creators’ profiles, shortlist the most promising ones, and start a conversation to get cracking.

2. Easily hire and manage creator relationships

With Collabs, it’s easy to find the right creators for your brand from thousands of candidates. But that’s not all. Store owners can easily hire and partner with their selected creators on the platform.

Collabs generate customized insights to help brands optimize their campaigns for maximum impact. You can use these insights to create guidelines for creators and set the metrics for a new campaign. It also gives you unique links and discount codes to work with multiple creators and track their outputs.

Since Collabs is directly integrated within Shopify admin, you can easily visualize your entire sales funnel across channels—from customer database to orders and inventory.

3. Win more affiliate sales and track payments

Shopify Collabs simplifies your relationship with affiliates. You can have a complete overview of your affiliates’ sales, and the app will automatically calculate the commissions for every affiliate.

What’s more, you can directly pay affiliates from the platform. It’ll also generate analytics for every affiliate’s progress so that you can reward the high-performers. This also allows you to extend your collaboration with the ones who perform well.

In essence, instead of hiring a big team dedicated to affiliate marketing, Collabs can take care of these responsibilities and make your affiliate campaigns successful. Monica Grohne, the founder of Marea says:

“The platform is easy to use and allows us to review conversions from affiliates easily and make paying them seamless. They’ve continued to make improvements, like having a saved welcome message. I hope they continue by adding integration with Klaviyo so we can add our affiliates to a specific list, send notifications when they make sales, etc.”

Despite all these merchant-centric benefits, Shopify Collabs doesn’t quite match up with other influencer management tools because:

• Payments are limited to PayPal
• No multi-language translation feature
• Less scope for customization

So, we decided to see how Collabs stands against Afluencer to benefit merchants and creators.

Shopify Collabs vs Afluencer: Which Option is Better for You?

Shopify Collabs made all the headlines since its rebranding and launch. The platform was introduced as a new and easy way for creators to monetize their content and for brands to collaborate with creators.

But while the app offers this functionality, it doesn’t bring the added convenience and perks you get from similar tools, like Afluencer. If you’re weighing your decision to sign up on Collabs, read this comparison review of Shopify Collabs vs Afluencer to make an informed choice.

Ease of setup

The ease of setting up and learning the functionality of a tool determines how quickly you can get the best value out of it. A shorter learning curve means you can hit the ground running faster and implement your strategy. Here’s how Shopify Collabs fares against Afluencer in terms of setup.

Shopify Collabs

Signing up for a Collabs account seems slightly complicated, even for existing users. When you land on the Collabs site, you’ll find the option to install the app as a merchant or sign up as a creator. But things get tricky after this.

If you’re a merchant, you have to install the app first and then tweak some settings from your Shopify account to complete the setup. If you’re a creator, you have to sign up to take any action—which is one of the biggest concerns visible in the early reviews. Signing up on a new platform can be inconvenient, especially with Collabs’ lengthy sign-up process. You first need to create a Shopify account and sign up as a Creator separately.

Afluencer

Afluencer has a hassle-free setup. You can visit the website and find the options to sign up or sign in. If you’re a new user, sign up on the app, answer the given prompts, and you’re all set to use the platform. Creators can explore the app and find potential partnerships without signing up on the platform and don’t have to go through the hassle of signing up without knowing the full benefits of the platform.

Interface

A tool’s interface impacts the overall user experience and creates customer stickiness. The more appealing the interface, the more users will return to the tool. Let’s see which interface is better among Shopify Collabs and Afluencer.

Shopify Collabs

Collabs have a top-notch interface with an intuitive, data-packed dashboard for merchants and creators. The platform has a navigation panel on the left of the screen and multiple settings to keep users informed about their accounts.

Merchants can discover new creators from the marketplace, find affiliates, shortlist their ideal candidates, and track payments. They can also check applicants interested in working with them. On the other hand, creators track their applications, manage their ongoing partnerships, and monitor their earnings.

Afluencer

Afluencer has a seamless and neat interface with minimal design elements. The welcome dashboard covers all essential details about your campaigns, like applications, influencers you may like, all your brands, and saved searches from the past. You can also jump to the influencer directory to find more influencers.

Once integrated with your Shopify account, you can track sales and inventory on the dashboard.

For creators, the app gives you constant updates about new programs and brands looking for collaborations. So, you can set up your profile and click on these programs to get started. Kendall, a content creator, shares her take on the app’s user-friendly interface.

“I love that Afluencer is very user-friendly and easy to navigate. I never miss out on messages because it’s always clear when I have one. Love how easy it is to find new brands to work with.”

Functionality

A platform is only as good as how well it can meet users’ needs, solve their pain points, and help them achieve their goals. Let’s compare Collabs against Afluencer to see who comes out stronger in terms of functionality.

Shopify Collabs

Shopify Collabs promises several exciting features for merchants and creators. While we’ve discussed most of these features, it’s worth spotlighting these:

• Merchants can access a vast database of creators to reach out to brand-fit creators directly.
• Creators can apply to collaborate with millions of brands available on Shopify.
• All users can effectively track their performance and payments using a data-driven dashboard.

The platform still has many shortcomings, like no email customization option, multi-language feature, a complicated sign-up process, and unnecessary glitches.

Afluencer

Afluencer is a feature-rich tool packed with every essential feature brands, and creators need to collaborate. The Afluencer dashboard keeps you updated with your past and ongoing campaigns. You can also track your sales and creator performance in separate sections.

The app’s huge Influencer Directory of more than 16,000 creators has powerful search filters to help you effortlessly find the most relevant niche creators.

Creators can also check collaboration programs by scrolling the homepage without signing up. Once registered on the platform, they’ll get regular updates about new programs to participate in.

Chelsea, a content creator, highlights the best parts about Afluencer from a creator’s perspective.

“There are campaigns for every niche and interest, and new collaborations are added frequently. I love how easy it is to use and that I’m always sent updates on new collaborations, so I do not have to guess when to sign in and what is available to me as a creator.”

Another great feature is chatting with any creator and maintaining prompt communication on the same platform. You don’t have to jump to another tool to talk with your creators or brand PoCs.

There’s a Better Alternative to Shopify Collabs

Let’s face it: Shopify may have relaunched Collabs as an exciting new way for brands to work with creators. But in reality, it still lacks a great deal to compete against tools like Afluencer.

Afluencer is a power-packed alternative to Shopify Collabs with must-have features, lucrative opportunities, and convenience for creators and brands to maximize their progress. The platform gives you deeper visibility into your performance with meaningful insights to hit the next level and improve your ROI.

Try Afluencer today and see the impact yourself.

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]]> https://afluencer.com/shopify-creator-economy/ Thu, 18 Aug 2022 09:36:30 +0000 https://afluencer.com/?p=19437 A YouTube creator dips a straw in milk, holds it in, then inserts the contraption into the middle of an Oreo cookie. The result? A milky countertop. It was a failure. The contraption was supposed to double the size of the cookie’s center cream. Yet the video “Trying Dumb Life Hacks” has over 30 million […]

The post Shopify & The Creator Economy: What You Need to Know appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> A YouTube creator dips a straw in milk, holds it in, then inserts the contraption into the middle of an Oreo cookie. The result? A milky countertop. It was a failure. The contraption was supposed to double the size of the cookie’s center cream. Yet the video “Trying Dumb Life Hacks” has over 30 million views on SSSniperWolf’s YouTube channel.

SSsniperWolf is one of many creators responsible for some $8 billion in sponsored product sales. How do “failures” like these lead to ecommerce success?

Welcome to the upside-down world of the creator economy.

Increasingly, this economy is where brands approach individuals, not the other way around. Want engagement with modern ecommerce shoppers? Then you may have to go through creators and influencers first.

This article will get more specific than the creator economy, however. There is a new trend emerging amongst digital creators: owning your own brand. This shift has the potential to change the landscape of this economy. More and more, creators are turning to Shopify as their medium of choice. Here’s why that will matter.

What is the creator economy?

The creator economy refers to the businesses built by influencers, community-builders, and content creators. If you’re in ecommerce and you have an Internet following, you’re a creator.

The creator economy usually refers to creators’ own communities and brands. But it also refers to the products they move on behalf of larger brands.

The term is older than its popularity suggests. According to The Atlantic, the creator economy was originally a YouTube invention. Back in 2011, people used it as an alternative to phrases like “YouTube star”. 

Since then, it’s become an estimated $100 billion industry. (For reference, the entire grocery industry in the U.S. is only about seven times that number).

Why “creator economy” over a phrase like “YouTube star”? A lot of people have earned a living on platforms like YouTube. Why not just call these people stars of their respective platforms?

Simple: creators are everywhere.

After all, the creator economy now hosts about 425,000 full-time equivalent jobs. Of the estimated 50 million creators worldwide, four million already do it full-time.

But there’s a reason YouTube star as a catch-all phrase is out of fashion. The creator economy has no central hub. Instead, it centers around a plethora of platforms

Creator economy platforms:

• YouTube: The video-hosting site is resident to billions of users. About one billion hours of videos play on YouTube every day. The sheer numbers make it ideal for creators of any type to find an audience, from home cooks with vegan risotto recipes to makeup tutorials.
• Patreon: Home to micro-influencers who build their own communities, Patreon lets mini-celebs exchange Patreon-exclusive content in exchange for subscription fees. Like most platforms, Patreon takes a bit of a cut. In exchange, it provides the digital infrastructure to make hosting a community easy.
• Twitch: This video-streaming-and-chatting platform is a favorite for everyone from gaming influencers to “just chatting” creators. Users can buy subscriptions to individual channels, trade “bits,” and more.
• Social media: You’ve heard of Meta, TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram. They’re all favorite platforms among influencers and are increasingly shopper-friendly. Oftentimes, creators will use social media as a top-of-funnel strategy to bring in subscriptions to paid channels, like Patreon.
• Podcasts and blogging: The spoken and written word haven’t gone anywhere. Blogger influencers, for example, still earn a stellar following—even if the tradition of blogger-as-celebrity might seem outdated in the era of live streaming.

What is the Shopify creator economy?

Where is the room for Shopify in all this? Shopify fulfills a critical role that can make all the difference to creators: ownership.

How? Simple. With Shopify, you can sell your own products.

After all, creators have seen the campaign numbers. They know how many products they sell. That success naturally leads to another question: what if I sold those products instead?

Enter Shopify, an eCommerce-store-in-a-box. In short, it makes it easier for creators to start their own brands. This is good news for creators, who sometimes rely on brand deals to bring in cash. Yes, creators can make money from ad revenue or community subscriptions.

But check the stats, and you’ll see brands dominating the cash flow. There isn’t even a close second when it comes to where creators get their money.

The leap from “creator economy” to “Shopify creator economy” isn’t exactly a secret, either. Lots of celebrities are already using Shopify. LMFAO’s Party Rock Clothing, for example, or Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics.

But just like the creator economy itself, this platform isn’t limited to mega-influencers.

Take the example of Fragrance One. The story: brothers Jeremy and Kamil Blanc built a perfume review following on YouTube. Their reviews became so popular they eventually found themselves with millions of subscribers.

But rather than continue posting content on YouTube and accepting sponsored details with perfume brands, they had another idea. They’d sell their own perfume. It’s now an eight-figure fragrance company—and better yet, they don’t have to share the profits of their sales with anybody.

Building the Shopify creator economy

This isn’t to say that every creator has to follow the path of Fragrance One. Launching on YouTube, building an audience, and founding a brand? It’s easier said than done.

But the speed at which Fragrance One launched should make you pause. How is it possible?

The Shopify creator economy is how. Shopify’s ecommerce platform is more robust every year.

Just this year, for example, Shopify partnered with YouTube to introduce YouTube Shopping on Shopify. This integrates a Shopify store with YouTube in a few ways:

• Using YouTube Live to tag and pin products during a live stream. This also offers picture-in-picture playback, letting customers continue to watch the live stream while checking out. The entire buying process can go through without having to hit pause.
• On-demand videos: Shopify merchants and creators can create a curated product list and present them as a “shelf” during their videos.
• The “store tab” feature can add to the creator’s channel on YouTube to make it easy to browse through a selection of products on offer.

In essence, the platforms are blurring the lines between creators and sellers. For a creator’s audience, it’s never been more seamless to transition from viewer to buyer.

🢂 Learn How to Leverage Influencers in Your Live Shopping Efforts

Integrating Shopify with TikTok

Another example of this increased integration is what creators can do with TikTok and Shopify. Last year, Shopify became the first shopping platform to offer organic product discovery and shopping tabs to TikTok users.

TikTok tasked Shopify with building shopping tabs for TikTok. This put the shops next to essential tabs like TikTok’s “For You” feeds.

It’s also easier than ever to integrate shoppable buttons within TikTok posts, sending interested customers straight to a specific product on a Shopify store. And since that integration with Shopify already works, that means just-as-easy integrations with Instagram and Meta. All of this digital infrastructure adds up to one thing. For creators, it’s never been easier to become a seller.

Shopify creator economy trends to watch

It’s easier than ever for creators to own their own shops. By extension, it’s easier than ever for creators to own their own brands.

But what are creators doing within the Shopify creator economy to stand out, capture their customers, and build up their presence online?

Here are some of the most popular Shopify creator economy trends to watch:

The rise of micro-influencers

When Sperry was gearing up to launch a wet weather campaign—a seasonal offering—they didn’t look for a mega-influencer. Instead, they wanted something short-lived, yet high-engagement.

They turned to micro-influencers—and got themselves nominated for a Shorty Award in the process.

The target wasn’t too big. Sperry wasn’t looking to sell to every person on Earth who needs to buy wet-weather shoes. Instead, Sperry focused on “fashion-savvy female style enthusiasts.”

Yet even by limiting the time and demographics of its campaign, Sperry achieved success: 4.7 million impressions for the campaign and 66% more clickthroughs from Instagram.

Or take a recent micro-influencer success story, when Coca-Cola worked with 300 micro-influencers and achieved a campaign engagement rate of 7.5%.

Why focus on micro-influencers when mega-influencers have more reach? It’s certainly not that Coca-Cola didn’t have the budget to hire celebrities. They did, after all, opt for 300 micro-influencers instead.

What brands seek is that engagement rate. Generally speaking, the smaller the influencer’s audience, the more passionate they’re going to be about engaging:

Nano-influencers drive the most engagement, with the caveat that their audiences can be as little as a twentieth the size of a micro-influencer. But of those influencers with tens of thousands of followers, micro-influencers drive the highest engagement—1.7% in 2020.

Of those with larger audiences, only mega-influencers and celebrities came close.

And for brands like Sperry who wanted only a seasonal, limited, budget-friendly boost to the bottom line, mega-influencers were out of the question.

“With the rise of TikTok and authenticity being valued more than ever, the people who create a genuine connection with an engaged audience will come out on top,” said Julia Bobak, Content Creator at Home Grounds.

For brands with limited budgets, micro-influencers offer the best mix of budget-friendly with high engagement rates.

Ecommerce platforms investing in the creator economy

For ecommerce platforms like Shopify, you might figure that the best opportunity to grow is to engage big-time brands with huge audiences. More buyers, more growth, more revenue.

But that’s not exactly who they’re targeting.

Instead, Shopify is trying to reach both brands and creators. Consider Shopify’s recent acquisition of Dovetale. Dovetale is a platform to help brands engage with creators, potentially bringing both parties to Shopify.

(You’re reading this piece on Afluencer.com, a platform with 13,000+ opt-in micro-influencers and creators. Connect with them via the Afluencer App for Shopify.)

In short, Shopify is adding features that make it more creator-friendly. Take Linkpop, a shoppable Linktree alternative for creators who want to create a single link for their entire online presence.

Linkpop easily syncs with platforms like TikTok and Instagram to create shoppable links to a Shopify checkout page. Additionally, creators can sign up for the Shopify starter plan to make their Linkpop shoppable.

The impact of Generation Z

A big shift happened in 1996 and 1997—one you may not remember. It was when new babies stopped being millennials and started belonging to a new demographic: Generation Z.

The distinction may seem small at first. But if millennials were the first generation weaned on the web, Generation Z was the first to grow up with smartphones and social media.

That means a completely different way of looking at the world of ecommerce—which, to Gen Z, might as well be another word for “commerce.” Just under 30% of Gen Z kids grew up wanting to be YouTube stars rather than astronauts.

This is less of a trend than a series of trends. Here are a few of the Gen Z preferences that will likely shape the Shopify creator economy:

Gen Z Prefers Platforms

And, as Forbes notes, Gen Z has some very different ideas for running a business.

“The way Gen Z creators today are building these businesses is fundamentally different,” Jennifer Neundorfer, co-founder of January Ventures, told Forbes.

“These fundamental changes make much of the traditional small and medium-sized business (SMB) software solutions obsolete. In the year ahead, I believe we’ll see the rise of new tooling native to the Gen Z creators.”

Gen Z’s are more accustomed to platforms like Shopify, Etsy, or even Roblox—a game development engine—making it easier to build an online presence. In other words, Gen Z expects software solutions like those they can find in Shopify’s creator economy. They want more speed to market, and they want it now.

Gen Z Prefers Video

When Patreon ran a survey of its creators, what they found wasn’t surprising. Gen Z likes video, and that’s reflected in where creators are shifting their focus:

It’s not just the love of video that defines Gen Z’s new habits, either. Over half of Gen Z doesn’t watch any traditional ad-supported TV, for example. And as Patreon found, those creators who primarily publish videos said they found 50% of their audience from YouTube alone.

Some third-party apps on Shopify like Vimotia have already jumped on this trend, turning videos shoppable.

What does this mean for the Shopify creator economy? Especially given Gen Z’s love of single-platform solutions to complicated tech integrations?

More apps like VideoWise unite TikTok, Instagram, and Shopify into a single function.

More power to brands who want to bring creators back

If creators can own their own brands in the Shopify creator economy, it adds competition. The best creators are incentivized to build their own shops. That’s good news for everyone… except maybe the brands.

How can brands win back creators when creators are planting their flags on Shopify?

Like creators, brands can turn to platforms for help. For example, TikTok has made it possible for brands to use organic, “creator”-like content in their advertising campaigns.

Consider TikTok’s Spark Ads, which use native ads so brands can incorporate organic TikTok content from creators. Creators, in turn, have the power to authorize the use of their organic posts.

This gives creators a new way to monetize their organic content beyond making their posts shoppable or adding a link to Linkpop.

In some cases, Spark Ads can work directly with creators on limited, one-time campaigns that benefit both brands and creators.

One digital bank did exactly that with creator @TashInvests—TashInvests supplied the content, the digital bank supplied the funding, and the native ad saw 1.5 million impressions on TikTok.

@tashinvests

Is this the best Australian bank?! #greenscreensticker @upbanking #upyear2020 #ausfinance #upbank #ad

♬ Hello – OMFG

While Spark Ads is ostensibly a tool for brands, it works for both brands and creators, elevating the visibility of each.

Creators boost their profiles thanks to the massive impressions possible through these campaigns. Brands get the engagement of working with a creator with an established audience.

In short…

Platforms like Shopify (through its purchase of Dovetale) and TikTok (through its Spark Ads) bring creators and brands even closer.

But some of the best matches come through platforms like Afluencer. On Afluencer, creators build profiles and brands seek out the best matches on creator voice and social media following.

And recent additions like the Shopify subscriptions and features help ensure that this arrangement works smoothly in the Shopify creator economy.

“It’s a really great app”, said Courtney Williamson of Abilife. “There are so many apps and agencies out there that are total rip-offs ($24,000 a month…no way!) But this app brings high-quality influencers who are friendly, professional, and care deeply about their work and image. I would highly recommend this app”.

Navigating the Shopify creator economy

Power is shifting to creators. But it doesn’t have to mean brands get left out in the lurch.

Given the shifting demographics of Generation Z entering the fold and the rising power of influencer marketing, more and more online shopping will come not through traditional mass media advertising, but through the recommendations of creators people trust.

Brands will need to watch the trends—like the emerging Shopify creator economy—to ensure that they can find influencers who are happy to engage their following. Doing so will require making full use of the available platforms.

For creators, these platforms can mean more control, more ownership, and the ability to be pickier when choosing which brands to work with.

To get started, install the Afluencer app for Shopify here—and find the platform where more and more creators and brands are meeting.

The post Shopify & The Creator Economy: What You Need to Know appeared first on AFLUENCER.

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