Christian Brown, the Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Glewee, has been instrumental in shaping the innovative influencer marketing platform. Glewee stands out as the fastest all-in-one platform, seamlessly connecting brands and creators for collaboration and paid social media brand deals. As a co-founder, his journey with Glewee began with brainstormed ideas on sticky notes, transforming them into the fully-fledged brand it is today. He has played a pivotal role in moulding Glewee's identity, prioritising community, innovation, and adaptability.
Overseeing a team of ten, Brown leads the sales and marketing department, which comprises like-minded Gen Z innovators. Together, they are dedicated to disrupting the industry with their platform. Hailing from a small town near Boston, Massachusetts, Christian Brown's deep-rooted connection with social media culture, from platforms like Tumblr and Instagram, has influenced his passion for community, brand building, entrepreneurship, and technology.
A graduate of DePaul University with a degree in advertising and marketing, Brown's journey from high school to college was marked by building profitable e-commerce stores and cultivating strong partnerships with high-profile influencers in the burgeoning creator economy. Christian Brown's dedication and vision, alongside CEO Dylan Duke, earned them a spot on the Forbes 30-Under-30 list, reflecting their outstanding contributions to the industry.
Journey as an Influencer Marketer
1. What got you into influencer marketing?
I would say that 40% of my life have been spent online, where found myself spending a lot of time exploring, making friends, and we are even able to build stuff and spread them online. At some points I noticed that people market their business conventionally by giving out physical flyers, and they could do it as much as they want, but social media would do that even better and would reach bigger audiences.
The problem is that these channels seemed very distant to people, where people didn't know how to promote online. Dylan and I decided that we want to make this easy for everyone. We recognized that these businesses lacked effective opportunities for influencer marketing, which has become a significant avenue for brand promotion. To address this gap, we created www.glewee.com, a platform that serves as a monetization channel for creators. It allows them to collaborate with brands and share content, ultimately benefiting both parties. By connecting creators and brands in a seamless and efficient way, we aim to democratize influencer marketing and provide SMBs with access to effective promotional channels.
2. How can brands stay updated on new platforms and effectively implement influencer marketing?
Brands can stay updated on new platforms by actively monitoring the social media landscape and identifying platforms with high user engagement. By keeping a finger on the pulse of emerging social media trends and platforms, brands can ensure that they are making informed decisions about where to invest their influencer marketing resources. Implementing influencer marketing effectively involves identifying the right creators who align with the brand's values and target audience, establishing clear goals and expectations, and fostering a collaborative relationship with the selected influencers. Brands should also stay open to experimenting with new platforms and approaches to adapt to changing consumer preferences and trends.
3. Can you share an example of a successful marketing campaign for your platform?
We have built and executed numerous successful marketing campaigns for our platform. For instance, over the course of a year, we dedicated significant effort to develop our platforms for iOS, web, and Android, ensuring seamless user experiences across various devices. Additionally, we invested resources in acquiring talented creators through our platform, who were able to leverage their unique skills and following to promote brands effectively. This combination of platform development, creator acquisition, and collaborative brand partnerships led to substantial success for our marketing campaigns. Along the way, we encountered hurdles and challenges, but we learned valuable lessons that have contributed to our continued growth and achievements in the industry.
Operating as an influencer marketer
1. What are the top 3 KPIs for an influencer marketing manager?
The landscape of KPIs changes all the time, but obviously the top line is brand awareness. It is the top of funnel marketing approach, influencer marketing has ways in which it can be executed in order to drive sales immediately. You need to get that brand awareness and concept out. Next is content generation. As long as the content is marketable, you can always repurpose it for promotion on your social channels. Lastly, the comment factor. The comments are where the conversations happen.
Pain points as an influencer marketer
1. What is the toughest part about managing influencer marketing at scale?
Probably finding the ideal creators. Please note that I'm speaking for the cumulative hundred brands we've worked with. There are millions of social media users, and then what percentage of them are right for your brand? Someone might look very good, but there are also numbers of creators that are very similar. You really need to go deeper into understanding the creators and the audiences. The campaign management process also requires a lot of energy, efforts, and countless time. Every brand should strive to have an understandable and effective campaign management process. Third point is definitely working with creators over and over. Finding creators that resonate with your brand is what you need, but it's not easy to get them stick to your brand for a long time.
2. What is the most popular way influencer marketing campaigns are structured right now for brands?
Big brands with big budgets will typically work with larger scale agencies with 1-2 expensive influencers. Middle scale brands will usually have an in-house team or social media managers and have allocated amount of spend per month, and the budget is typically spent primarily on influencer marketing.
When we see brands that have social teams stood up and actually full-time employees, we see them to have much larger spend in-house on influencer marketing. And if we bring it lower, it's probably an intern or just one person running the social pages and management of ad accounts.
Below that we have the business owners themselves, and they're wanting to explore influencer marketing themselves. They see it as an avenue and want to experience it by themselves.
Future of Influencer Marketing
1. Looking ahead, what do you believe are the biggest opportunities and challenges in the influencer marketing industry?
It's only going up from here, it's even expected to grow from 22-27% as 2024 rolls. I think that we're going to see a lot more people actually take on this role as creators and influencers, and those roles will start to blend together. A lot of people might gain more followers at rapid rate following new social channels that will come out in the future.
We're going to see more people taking the leap to full time monetize their socials, and that really sparks fire in the realm of entrepreneurships and creativity. More brands will get interested on influencer marketing and we're going to need to experiment more.
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