Conor chats with Marianna Hewitt, powerhouse influencer, and co-founder of skincare it-brand Summer Fridays.
In "Earned", an influencer marketing podcast by Tribe Dynamics, Conor Begley sits with esteemed industry leaders, exploring the minds behind the most successful beauty and fashion brands in earned media.
In this episode, Conor chats with powerhouse influencer and Summer Fridays Co-Founder, Marianna Hewitt. You can listen to the full podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or Google Podcast. You can also watch the whole interview here.
5 key takeaways for creators
- Starting as an influencer was the best preparation for starting her own brand. One of the reasons is that influencers are so many things at once: videographers, photographers, editors. And they understand the products.
- Summer Fridays looks for influencers that are fitted to the brand, rather than big influencers, for both budget and creative reasons.
- When working with influencers, Marianna encourages brands to go to their consumers, people who speak naturally about the brand.
- When you tag a brand, the brand sees it, especially smaller brands. So purchase your favorite brands and create content about them. That’s the best way to get noticed by the Influencer Relations person at a brand.
- Creators know what’s best for their audience, brands should give them creative freedom.
Down below are some excerpts from the interview, specifically relevant to creators like you.
Conor Begley: I’d love to take a step back and help people get to know you a little bit. Starting at the beginning, you had a job [as a TV host], then you started your blog. What was it like during the early days?
Marianna Hewitt: Growing up, I wanted to be Oprah, which I feel like so many people do. She had a platform and she could share things that she loves and motivate people. There were a couple of bloggers and YouTubers at this time. I was looking at what they were doing and thought “this is everything I wanted to be when I grew up.”
In 2012 I uploaded my very first makeup tutorial on YouTube. In 2014 I launched my blog and this is when I became an influencer full time. So almost a decade of doing that.
Where did your income come from pre-Summer Fridays, in these early days?
At that time, you were either a blogger or a YouTuber, very few people were doing both. The workload was very heavy to create just one blog post and one piece of video content. I had Instagram as well and I used it to drive traffic to my blog and my YouTube channel.
Luckily, I had a manager. I had launched my blog a month prior in 2014 and these companies were DMing me via Instagram and Paypaling me fifty dollars to post about them. The agency ended up signing me if it was so early in my career and they really helped with the first couple of years in terms of sponsoring.
The revenue split was one sponsored blog post plus one Instagram post, or one YouTube video plus one Instagram post to promote the YouTube video. Now, I feel like Instagram feeds and stories are the first source of income and YouTube comes second.
Recently you stopped doing YouTube, tell me about that.
I felt like who I was personally wasn’t a fit for the platform. As I started adding more jobs onto my plate, I felt like something had to give. The time commitment to YouTube is very intensive. It’s hard to delegate. If I had time I would do it all, but I chose to focus on Instagram. The value I could add was just better suited. Now YouTube is also suited for a younger audience, and they’re growing so fast. I thought, let me win where I can win.
What did you bring to Summer Fridays from your content creation career that influenced the brand?
We started working on Summer Fridays in 2016, so I don't think that Instagram Stories were around at that time, but whenever I would get products from a brand, they would want me to post on my Instagram, and I was like, I love the product, but maybe the packaging just isn't great.
We found that either product had great packaging and the actual product was not great, or the product was great and we didn't love the packaging. So we thought about Instagram, and we thought about, how will this translate into a picture and how will people want to take a picture and share this product? We thought about it from a content creation standpoint.
I think that the fact that we thought about Instagram first and social first was really important. Because we were influencers, we knew how we would photograph a picture. We knew how we would talk about a product. And so I think that helped us so much in the original couple of products we had, but then also in every product that we have moving forward.
So you mentioned that you guys launched with just a single product to start (the Jet Lag Mask). Talk me through the thinking on that, because that's not typical for brands.
So it goes back to being an influencer. I think being an influencer was the greatest preparation I could have had for starting a brand. Because as an influencer, you are so many things: you're a photographer, you're a videographer, you're an editor, you’re a publicist. We receive products in hopes of sharing it or working with the brand. And as influencers for so many years, we would get these packages with 20 products in a box. And I'm like, I don't even know where to start because there's so much here. I don't even know which one to begin with. So maybe I don't even try anything because I'm so overwhelmed by just the sheer option of things. So that's one part of it.
Another part is being a new and indie brand, there's only so much to your capacity, and your resources are very limited at the very beginning. We said, okay, we know we're overwhelmed as consumers, so let's not overwhelm our new customers. Let's launch with this single product. Eventually, we did pitch it to Sephora, and it's easier for retailers to just say, okay, I'm going to take a risk on you and just buy into one product versus you're launching with 12 things and I have to buy all of them. But it is high risk and high reward.
I’d just like to tell influencers: if you talk about a brand and you tag a brand, we see it.
Talk to me about your influencer strategy. You guys are a top 10 brand, the second-fastest-growing brand. You have a massive community that is supporting your brand. What are the things that drive success there, other than having a fantastic product?
I will say I’m not our biggest influencer anymore. There are people who send more traffic, sales, and EMV. We’re a small brand, we don’t have the budget to match our EMV. Instead, we do what we’re best at, which means gifting influencers and working with profiles that are a good fit for the brand, instead of chasing the big YouTuber. Brand alignment is so important there. If you’re a brand, go to your consumer, go to the people who speak naturally about the product.
I’d just like to tell influencers: if you talk about a brand and you tag a brand, we see it. It will show up. If you posted about us 11 times last week, we know. So when we’re looking for new influencers to work with, we send some love to those who tagged us. So influencers listening to this, go buy your favorite brand and tag them.
There is a social media person, and that’s probably the person answering DMs, looking at tag pictures, etc. But the influencer relations person is in the backend and checks analytics, they see EMV, how frequently you posted about a brand, your stories, etc. That’s how we find new influencers. Mid-tier and micro-influencers might not get you a lot of EMV, but they drive sales and great content that you can repurpose.
Being an influencer has made us an easier brand to work with. When we come up with a campaign, we give them creative freedom. Influencers know what’s best for their audience, so maybe give them a talking point, but give them the freedom to share the product that they think is best for their audience and in a way that will resonate with them.
And tell an influencer ahead of time, “Hey, I really want to work with you because we need a boost in sales,” or “We really want to work with you because we want really great content.” Then the influencer knows going into the job how they will photograph or speak about the product.
Because if you just want a pretty picture and that's why you're working with me, I will share it differently than if you just want pure sales, because that's a different type of content. So I think just giving influencers creative freedom, and then also letting them know what your goals are ahead of time, is really helpful for a successful campaign.
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