Creators - SYLO

These Sylo-Certified Influencers are Your Best Bet for Attracting New Millennials to your Brand

Are you using Sylo-Certified influencers for your marketing campaigns? Sylo certification represents the risks and investment worthiness of an influencer’s channel. This accreditation is used together with a channel’s performance and benchmarks to assess their potential return on investment.

Sylo-certified influencers are those that are thoroughly vetted for, and determined to be free of any purchased follower or engagement activity. Sylo sees these influencers as likely to exceed contractual performance obligations. In fact, Sylo Certified influencers deliver 5.5x higher impression rates, 4.6x higher reach rates, and 2.7x higher engagement rates! Plus, when brands exclusively use certified influencers, they will immediately cut back on waste and see an increase in ROI

Now, let’s take a look at four Sylo-certified influencers:

Jared Smith

Jared Smith is a fitness and travel influencer who has close to 85,000 followers. But as we know so well here at Sylo, it’s not about how many followers you have but how many of those followers are really engaged with your brand. Jared averages 75 comments per post, and some posts even get more than 200 comments! The best part? These are all real people who are genuinely interested in what Jared has to say. In fact, his engagement rate is above 5%, which is very high! That means if you work with him as a brand, you can reach a wider audience and gain more attention. Of course, that also means you have a better chance of selling more of your products or services! What’s more, because his performance is of high enough quality to be certified, Jared has been able to secure some amazing brand deals like working with Glenn Close for May Mental Health Awareness Month as part of their #nonormal campaign.

Tom Phillips

Tom Phillips is a Sylo-certified lifestyle influencer who reaches an average of 50% of his followers with his posts, which is far above the norm! Tom has a recent branded post with Roku, and since Tom uses Sylo he can share his authenticated data with them. This means he can independently verify the increased ROI he brought to the campaign, and establish himself as a reliable partner. Sylo invites any prospective influencer, like Tom, to grant us access to share their metrics with you. From there, we arm you with the information you need to allocate your budget as effectively as possible. Since Tom was able to use Sylo to prove his value and show that his 10,000 followers were real and engaged, he was also able to negotiate better compensation.

Angel Elo

Angel Elo’s Instagram is all about motherhood and business – two things she’s an expert in. As a smart mama and business woman, she knew becoming Sylo-certified was the best way to monetize her profile and secure amazing brand deals with high-profile names like Shark, Briar Baby, and Gathre. Unfortunately, more than 50% of influencers reach less than 25% of their followers on a typical post. Without access to the necessary information, you are at risk of paying for audiences that you will never reach. But that’s not the case when you work with Angel or any of our Sylo-certified partners. We give you the verified channel metrics you need to provide you the transparency to determine rates more effectively. Another win-win for all parties involved!

Johnny Youssef

Not only does Johnny Youssef have a beautiful Instagram feed, but this home realtor, investor, renovator and designer is another shining example of Sylo-certification. Both Johnny and his partners saw ROI on their campaigns. Jonny was able to partner with design companies and hardware stores that made it easier for him to design his dream home. These partners like West Lake Ace Hardware, Murals Your Way, Crystorama, and BIC benefited from the exposure and credibility Johnny brought to the deal. As you can see, Sylo’s campaign measurement and optimization helps marketers determine the efficiency of spend and gain insights into future investment and budget allocations using real-time, continuously verified data.

Are you ready to work with Sylo-certified influencers and start seeing a real return on your influencer marketing campaigns? Then contact Sylo today, and let’s work together to narrow the gap between campaign investment and impact with trusted, certified influencers!

SYLO Chosen to Present at VidCon!

The SYLO team is excited to announce that we have been selected to present at VidCon‘s first annual Creator Track demo session! The session will take place June 23, 2018, from 11:30am – 1:30pm PT in Room 260 at the Anaheim Convention Center. The demo session also includes Amazon, Adobe, and more!

As stated on the VidCon session description:

Join as predetermined companies will present new products, apps, and programs that will help you, the creator, maximize your total reach, views, or make creating online content easier.

You can view the full details by clicking here!

If you’re going to be attending VidCon in Anaheim, please email Erick Schwab (erick@meetsylo.com) and/or Curtis Davey (curtis@meetsylo.com) to set up some time to meet or grab a drink! You won’t want to miss this exclusive look into SYLO’s never-before-seen third-party-verified analytics dashboard.

Image source: VidCon US

Study: Instagram’s “New Posts” Affecting Creators?

On March 22, 2018, Instagram announced that they were introducing a New Posts button to make posts in the timeline more likely to appear chronologically – see the full details in Instagram’s announcement here: https://instagram-press.com/blog/2018/03/22/changes-to-improve-your-instagram-feed/

Following the announcement, SYLO immediately launched a research study to see how (if at all) this change would affect creators (i.e. influencers) on Instagram. As part of this study, SYLO analyzed 61 Instagram creator accounts (which were authenticated in the SYLO platform) and these accounts 6,068 Instagram posts that were posted between January 1, 2018 and April 22, 2018, to see if their engagement and reach metrics could have been affected by the change.

As part of the research, SYLO analyzed the likes and comments that the creators received on each post within each of the first few hours after publishing the post to see if their engagement traction could have been affected by the change, since the change was meant to increase the number of posts that would appear chronologically.

SYLO analyzed the creators’ post metrics for 2018 leading up to the change (January 1, 2018 – March 21, 2018) and compared that to these same creators’ post metrics for the month following the change (March 22, 2018 – April 22, 2018).

Here are the three key findings from this research:

1. Creators received post engagements much more quickly
After the Instagram algorithm change, the average creator received a much larger percentage of their total engagements in the first hour after their posts were published than they had received before the algorithm change, with an increase of 19% for likes and 18% for comments. (Total engagements are the combined likes and comments collected for seven days after the post is published.)

2. Follower growth per day increased exponentially
From March 22, 2018 – April 22, 2018, the creators analyzed saw an average 520% increase in follower growth per day compared to January 1, 2018 – March 21, 2018. This average accounted for extreme outliers, so SYLO also calculated a trimmed average of 64% increase in follower growth per day, which accounts for the removal of these extreme outliers on both ends of the spectrum.

3. Posting increased by 23% month-over-month
Comparing the creators month-over-month, in the month after the change (March 22, 2018 – April 22, 2018), creators posted 23% more than they did in the month prior to the change (February 21, 2018 – March 21, 2018). SYLO analyzed the month prior to that (January 20, 2018 – February 20, 2018) to see if this was a trend, and found that during that time period, on average, creators posted 11% more than they did from February 21, 2018 – March 21, 2018. In other words, the creators analyzed were posting less in the month before the change than they were two months before the Instagram algorithm change, and that trend reversed in the month after the Instagram algorithm change.

If you would like to receive a verified performance analysis of your influencer marketing efforts, please contact SYLO at contact@meetsylo.com!

Image source: Unsplash

SYLO Featured in The National’s Article on Fake Followers

The National has just published an article diving into how influencer marketing space can tackle fake followers and grow as a whole. SYLO‘s Co-Founder and COO Erick Schwab was featured in the article, giving his insight on this topic. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Fake followers (essentially social media accounts masquerading as real but controlled by automated systems) can be unmasked by companies such as Sylo, by looking for patterns of activity that are automated in nature. As a result, they can begin to assess who are the fake influencers, too.

“You can use technology to look like an influencer,” says Schwab. “There have been studies where people launched Instagram accounts and built up enough numbers over three months for brands to want to work with them. But by monitoring things like reach of posts, how content is consumed and how it’s responded to, we are able to measure the things that really matter.”

The gold rush that characterised the early days of the influencer industry will slow down now, he says, as a consequence of all this scrutiny. “It’s going to become divided into professionals and amateurs,” he says. “Some people will have a genuine influence over an audience that a brand will pay for, and that advertising will be worthy of those dollars.”

Read the full piece by clicking here!

Want to learn how SYLO is providing third-party audience and data verification for the influencer marketing space? Contact us here!

Image source: Pixabay

SYLO Featured in The New York Times!

As a follow-up to The Follower Factory article that was published in February 2018, The New York Times just released another article to explore how agencies are using technology to fight influencer marketing bot and fraud issues. SYLO’s technology was included in this article, along with insights from SYLO’s Co-Founder and COO, Erick Schwab. Mediacom was one of the agencies featured in the article:

““In the absence of direct pressure on the platforms, it’s a way for advertisers to take more control of their own spend and not be at the mercy of the platforms themselves,” said Jeff Semones, head of social media at MediaCom, which has recommended SYLO to clients.”

Read the full article by clicking here!

Want to learn how SYLO is providing third-party verification and data transparency to the influencer marketing space? Contact us here!

Image source: Pixabay

Five Tips for Your Social Content Strategy

SYLO conducted a study on 4,334 pieces of branded influencer content, and the themes which were present in each piece of content, to analyze the most recurring content themes as well as the highest performing content themes. These pieces of content were posted by a random selection of 35 influencers in SYLO’s platform whose content can contain any of, or up to, the 85 content themes SYLO assigns in our content categorization process.

Performance was determined using the SYLO Score (learn more here) by calculating the average of the scores for each content theme present the overall content sample.

Here are several findings from the study:

1. Top 5 performing content topics

The top five topics, or themes, present or discussed in the content analyzed are ranked here:

Motivational
Advice/Recommendations
Cars
Beauty
Collaboration

2. Top 5 most frequently used content topics

The study found that none of the top five most used content themes ranked in the top five performing content themes. The most frequently used theme, Lifestyle, ranked #24 in the overall list of top performing content themes.

Lifestyle
Fashion
Food
Personal Stories
Beauty

3. Love of food and art isn’t always reciprocated

Though food was the third highest occurring content theme in the sample set, it just missed the top 10 performing content themes, coming in at #11, followed by art at #12.

4. Don’t wake up early to catch the sunrise

When comparing time of day content themes, SYLO’s study found that content featuring sunsets outperform sunrises by 67%! However, posts during the daytime outperformed nighttime posts by 3x.

5. A human element resonates with audiences

Our content themes also include whether the post includes a human or not. The study found that photos including a human element averaged a 28% higher score than those that did not.

If you want to find out the verified data-supported content themes and benchmarks where you or your creator partners perform best, contact the SYLO team by clicking here.

Image source: Pixabay

Study: Creators and Brand Integrations

SYLO conducted a research analysis of 100 creators to analyze their influencer marketing brand integrations, which we classify as brand-paid ads, promos/reviews, and unpaid mentions. Below is a breakdown of what each of these delineations mean:

Brand-Paid: When a brand partners with a creator and pays them to post an ad for the brand.
Promo/Review: When a creator’s post is promoting and/or reviewing products or services they’ve received for free from a brand.
Unpaid Mentions: When a creator promotes a brand and explicitly states that they have no affiliation, or if the creator is promoting something of their own (e.g. merchandise or clothing line).

These brand integrations are attributed based first on any disclosure by the creator, and then on the context of the content if disclosure does not fully define the terms of their partnership with the brand. When a creator registers and authenticates their social media accounts in SYLO’s platform, our team of content analysts with the help of AI analyze each and every native and branded post that a creator has published. These posts are tagged with the brand (if any), the type of integration (mentioned above), and categorized using content themes that are present in that post. (You can learn more about this process by clicking here.)

Of these types of brand integrations, paid/sponsored made up 51%, promos/reviews made up 46%, and unpaid mentions accounted for nearly 3%.

The average amount of brands per creator analyzed in this study were as follows:

Brand-Paid: 24
Promos/Reviews: 22
Unpaid Mentions: 2

Furthermore, 100% of the creators analyzed had at least one brand integration that was paid for by the brand, and 99% had at least one brand integration that promoted/reviewed a product or service.

While the brand-paid ads and promo/reviews must be disclosed as an ad, according to FTC regulations, an unpaid mention does not. Also pointed out by the FTC, when disclosing ads, it is not sufficient for a creator to just include terms such as “#sp,” “Thanks [Brand],” or “#partner”.

Find out more about how SYLO ensures FTC compliance, brand safety, and fraud/bot identification for influencer marketing advertisers at www.meetsylo.com.

Image source: Pixabay

Finding the True Creators Among the Influencers

In this most recent video in David Beebe‘s series on how to keep the influencer marketing space from stalling, he interviews SYLO‘s CEO Brett Garfinkel to discuss how third-party verified data and benchmarks will set the true creators apart from the slew of influencers.

As Brett states in the interview: “Creators are putting out so much content across so many subject matters, they often get siloed into one category, but with the right data, influencers can see what works best, identify new opportunities, and use independent third party verified data to present to brands to close more deals.” See the full interview below! Click to view the first and second videos in this series.

View the whole series by clicking here!

Image Source: Pixabay

Our Take on #Bloggergate

Over the past week, the #bloggergate situation has grabbed the influencer marketing world’s attention as it continues to escalate between the two involved parties. These parties in question are Elle Darby, a British beauty blogger, and Paul Stenson, owner of White Moose Café and Charleville Lodge in Dublin.

Content Decoded‘s David Beebe posted a complete rundown of the situation, what should have been done instead, and what it means for the influencer marketing space. For the deep-dive video interview in his article, he reached out to Brett Garfinkel and Erick Schwab, co-founders of SYLO, Inc. which empowers the Influencer Marketing industry with third-party measurement to get their opinion on the situation.

The full article can be read by clicking here.

Image source: Pixabay

Four Tips for Creators in 2018

After conducting countless analyses on campaigns, and conversations with creators, talent managers, vendors, brands and agencies, the SYLO team has pulled together these four top tips for creators to make the most of their creative strategies and partnerships in 2018.

1. Show Your Authority

The right “influencer” for brands will also be a creator who consistently puts forth quality content. True creators easily separate themselves from the fake accounts and bots that are casting doubt on the influencer marketing space. The creators that brands are now demanding for partnerships will carry out authority on specific topics and will resonate with their audience through innovative and empowering content. Both creators and brands should strive to build a lasting relationship instead of one-off campaigns which appear inauthentic to the creator and brand’s audiences.

2. Play to Your Strengths

Utilizing content benchmarks to understand which topics resonate with audiences on various social media platforms will ensure that you are reaching any and all of your engaged audiences. It’s rare that a creator only has “influence” on one topic or theme. Though the you as a creator may be regarded as a “beauty influencer,” you may also see high performance in other areas such as cooking and automotive – which could open up new opportunities to pitch relevant brands with the data showing this “influence.” This can also vary by social media platform. It’s important for both the brand and creator to understand the combination of topics and social media platforms that drive the highest performance and authenticity.

3. Cross-Promote your Content

Using the SYLO Score, SYLO analyzed nearly 500 pieces of influencer marketing content produced by creators to see if cross-promotion of their YouTube videos led to better performance. We found that YouTube videos that were cross-promoted by creators scored 47% higher than those that weren’t cross-promoted, and creators with cross-promotions accounting for more than 10% of their branded content saw a 58% higher score on average for that content. However, it’s important that you tailor the content captions to be relevant to the audience for each social media platform – we found that usually, a copy and pasted caption accompanying the cross-promoted content piece underperforms captions that are tailored to each platform’s audience.

4. Embrace Third-Party Standardized Measurement

There are countless articles quoting top marketers from the likes of P&G, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles U.S., and Unilever, demanding for transparency and accountability in the advertising space. Marketers need standardized measurement to track and justify their investments. For creators, standardized measurement will bring more budget into the influencer marketing space as there will be actual measured performance, as well as an increased confidence in the brand partnerships, content strategies, and creators themselves. With more money, creators can afford to be more innovative with their content, seeking out formats that work across different channels. Since they can now see what’s effective, finding content solutions that perform well on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube becomes that much easier.

Image source: Pixabay