Partner Content: minisocial
Since 2018, minisocial has been pioneering the integration of micro-influencer activations with user-generated content creation. As the first platform to combine these two powerful marketing strategies, they’ve helped thousands of consumer brands expand their reach while generating high-quality, fully-licensed content that converts.
In this interview, we speak with co-founder Kirsten Baumberger to explore the evolution of creator marketing, the unique advantages of micro-influencers for emerging brands, and how the combination of authentic influence and scalable content creation is reshaping the industry.
Dry Atlas: minisocial claims to be the first platform to combine micro-influencer activations with UGC creation. What gap in the market did you see that made this model so important?
Kristen Baumberger: Back in 2016/17, my co-founder and I owned a digital marketing agency where we managed social for brands across many different categories, but they all had one thing in common: they needed content! So we started working with micro-influencers to create content for the brands’ channels, and it ended up way out-performing in-house content. That’s what led to minisocial being born.
DA: For founders used to choosing between influencer campaigns or UGC shoots, how does pairing the two actually improve results?
KB: Whitelisting is performing insanely well for all of our brands right now! UGC is basically just good quality content from your community. The easiest way for brands to get this is by working with creators who have a track record of producing high-quality content—these creators are micro-influencers, so they go together very naturally.
DA: Many brands think about UGC primarily for ads. Where else can founders deploy this content to get more value from it?
KB: Product pages, emails, landing pages, the home page! We have brands like Our Place that have built out great social proof modules on each product page with videos created from minisocial projects. Same with brands like Love Wellness for homepage content!
DA: What makes micro-influencers such a strong fit for emerging CPG and non-alc brands compared to larger, more traditional influencer partnerships?
KB: The price point is a lot more aligned with most brands’ budgets, and even if you do have all the budget in the world, micro-influencers tend to have higher engagement rates and a lot more trust from their audience.
DA: Can you walk us through a campaign where the micro-influencer + UGC approach directly moved the needle for a brand?
KB: Yes, a great example that covers multiple touchpoints is with the brand Plant People. They used minisocial to drive engagement across many marketing channels and saw a 30% increase in ROAS when using minisocial-created content on their ads.
With a single minisocial project, Plant People was able to generate a 400% ROI just from the micro-influencers’ posts alone. This resulted in a “significant increase in organic search volume following UGC campaigns.” This is separate from the value gained by the brand repurposing the content for ads, organic social, etc.
DA: Licensing is a big deal for UGC. What mistakes do brands make around content rights, and how does minisocial help them avoid those pitfalls?
KB: With minisocial, everything is baked in up front. When you pay for the project, you know exactly what you’re getting, full usage rights included. Often, brands will struggle to keep costs low when negotiating single line items with creators because things add up quickly. It’s important to keep things simple but make sure you have all the rights you need.
DA: Many founders are short on time and internal bandwidth. How does your managed service structure remove the operational headaches of running these campaigns?
KB: We help brands from a team of one all the way to larger Fortune 500 companies—they all have the same issue. Booking, managing, and streamlining creators takes a lot of work. With minisocial, we give brands all the control without any of the busy work! We’ll book your creators, present them for review and approval, then they’ll get to creating.
You’ll have the opportunity to review and approve their content before posting. Then it’s yours to do what you want with—use it on ads, whitelist the posts, or pop it on your organic social channels!
DA: Beyond paid social, where have you seen minisocial-generated content outperform expectations—email, retail displays, PR, etc.?
KB: Testimonials in emails, specifically secondary touchpoints where people may have abandoned cart, perform very well. Also, like I mentioned earlier, product pages and homepages can help make those stickier!
DA: Some founders are skeptical about the ROI of influencer marketing. What metrics or outcomes should they focus on to evaluate success?
KB: The focus of most influencer campaigns that don’t include the UGC element are purely awareness and top of funnel, which has been proven time and time again to be important when folks go to make purchasing decisions later on.
Not to mention, social media is where people search for brands and products to see reviews before buying. But the great thing about coupling micro-influencer projects with UGC creation is the ability to drive a greater ROI by giving you multiple deliverables—the content and the creators’ posts—to really 10x the value of a campaign.
DA: For a founder who’s never worked with creators before, what’s one piece of advice you’d give them before starting a UGC + micro-influencer project?
KB: Have an end goal in mind for the content usage and be realistic on the creator post side of things. One influencer project isn’t going to make you a viral sensation (unless you get very lucky), but the brands that have proven the space are the ones who keep showing up—like Poppi—and the results speak for themselves.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
