Influencer Marketing for Business Transformation: Insights from Nadia Bubennikova, CBO & Co-Founder of Famesters | Podcast Ep. 3

I just honed my skills in communication, in sales, basically all the things that help you leverage influencer marketing in general. And my current role at Famesters, which is the head of the agency, has been also a significant highlight because it combines a lot of different tasks, a lot of different management techniques. You manage people, you manage campaigns, you manage departments, you manage different teams.

And basically, I think I would say that I’ve been instrumental in crafting strategies to bring together brands with the right influencers, to drive campaigns that will resonate with the right audiences of those influencers and will bring great performance to our clients. So, I won’t be afraid to say that the impact was substantial and all the success that we see in our campaigns is also measurable with both brand awareness and performance campaigns as well.

Host: It is inspiring how you talk about your journey and the impact that you’ve made at Famesters. So, speaking of campaigns, could you share the most successful influencer marketing campaign you’ve been a part of at Famesters? And what was the main catalyst that drove its success?

Nadia: Sure. To avoid names dropping, I would say that one of the most successful campaigns in the last couple of years that I’ve been a part of at Famesters was actually a collaboration with a leading fintech brand. We had an order for this huge-scale brand awareness and performance at the same time.

And this campaign was obviously aimed at both bringing a lot of views for the clients and still providing the metrics, the FTDs and all the other KPIs according to the requirements of the client and according to the brief that we’ve signed together. So, what we did back then is we combined two strategies by leveraging the reach of macro influencers and the authenticity of micro influencers. So, I would say that the main catalyst for the success of this campaign was first of all, yes, this double strategy by using both big influencers and smaller influencers for different purposes.

And obviously as well, the alignment between the influencers’ values and the brand’s mission. This is exactly what helped us create the content that felt both organic and engaging to the followers of those influencers from both of the groups. And the strategy itself not only boosted the brand’s visibility and awareness across different platforms, but also resulted in a significant uplift in sales and customer loyalty as well.

So, I would say that all the best performing campaigns that we’ve seen in our careers are always connected with a good strategy and a combination of different techniques that maybe sometimes they don’t look like something that could be easily combined into a strategy, but you should try and see. This is what we did in there and I would say that this was something that helped us bring the best results.

Host: Campaign sounds amazing. So, it’s safe to say it was a collaboration between your strategies and the team effort. Yeah. Now, given the success of such campaigns, measuring their impact becomes crucial. So how do you evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns and growth at Famesters?

Nadia: Well, at Famesters, we actually employ a multifaceted approach to evaluate each campaign success. So, the KPIs such as engagement rates, reach conversion rates, FTDs, ROIs are always analyzed after each campaign and after each launch that we make. And another thing that we do is we also always try to use advanced analytical tools to track the audience sentiment and feedback in real time to see how well the audience is actually reacting to the ad.

So, this exact data-driven approach is something that allows us to tune our strategies and ensure that each campaign will not only meet our client’s expectations but will also exceed it.

Host: It’s clear that Famesters have a thorough evaluation process and pace combining both quantitative and qualitative metrics. So, speaking of strategy, we’d love to know more about the significance of AI in your processes. Like what’s the role of AI besides human insights to connect brands with influencers?

Nadia: Sure. I wouldn’t say that implementing AI significantly changed the basis of influencer marketing processes for us because still the processes don’t change too much. They become optimized, they become quicker, they become more efficient, but in general the processes stay the same.

But obviously AI still plays a crucial role at our company by enhancing our ability to connect brands with the perfect influencers by helping us to analyze the influencers and then to actually create the content, the ads that will be produced in a manner that we and the clients both would like it to be. So, I would say that we use several types of tools powered by AI. The first group would be the tools that help us search for the influencers.

And another would be the group of tools that, for example, help us transcribe the videos where the influencer speaks some languages that we do not speak, and we don’t have local employees in there. But we still have to understand what the influencer is saying, what they’re saying in their general videos to differentiate the influencers with a nice reputation from the influencers who have been involved in some kind of scandals or maybe some controversy. Because obviously this is not the type of influencers that we and the client are mostly interested in.

So, these exact techniques and these exact tools that are powered by AI are actually what helps us to find the right influencers and to be sure in what we are actually offering to the client. So, by doing all that research and by really digging into each influencer, each channel and trying to analyze their content, their reputation and basically the context around them, we can always be sure that we are really offering relevant influencers to the client and that they will match the campaign, they will match the brand guidelines. And obviously when we do receive a draft of the ad materials from the influencers, we can also check what exactly the influencer is saying without having to wait for the client’s feedback or without having to onboard their employees or some additional subcontractors on our side.

So, I would say that AI definitely helps us to streamline the selection process and the production process as well. Does Famesters have a different approach towards integrating AI into the strategies? I would say that… You mean different from what? As in like some unique way to integrate AI into influencer marketing? To be honest, I wouldn’t say that there is some kind of unique way to do that. We try to, first of all, optimize all the processes that we can because influencer marketing is always going to be a manual job, mostly.

It’s always going to be including a lot of like human effort and human resource. So, our main job and my main job as like the manager and the head of the agency is to optimize the processes and both pursue the efficiency of our campaigns and still think about our employees and trying to make their job and their life basically easier for them. So I would say that the main fields where we prefer to implement AI is in optimizing those processes and in the research and reputation analysis, as I mentioned.

Host: That’s intriguing and clearly very effective. Now, figuring our focus on leadership and management as it is very critical in your role, especially managing four departments and seven teams. How do you ensure departmental goals, collaborations, and objectives aligned with them so as overall strategy?

Nadia: Yeah, well, basically managing four departments and like a lot of teams as well as the campaigns and different tasks definitely requires a cohesive and strategic approach because it is impossible to be managing all those teams simultaneously and like doing the same for each of them.

So, what I usually do is I prioritize clear communication and I always try to set well-defined and clear goals that will align with both Famster’s objectives and smaller goals for each campaign and each department. So obviously regular like daily meetings where we talk through the objectives, the problems, and the solutions to those problems with each of the teams, foster collaboration, foster this clear communication style that we all always seek. And basically, this is what helps us ensure that everyone is basically on the same page.

Another thing that I think is worth investing in is obviously team development and encouraging a culture of this constant learning and innovation and growing because having a manager in each of the teams obviously helps you a lot with like managing it and controlling the processes and just keeping an eye on the progress as well. So, it’s safe to say fostering collaboration and open communication is the key. Yeah, 100%.

Host: So, Nadia, considering the fast-paced nature of influencer marketing, can you give us insights into a recent influencer marketing trend that has impacted Famster’s campaigns? Like what exciting trends or developments do you see taking center stage in the future?

Nadia: Yeah, obviously. I think that the biggest trend in like the past year probably would be the rise of short-form video content. I’m sure everybody noticed like the uplift of TikTok, then the IG Reels, then even YouTube came out with their YouTube Shorts new format.

So, on all of those platforms, this exact video format becomes more and more popular, and it is impossible to not be including it in our campaign. So if a couple of years back influencer marketing was all about like this detailed reviews and this like long videos with influencers like talking about the product and showcasing the product in this huge detail, then now I would say that the trend is basically shifting the context around all of it because the ads become shorter, they become less detailed and less, I would say not informative, but probably less descriptive. And instead, they try to dwell on being remembered well, on like the bright content, on some general idea that will actually interest the audience, and the audience will remember that.

They may not remember all the specifications of a product that is being advertised, but they will remember the main message and they will associate it with the brand. So this is, I would say, like the biggest strength of the short video format that we are currently incorporating in our campaigns as well because it also always like shows incredible engagement rates and allows for creative storytelling, exactly for like the reason I mentioned before, because you don’t have to tell everything you know about the product, but you can actually think about like the message about this product that you would like the product to be associated with. So such a rise is personally very exciting.

Host: What are some of the biggest challenges you faced in your influencer marketing journey so far and how did you overcome them?

Nadia: That’s actually a very nice question because I would say that one of the biggest challenges in influencer marketing would be maintaining authenticity and transparency while scaling campaigns because it’s one thing to launch a campaign with like 100 influencers and I don’t know $200,000 budget, but it’s a totally different thing when you have to scale this campaign up to 1,000 or 2,000 influencers per month and a multi-million budget. So when you’re speaking about like these volumes, you really have to still be analyzing the influencers in the same way, in the same thorough way that you did when you had like smaller budget and smaller campaign scale and the thing that helps us in this thing a lot is, as I’ve mentioned, the AI tools that we use and obviously trying to divide the work that is required from us to like different teams of employees.

So, we have one team that is responsible for searching the influencers, we have another team that is responsible solely for communicating with the influencers like negotiating, we have a separate production team and only this like specific segregation of teams and the roles they play in each campaign helps us to still be able to like provide this authenticity even when we are talking about like bigger numbers and campaign scales.

Host: I agree with you 100% and that approach is very practical. Well Nadia, as a top leader in influencer marketing, your thoughts and insights make a difference for all the fellow marketers out there. So finally, what piece of advice would you like to give anyone looking to kickstart their career in this game-changing field that is influencer marketing?

Nadia: Well, to give a relevant advice, it’s worth mentioning that influencer marketing is a very changing sphere, it’s very like fast-paced, everything is always changing, nothing stays the same, the trends like follow each other very quickly.

So, my biggest advice for anyone who’s looking to like kickstart their career in influencer marketing would definitely be just to stay curious and to be adaptable, adaptable to those changes that will be there to come and as I said it’s always changing and the digital landscape is constantly evolving, you can’t just stop it and staying ahead of the trends is crucial for like building a successful career in influencer marketing. So, I would say like always try to learn new things, try to learn new trends and stay adaptable to all those changes that are to come because boy they are to come. Yeah, it’s clear that maintaining genuine connections, adapting, creating genuine content is crucial in influencer marketing.

Host: It’s excellent advice especially for the newbies in the industry. That was incredibly an informative discussion for both of us and our global audience. Thank you so much Nadia for generously sharing your time and expertise with us.

Cheers! Thank you so much Nadia.

Nadia: Yeah, thank you. Thank you too for having me.

Host: Thank you all for joining us today. I am your host Sayali signing off. See you soon in the next episode of Extra Mile by Hitech Nectar with the next extraordinary leader on the board sharing your thoughts.

So, stay tuned. Thank you so much.