Free Folk Agency and Ivy Talent Co celebrate successful launch of industry networking event series

Notable social media talent, content creators, marketers, publicists, talent managers and business owners gathered in Brisbane on Thursday night for an engaging industry and networking event, hosted by leading independent communications agency, Free Folk Agency and Talent Management Agency, Ivy Talent Co.?

The event featured a panel discussion on leveraging digital talent for brand impact hosted by influencer and creator Dannii Rogers, alongside four panellists - digital marketing and eCommerce expert and influencer @geebungalow Roísín Tarrant, ex-Masterchef contestant and recipe developer at @monmackfood Montana Hughes, digital marketer and social media strategist Lizzy Garland and Free Folk Agency + Ivy Talent Co Managing Director Grace Newman.?

Free Folk Agency Co-Founder and Director Teagan West said the event was a passion project to fill a much-needed gap in the Brisbane market.?

“We noticed a lack of industry and networking events in Brisbane so we made it our mission to create a physical space for industry professionals to connect and share knowledge leading into the competitive summer and festive retail and eCommerce period.”

“We want to contribute to and shape the future of Brisbane’s agency landscape, and we believe the success of our first event has set the tone for what will be an ongoing event series in Brisbane, Melbourne and beyond,” she said.?

The event, which had 70 people in attendance at Loyal Hope in Fortitude Valley, covered the impact of digital talent, facilitating successful partnerships, driving better outcomes when working with talent, utilising talent in an integrated, cross-channel strategy and developing meaningful partnerships in the creator economy.?

10 Key takeaways from the panel discussion to inform your summer 2024/25 strategy:

1. Brands should include as much detail as possible when briefing talent, including objectives, key messages, product information and desired outcomes to give talent context and background information to ensure a successful working relationship and partnership.?
2. Brands should assess a creator’s content and style before engaging in a campaign to ensure they align, and to manage expectations around the style of content that they produce, and that performs well on their channel/s.?
3. Creators should utilise the opening seconds of their content to capture the audience’s attention and gradually build into the sell, rather than hard sell from the beginning. Content with a hard sell or blatant brand presence in the first three seconds typically doesn’t perform well on an influencers channel.?
4. Briefing calls with talent and/or their management are a great way for brands and marketers to better understand what is genuinely coming up in the influencer’s life and personal milestones and projects, so that brand collaborations, content and messaging can be more authentically integrated. The best results often come from briefs that are tailored to the specific influencer, rather than a generic brief.?
5. Different creators will serve different purposes in a brand’s journey, and on influencer cannot solve all stages of the funnel. Some influencers are reach drivers and should be leveraged in top-of-funnel activity, while other influencers and/or content styles are geared for bottom-of-funnel performance.
6. Ongoing partnerships and long-term ambassadors are more valuable for both parties. This will help spike performance over a longer period of time and we know that repetition is important to influence purchase behaviour.?
7. Seek cross-channel partnerships and opportunities to tap into different audiences. If an influencer has a blog, email database or is active on other social media channels, identify opportunities to work across all of their channels.?
8. Nano influencers can be a great and cost-effective avenue for an initial test campaign, especially if you want to reach a niche audience, whether that be geographically, demographically or interest-based.?
9. When selecting influencers for a campaign, look at the volume of organic content they create and share. Creators who don’t produce organic content and share value for free with their audience are a red flag. When an influencer creators a lot of organic content, their audience is engaged and trust is established, so their sponsored content and ads feel seamless and genuine.?
10. Consumer attention is a scarce commodity and it's becoming increasingly difficult to cut through and hold attention spans, particularly on social media. It’s more important than ever before to develop a strategy and content that actually captures consumer attention, so lean digital talent (influencers, content creators, key opinion leaders, UGC creators) for support, direction and ideas as they are experts at creating content that demands attention.?

Off the back of the successful first event, Free Folk Agency and Ivy Talent Co are already planning for the future events in Brisbane and Melbourne in 2025.?

Keep up to date with Free Folk Agency @freefolkagency and Ivy Talent Co @ivytalentco for latest event news and announcements.?