Influencer Marketing

?

The?first few weeks?of?running a?startup?are incredibly?stressful and?difficult.?Firstly, you are probably picking up 10 new skills and juggling 25 new tasks?at any given time.?Secondly, you have no supporters, no fans and no credibility, only large amounts of doubt. Establishing yourself on any of these metrics is difficult. Your first 100 followers are the easiest:?friends, family, cousins and cousins of friends.?But this population set is?rapidly?exhausted?and your growth stagnates, what?do you do???

?

What we did was?try to?identify?areas where we could add value?to larger organisations or parties within our industry.?By chance,?we stumbled across a community on?Instagram?called the?bookstagram?community. This was a very?tight-knit?group?with a?singular shared?obsession, books.?I immediately noticed a very?powerful?positive-sum?game. Our goal was to get Diglot books in front of as many people as possible. The?bookstagram?influencers?goal was to spread their love of literature and books with their followers?through creative and engaging content. We filled these roles for?each other?and?both?parties benefited from the interaction. Finding this?positive-sum?game within our industry gave us a very cheap solution to increasing our brand awareness.?It gave us the foot in the door we needed at a time where we had no money, no time and a barely functioning MVP. These influencers had between 10-50k?followers?and we could access their entire following for under 5 euro.??

?

I believe a key to?propelling?growth early on is finding these highly non-linear?positive-sum?games.?The great news?is that?positive-sum?games are?very?common. People collaborating with other people often produces results that are very beneficial for both parties.?The more positive the sum the more nonlinear the collaboration can be and the larger the status difference between the two interacting parties.?This is how we were able to produce such a nonlinear benefit to cost ratio. We were providing these influencers with unique and interesting content that we knew would resonate with their followers.?Win-Win.?Influencer marketing has been instrumental in our ability to scale and grow?our initial?following.?When you have no reputation, no following and no money, it is your job to?find where you can provide value to bigger parties in the?form of?positive-sum?games.?