Discover the Game-Changer for Your Brand's Growth with Chanelle Garrow

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. And today we're going to Toronto to meet Chanel Garreau, who's going to talk to us about social media and influencers and how your company and your brand can use them. But be careful because it's a bit of a fashion business. There are some mistakes that can be made. Chanel, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Jim.

Well, thank you for coming on the show because social media influencers and affiliate programs feel a little bit foreign because they feel quite sort of consumer. They feel like a bit more sort of Gen Z, millennial marketing. So I'm delighted to have you come and explain to us how can a brand use influencer marketing and avoid some of the risks that if the influencer somehow falls foul of, you know, cultural or social issues that your brand itself can get involved. So tell us, you're an entrepreneur, you've got SLM Agency, Social Lens Media, in Toronto. Tell us, how does social influencer marketing work?

Yeah, so there's a lot of benefits when it comes to influencer marketing, especially when building up a rapport and trust and awareness with a brand. I think a common mistake that I've seen, and I have I don't want to say fallen victim of, but a lot of brands that have reached out to me and said influencer marketing doesn't work, I always ask them, what has your strategy been? They don't have one. So they'll throw in X amount of money to pay a bunch of influencers without doing any sort of research on who the influencers are, who their audience is, what type of content do they create. They just think that we're just going to throw money into this because we heard that it worked. And that doesn't work. Influencer marketing is a long game. So we're playing the long game with influencer marketing. And the benefits of it is building up that brand awareness and that trust. It's more cost-effective than running ads, but you're also building up an accumulation of user-generated content. So with that, ultimately, when you have that strategy of what is my end goal, if it's conversions, then how are we going to build that trust between influencers and their audience to— I'm throwing this word out a lot, but really it's accurate— is trust between the consumer and that brand. And influencer marketing is a great way to bridge that, that bridge, I guess you can say. So I think going into influencer marketing, it's extremely beneficial, but you need to understand that there is a strategy that goes behind it, and you cannot go into it thinking that Okay, I'm gonna pay this influencer, it's gonna go viral, and I'm gonna get $1 million in conversions, or it's just, it might work that way, but it's very rare.

So crossing the chasm maybe would be a way of looking at it from the sort of distrust to becoming a customer and the influencer is like a trusted guide. Would that be a fair sort of description, trusted guide or almost like a trusted friend? On the internet that helps bring someone to the brand. Is that right, Chanel?

That's right. Like, think of it this way, Jim. If I were to come to you or or you were to tell me, "Hey, Chanel, I have this issue. It's really been bothering me," and I'm like, "Oh, I've actually had this issue too, and I've been using this product. You should really give it a try." It's essentially influencer has influencers have gained a community where They feel as though they're all friends and they very much are. They do communicate with their audience quite frequently. So that opinion is very trusted. And if you're looking for a specific solution to a pain point, then you're going to trust the person that you already feel like you have a connection with and trust with. So that's where that comes into play.

And Chanel, is there a particular audience either by age or by demographic or by gender Uh, or by, um, if you like, cultural group that responds particularly well to influencers?

I can't say that there is any specific age group, ethnicity, uh, cultural, anything like that. It really depends on what the product is and who you're speaking to. So we've worked with brands from tech to food to fashion, and it's just really understanding who you're trying to target.

That's really, really interesting. So as a strategy, it can transcend the market and the product and then the customer group. Take us through, Chanel, the strategy development, because you mentioned at the very beginning it goes wrong if someone, or rather a company, doesn't have a strategy. What would be the key elements in the process that you would take a client through?

So what we would do is we would understand what their goals are and what their product is, who's it helping, what has performed well before. And if they've never ran an influencer marketing program, then we— they would kind of lean on us for that expertise and understanding through competitors or competitor analysis. Okay, what has worked for them? Is this a familiar brand to the product that we're trying to market? And When we're working with influencers, we will audit them. So there are third-party apps and there's third-party websites where I can get or retrieve deep data insights on what is their gender, audience's majority gender, what is their engagement rate, what are their audience's interests. And just having all that information really, really helps for targeting a specific demographic. But not only that, you also want to understand— so with social media, storytelling is very powerful, very, very powerful. The nature of just, hey, look at this product, buy it— it doesn't work. I don't think it ever worked, but that was a strategy back in the day. Now it's more so identifying a pain point and walking through your experience with a specific product or whatever it might be, and then sharing that recommendation. Um, so just again, like, I like being able to find someone who has a good strong presence on camera is very, very important when you're working with conversions.

Wow. Okay. And you mentioned a platform. Um, can you share? I know there's one here in the UK called Analytica, for example, where you can find people that have got, you know, for example, over 10,000 LinkedIn Followers. Um, are some— are there some platforms that people can use to start to scan for influencers then, Chanel?

Yeah, absolutely. So what I like to use is trendhero.io, I believe. Uh, they're great. It's $50 a month. I think it's a Russian platform. I could be wrong. I could— I think it is though. Uh, but you're able to see everything. You're able to see what their average views are, their comments, their engagement rate, how many of their audiences actually authentic? Did they buy followers? What are their audience's interests? And I think it's an amazing platform.

Okay, so you say Trend Hero? Trend Hero. Okay, we'll find that and put that in the show notes. And I know there's one being set up in Singapore as well, specifically in Asia for influencers. And Chanel, when the influencer has, for example, the product. Are there some sort of requirements that the brand puts on that influencer in terms of how they behave, things they may or may not be seen to do? For example, if you want to promote, say, I love dogs, for example, I want to promote something for beagles, but the influencer then is seen later on being unkind to dogs. How do you manage that risk? Because I think there's a lot of worry. I think ever since the, um, uh, Kanye West, you know, debacle where you've got someone who's very embedded with a brand as an influencer and a designer, that's cost, uh, I think Adidas a huge amount of money, right?

Yeah, absolutely. So those situations are very tricky. I've been fortunate enough to not come into that. But if I were to come into that, these are kind of the precautions that I would take. So each influencer needs to be contracted. And within that contract, it states that if anything were to happen on either the influencer or the brand side, based on the content that is being pushed out, then it is either full responsibility of the influencer, or it's a shared responsibility. In the case that there is any sort of monetary loss. I think after that, what I would do is put out a statement, and you can see from other celebrities or brands, if something has happened, they'll put out a statement stating that they are no longer associated with this person, and because they do not stand for what they have done. So those are kind of the precautions that you can take. But if there is any sort of lawsuit, you need to make sure that you're identifying that within the contract. And you're understanding what you're assigning and what you are sending out to the influencers.

Chanel, thank you for that reassurance. What about costs? Because obviously these influencers are making money in China. They were making significant amounts of money if they had like a large Weibo following. I mean, in the millions of dollars a year as an influencer. What could a brand expect to pay? I know that's as long as a piece of string, that question, but there's probably some sort of minimums. Um, that one would need to spend, or are there? What, what sort of rates can people afford to get influencers involved with their campaigns for?

So influencer marketing is, is still the wild, wild west. So to be able to give you a, a number, unfortunately I cannot do that. We have run influencer campaigns that have cost zero, nothing. Uh, we've run campaigns that cost $50,000 a month. So I think it really depends on how much money you can put into it. And both worked, both had amazing feedback. But obviously, if you're putting $50,000 into a campaign, the one that we ran that had that type of budget, they actually completely blew up. They went viral multiple times. I believe they had over 20 million views and decided to branch off. And then with our brands that have zero budget, they just saw an influx with, you know, foot traffic into their physical location. So both worked, you know, uh, we reached our end goal. So there's—

when you say it was, um, at no budget at all, the influencer did it for free? How does that work?

That's correct. So I'm glad you kind of brought this up, and I'm going to tailgate off of what you said previously with, do we kind of direct influencers. Now, for me personally, as an influencer myself, and also an agency owner, when you seeding products, I don't know if you're familiar with seeding products.

Well, in TV, you used to put products, you know, on the set, cups, TVs, whatever, as product placement, we used to call it.

Yeah. So essentially, it's that, but with product seeding, what it is, is You send a beautiful curated package to influencers in the hopes that they post. So if you're not paying an influencer, then I personally recommend, like, I genuinely do hate when brands do this, when they say, hey, we'll give you a free product worth $20. We want X, Y, and Z in terms of content. That is not a beneficial partnership whatsoever. So being able to seed the products, and sending them to the influencers to gain trust with that brand and use it. And then you'll see it in product placements. That's great. And then if you are paying an influencer, and let's say, well, we'll talk about my rate. So my rate for an Instagram post is $500. Now the brand can come to me and they have a complete creative deck, which outlines the type of content they would like to see, the inspiration behind it, any sort of hooks, key messaging, uh, that needs to be incorporated into the content that they're creating.

So you say you're a social influencer in your own right. On your website, which I've got up here now, it says that not being on social media is so lame. So do you think that's true for all brands then, Chanel, that everybody's got to be on social media?

Why not? It's free. Why not?

Okay, so the content is free and the ideas are free. Can we just talk a little bit about, you know, the creative side? What do you think makes a good campaign? You've mentioned about sort of having people talk about a pain point, but, you know, I watch my daughters who are, you know, well, nearly 14 and nearly 16. scroll through and every now and again they're like, oh, you've got to watch this, or, you know, this person's got that. What's the secret sauce, Chanel, um, to making those campaigns— as you mentioned, you had one earlier— that blow up, that go viral?

Mm-hmm. Oh my goodness, this is, this is a hard question because there are so many things that go into a campaign. Truly, what I've seen that has been amazing for campaigns is storytelling. It's not directly going in being like, this product's amazing, I love it, it has all these key benefits and ingredients or whatever it might be, or it'll make your life easier. It's just not genuine. But going in, I can use myself as an example, is I get really bad acne. So that's something that I've kind of based my content around is healing hormonal and cystic acne. So I'll create a video and be like, look at what is going on with my face. I have acne, like it is horrible. I've tried all of this. And this is kind of what I've been incorporating into my routine. I'm not going to talk about all of the ingredients and stuff like that. I'm just— this is strictly coming from my perspective and why I enjoy the product. And every campaign that we've also done has never been one and done. We've gone in and we'll talk about a product and then we'll wait for people to start asking questions like, what's the name of the brand? What do you, or what are the ingredients? Stuff like that. And then that's when you would go and you'd reply to that with another video following up. And that's what's really going to sell the product. So you have something that is for brand awareness and then you have something that is really going to sell the product and convince people that they need this.

Chanel, that's a brilliant insight, which I think for you was sort of a bit matter of fact, but for me, that was really genius there. So that you said it's not one and done. It's not just, you know, here's my whole routine, here's the product, you know, buy below. It's here's the beginning of the story that I've got, and then you wait for a response from the audience.

Exactly.

And then you're responding.

Yeah, yeah.

So really you are having a conversation with the audience through video. And is that on which platform, Chanel, would you say is gonna be most interactive?

I think Instagram and TikTok are my personal favorites. I think YouTube Shorts is also amazing as well. That's kind of an up-and-coming, but if I'm going to be completely honest in what platform that I personally love, it's gonna be TikTok. We have seen amazing, amazing results with TikTok. And I— it's forever going to be a special part of my heart.

Okay, well, that's wonderful. Um, yeah, fascinating, because it's just a very, very different world, for example, to where the B2Bs live on LinkedIn. Everyone's got their own little space, or big space, uh, in, in their cases. Okay, now Chanel, you've managed to build a space yourself. You come from university, you then share with me that you worked at MTV, and then you worked in an agency, and now you've built your own. As an entrepreneur, how have you been getting your own agency noticed? Social Lens Media.

Hmm. Uh, when I first started, everything was through word of mouth. Everything was networking. I was just putting myself out there and trying to— I'm in Toronto, so Toronto, it's a big city, but it's a big small city, so everyone's really connected. So just being out at one event and talking about it once will lead, kind of like lead you down this path into meeting other people and other events. So that was my strategy in the beginning. Now it's a little bit different. I still network, but then I'll go on podcasts, I will write blogs, I'll be featured on blogs, and I'll start traveling. So I've been going to Miami and LA and just networking out there. We're all kind of connected in the media, like the big city media hubs.

Oh, that's fantastic. And what about client engagement? So that's sort of the beginning of getting, you know, awareness about the brand. Anything that you're doing for clients as well to sort of bring them together and talk about what you do that's kind of in person?

Yeah, so we host annual events as well. So we'll host these big extravagant events and we'll invite all of our clients. All of our influencers, just so it's an opportunity for me. Obviously, I would love people's business. I mean, we're an agency, but I find that there's something about being able to bring influencers together with brands with no ultimatum whatsoever. It's just, you know, if these influencers want to work with you directly, love that. And people appreciate those communities that we're building. And then another thing, which I don't even know how I forgot about this, is social media. I mean, that's the premise of what we do. We help build social media for other brands, but we've also seen amazing brand awareness and built up an amazing community through social media as well.

Chanel, that's fantastic. And is there one thing that you'd like to say for, you know, an aspiring entrepreneur that's unnoticed about, you know, social media marketing and influencer marketing that you'd say really moves, moves the needle from a brand building and communications point of view?

So for— sorry, an entrepreneur?

Yeah, so for a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur that's thinking about influencer marketing.

Oh, sorry.

Sorry, no, unclear question. For the unnoticed entrepreneurs thinking about influencer marketing, what would be the, the one piece of advice that you'd like to leave them with?

Oh, one piece of advice I think is really understanding who your target audience is and researching them, understanding what their pain points are, and is your product a solution for these pain points? And then going into influencer marketing, I think before you even do that, which is why we opened up another portion of our agency, which is creative digital marketing and social media marketing, is making sure that you have an online presence. So if you're running influencer marketing campaigns and you have all these eyes on your website and your website's not up to par, or you don't have a social media account, a lot of people between the ages of, I think it was like, it was like Gen Z, Gen X, please don't quote me on this, but they're going to social media before they're going to Google to research you. So if you do not have that presence, then you're wasting money and time and effort on a campaign that kind of just stopped dead in its tracks. So really establishing yourself online, understanding who your target audience is, and if you're your product is a solution for it. And then going into influencer marketing and making sure that they possess the audience that you are trying to target.

Chanel Garo, I think if I was going to do this, I'd just come to you for some advice and have you help me do it all. If other people want to come to you and, you know, learn more about what you do, how can they find you?

So we're on every social media, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, you name it. It's just Social Lens. So L-E-N-S. Media, uh, and then you can also find us on our website, which is www.sociallensmedia.com.

Chanel Guerra joining me from Toronto in Canada. Thank you so much for sharing, and really what for me is a whole new area of getting noticed. Thank you for sharing today.

Absolutely, thank you so much.

Well, interesting, isn't it? It's a whole new category of marketing, a whole new world. And, uh, thank you to Chanel for sharing, and of course we'll leave her contact details in the show notes. And if you've enjoyed this, please do share it with a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur. And until we meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating. And once again, thank you for listening.