Dubai
With social media influencers cropping up all over the digital space, finding the right one to match your brand’s needs can get quite tricky. More so if you want to kick-start the campaign and get it into virtual space in double quick time.
For these brands, checking up on Niche would be a good place to start. The Twitter-owned platform is turning out to be the go-to place for influencers and brands wanting to connect. (It was in 2015 that Twitter acquired the platform.) “We advise on the whole creative process — It depends on where the brand is at in their planning,” said Luke Townsin, who heads Niche’s Europe, Middle East and Africa operations at Twitter. “Sometimes they come to us with a strategy and we apply our own lens onto it, or they ask us to come with something from scratch.
“(The) platform selection depends on the brand’s priorities, but also the strength that a particular creator has on a channel.
“Where there is a mix of platforms, we offer our advice on how a creator’s narrative and subsequent brand message would best be disseminated. For example, if it is a live event activation we might suggest starting on Periscope, and then migrating to something like Snap or IG (Instagram) stories.”
But Niche would rather ditch the overused “influencer” moniker and call those on their platform as “creators”.
“Niche is not a talent agency — we don’t manage talent into TV or book deals,” said Townsin. “We work with multiple creators who have large or smaller followings on social platforms.
“All of them have gained audiences through the engaging and entertaining content they create, as opposed to who they were before (for example, a celebrity). Their suitability for brand work is ascertained by reviewing the content they create, the engagement they receive and also speaking to them about their needs — the kind of work they want to do with brands.”
In one such campaign where Niche was the via media, Nespresso roped in five “creators” from the region — Abdulaziz Bakr, Fatima Almomen, Anas Bukhash, Rawan and Sherif Fayed. They then created content “whilst sharing a cup of Nespresso with their followers”. The campaign, which ran during this year’s Ramadan under the “#ShareACup” banner, took around three weeks from sign-off to completion. The subsequent campaigns then ran on Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.
“All work via Niche is custom-created,” said Townsin. “A brand reviews the work a creator does or has done, and then provides a brief for them to respond to, once they have approved a creator for a programme.
“High profile creators have been working with local specialised content agencies for a while. Given this is a well-connected audience, they tend to be aware of what’s happening in their field and how to showcase their work.
“This is exactly why a certain number of creators in the region have been on Niche for a while. The platform provides a capability to creators’ to exhibit their work directly to brands and additionally provides them access to analytics they cannot find anywhere else.”
Niche aims to be right in the thick of the creator-brand dialogue
“Many brands have worked with creators directly,” he said. “Niche really comes into play when managing multi-faceted, multi-creator, high production related campaigns. Our relationships with creators is what makes us best placed to deliver on campaigns that require a great deal of complexity. Our experience of working with creators means we have a streamlined workflow process which would otherwise be cumbersome to a brand.
“From a content creator’s perspective, having a group of people at their disposal to brainstorm ideas and co-create content
