Social Sessions #007: Collective Influence
The original Fashion Indie, Beca Alexander’s behind the scenes work has set her up as one of the leading voices in media marketing. Her agency, the Socialtye Collective, matches brands with influential talent across social channels, and in the process has upended an industry. In our latest Social Session, we chatted with Beca about her approach to marketing, managing large brands with a creative execution, and the challenges involved in bringing new ideas to the established status quo.
Idealogue x Beca Alexander
Most of our repeat clients are asking for new talent, they want to be the first to discover the next ‘cool’ girl or guy. We’re constantly searching for the next up and comer, so we can present them to our clients.
Our team currently has 3 people scraping the internet for Instagrammers with potential to become big. Once we find them, we connect to them and work as guides in order to take them to the next level. Success in leading the influencer business is all about discovery as there’s now a major fatigue from brands who don’t want to work with top talent or the same talent that has been ‘popular’ for the past few years.
I’ve been in social media for almost 10 years, starting out as a ‘blogger’ and then learned digital marketing and eventually how to use content creators to feature product via their social platforms. Socialyte is about 5 years old. Back then, brands didn’t know what the term ‘blogger’ meant and what to do with them. Over the years, we taught brands about the power of the social influencer and how to utilize their authenticity to promote products to a large audience. The first campaign I negotiated was for $2000 and we had to cast 10 influencers, which was $200 per talent minus our agency fee. We now control millions of dollars that are allocated to the space annually.
LBP: Did people follow your vision right away?
It was quite hard at first. We saw how personalities on social media actually were controlling spending habits and influencing purchase behavior, hence the name, influencer, but no one understood that at the time. There was little to no proof and no analytical data to get brands to believe, so we started the company in our apartment and fought for every client. It starts with a single person, coaching them, building relationships, discovering new talent one by one and then building the network and proving to brands that our method works. It’s taken time, but here were are now: over 20 employees, 75 signed talents, and over 5,000 digital influencers in our network that we can connect to brands and help them reach their goals.
There’s many brands who now understand influencer marketing, who have been testing the space since the very beginning, and there are still many that have yet to work with influencers. On a normal day, we receive daily inquiries from brands looking to ‘wet their feet’ in the space and we help guide and educate them on the process. The challenge mostly comes from those who are still very traditionally minded, those that can’t comprehend the idea that a ‘blogger’ can command $20K for 1 Instagram post. It’s a valid concern, this is a lot of money we’re talking about, but with a large audience and one that is uniquely positioned to reach the people that you want your product in front of, it’s a strategic risk. We constantly have to explain that ‘why and how’ and then some brands get it and some are still too hesitant. The industry is more mature, but we still haven’t seen it reach its full potential.
Socialyte is a team of around 20, and we consider ourselves a family. Our CEO, Daniel, is the only male. The gang is split in teams, or what we call Pods, each has three team members, a talent manager, a casting director, and a campaign manager who executes the programs. All the girls are friends; they go to lunch, hang on weekends, and know everything about each other’s personal lives. Daniel, Misty (the Vice President) and myself pride ourselves in creating a culture that cultivates talent. We like to let them have freedom all while being trusted to ‘get their shit done.’ We’re lucky to have each of them as part of our family. The whole team works incredibly hard.
LBP: Who do you see normally using Socialyte to help grow their business?
While most of our clients are fashion and beauty, the lifestyle category has really grown for us, specifically, spirits, travel, electronics, and automotive. Our favorite campaigns to work on are travel related, in part because they’re so visual and so easy to get talent to want to work. We’ve worked with resorts, hotel chains, destinations and tourism boards. The talent are always excited to experience a new location and their content always shows their enthusiasm – that’s something you can’t manufacture.
Automotive and spirits are two other very interesting fields we’ve been working in lately. Most alcohol brands host live events or experiential type programs, and our talents love ‘real world’ activations, so there’s been a lot of natural, organic experimentation there, and while we haven’t quite been able to link automotive promotions to an increase in dealership sales yet, we’ve been partnering with automotive brands to promote their latest vehicle launches, and have been tracking visibility to ensure that there are many conversations happening online about them. Did you know that if someone is going to be promoting alcoholic spirits here in the States, they must be 25, even when the legal drinking age is 21? When we work with new industries, learning the rules and regulations is a big part of the job.
LBP: How do you, the brands, and your talent balance control of the creative?
Many brands come to us knowing exactly what they want and just need us to ‘cast’ the talent, and many come to us for full creative direction. In either instance, we still have to guide the brand on what is and isn’t possible. Our influencers are not robots, they will never just copy and paste a brand’s message and promote to their audience, no matter how much we pay them, therefore, there’s always a push and pull with brands. If the brand wants a specific talent, they must take that talent’s creative direction into account, as that person knows their audience best and will always try to create content that is seemingly organic —authenticity is so important to what we do.
Recently, I have noticed that the content is more controlled now than it used to be, primarily because of the amounts of money being spent on these campaigns. When brands are spending more and more money, their guidelines for content creation become stricter and it’s something we manage alongside them. For example, I just confirmed a watch campaign where one of the guidelines was that the watch needed to be in the center of the image and that it must be at least ⅛ of the entire photo. A few years ago, it would have just about making sure the watch is clearly visible. It’s always a balance, and we’re good at managing expectations on both sides.
LBP: Has it been difficult to coordinate the business-side of social media with your personal brand?
With me, what you see is what you get. I’ve been known as a ‘Fairy Blogmother’ for years and I try to maintain that reputation. I hang out with the kiddies and share both my personal and my professional persona with them, which also shows on my channels. My ‘brand’ has evolved over the years, I used to be known for my crazy fashion choices and now I like to think I’m more respected as a businesswoman.
I do as much upkeep on my personal accounts as I possibly can, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to ‘preach it’ if I wasn’t following my own advice. But, I’m not necessarily looking to grow my channels, which is what I spend most of my time doing for others. The strategy is quite different as I’ve never wanted to be a public figure, it just sort of happened.
To be fully honest, I wish I was better at maintaining a presence personally. I mostly use my Instagram. My current favorite social obsession is Instagram Stories, as I never got on the Snapchat bandwagon. I used to have more time to update Facebook and Twitter, but now my Instagram takes precedent. It’s mostly photos of my daily outfits, my dog and the food I eat. Typical, right?
LBP: Where did it all start for you?
I went to school for fine art and then again for fashion design. I’ve always been drawn to beautiful things. After a quick stint at Saks Fifth Avenue as a window designer and then a personal stylist, I moved to NYC to pursue a career in the fashion industry. Quickly realizing that I’m more interested in the ‘behind the scenes’ work, I enrolled into the business program at Parson’s. While there, I met my current business partner, Daniel Saynt, who taught me everything I know about social media and digital marketing. Socialyte is our second company together.
When I was 22 years old, my roommate introduced me to Facebook. She made me sign up and create an account. She also taught me how to use an Apple computer, convincing me that all the ‘cool’ kids used them. I was clearly very late to the game on both accounts, but I like to think I made up for lost time.
LBP: How do you get your inspiration?
I’m inspired in various ways from multiple sources: from Instagram accounts that I follow with incredible style, to music that I discover via my friends, to artists I see in museums. I try to notice the world around me and absorb as much as I can from it, finding inspiration in the daily hustle.
I’m constantly discovering creative minds through social media, those talents who create things and share them to the world via their digital profiles. Marc Jacobs and Miuccia Prada are my icons. If I could wear only one brand for the rest of my life, it would be impossible to choose between them. I have a dear friend, Nicole Cohen, I met her a few years ago when I first started Socialyte, she’s not only an interior decorator, artist, and photographer, she’s also a mother to three adorable children. One of her paintings is hanging in my apartment and she’s one of the most creative people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I recently read an interview with Elon Musk, he’s a creative genius and visionary!
There are almost too many to list – Adam Gallagher of I Am Galla is someone I look to for travel inspiration, Marianna Hewitt for beauty, Margaret Zhang for her style, Sandra Hagelstam of 5 Inch and Up for her photography and gorgeous hair, Brittany Xavier for everyday style, Krystal Bick and Angela Fink for new designer discovery. I love being surrounded by talented individuals who all have influence in their own way in their own field, and my work allows me to do that every day.
LBP: What do you think is needed to take Socialyte into the next 10 years?
We’re currently working on additional technology that will help us track even more talents, be able to identify those who are growing sooner, be able to see their engagement levels, know which brands they’re talking about naturally, and create more robust reporting for our clients. Analytical data has become very important to brands and we’re constantly evolving in order to better gather this data. We hope that this will ensure that brands spend more and more money on the space as the return will be easier to track for those who are making budget decisions. We’ve always known there’s a big value in word-of-mouth and sharing posts, but so many times it comes down to the return on investment. To get to the next level, we’ll be focusing on that 2nd piece more than we ever have had to before.
My current motto is to live life one day at a time and not to overreact to situations or people that I can’t control. It may sound simple to connect a brand with someone we’re working with on social media, but running a company is not easy. Every day there are all kinds of emergencies and moving parts. My biggest advice for everyone, professionally and personally is to take each day as it comes and deal with one problem at a time.
Want more from Beca? Follow her on Instagram. Discover influential storytellers and get more on her company, the Socialyte Collective, on Instagram, or at their website, socialyte.co. Hear from Beca first hand at Idealogue: The Social Media Sessions, happening October 21-22 at Canal Studios in NYC. Tickets are available through Eventbrite, and at our website, idealogue.luxbp.com.
